Korean cafe near North-South border where views, art in a bunker inspire hopes of peace
Reclining on sofas at a South Korean cafe, customers sip iced Americanos as they gaze past barbed wire fences and watchtowers at the mountains of North Korea.
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Daonsoop cafe is so close to the North Korean border that to obtain the building permit, its owners had to build it with a bunker and fortified positions for tanks.
Founder Lee Oh-sook and her husband, both the children of North Korean refugees, built the cafe less than 2km (about a mile) from the border in Paju, seeking proximity to their ancestral homeland.
'From here, you can see North Korea, so close but inaccessible … Our parents always hoped to return to their homeland, but they died before realising this dream,' 63-year-old Lee says.
Lee Oh-sook at her cafe near the North Korean border. She and her husband, who are both children of North Korean refugees, built the cafe to be close to their ancestral homeland. Photo: AFP
'We chose to settle here to think of them more often.'
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