Koreas' rhetoric no match for surreal calm at DMZ

IMJINNGAK (AP) - Busloads of tourists still show up to gawk at the world's most heavily fortified border, even as governments on both sides threaten to reduce each other to rubble.

Chinese tourists browse through military garb - child-sized - in the gift shop. Japanese teens in maroon school blazers flash peace signs and giggle high above a landscape of bright-blue water, drab, brown North Korean hills and seemingly deserted villages.

The Koreas' border can seem a surreal place at the best of times - part tourist trap, part war zone.

An amusement park, fast-food joints and kitschy souvenir shops mix with an ever-present Cold War tension that is higher now than it has been in years, following North Korean outrage over UN sanctions and joint US-South Korean military drills.