SEOUL — Suk Man-kil, 85, has been praying every morning for the last 50 years to meet the wife and children he left behind in communist North Korea when the Korean War broke out half a century ago.
He has been cut off from his wife, two sons and three daughters since the 1950-53 Korean war ended in an armed truce.
Hopeful his prayers had finally been answered, Suk left for Pyongyang on Thursday afternoon for a three-day trip, carrying a box of peach juice prepared by his South Korean wife for his North Korean family.
"It's like a dream come true," Suk said.
He was among the 200 elderly people from North and South Korea expected to be reunited with long-lost relatives this week in Seoul and Pyongyang, capitals of the two countries.
The reunions follow a first round of such meetings in August, which were agreed during June's historic summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Since the watershed June summit, North and South Korean officials have held a series of meetings to foster social and economic exchanges—themes at the forefront of President Kim Dae-jung's two-year-old 'sunshine policy' toward the North.
A South Korean plane carrying 151 South Koreans, including 20 journalists, arrived at Sunan Airport in the North at 0450 GMT on Thursday, about three and a half hours later than scheduled because of thick fog.
The same plane picked up 136 North Koreans and arrived in Seoul at about 0810 GMT.
Pak Chan Suu, 66, a guide at the War Museum in Pyongyang, appeared to act as spokesman for the group.
"A HAPPY LIFE..."
Saying he came to meet his younger brother, Pak said he had been "living a happy life" in North Korea, where up to two million people may have died over the past five years from malnutrition and related diseases.
Pak said he planned to tell his brother "that we should contribute to our fatherhood's reunification and we should pray for unification until we meet again."
It was the exact response heard from the visiting North Koreans who chose to speak during the first round of family reunions in Seoul and Pyongyang in August.
Pong Du-wan, vice president of the (South) Korean Red Cross, hoped that the millions of Koreans who count relatives on the other side of the world's most fortified border would some day find each other.
"I have a dream that all separated families would see each other some day," said Pong, who left Pyongyang in 1946 at the age of 12 along with many members of his large family.
"We walked across the border. There were Russian soldiers. The group in front of me was caught," Pong recalled.
The reunions are an emotive issue in this country because an estimated 10 million South Koreans have families in the North, on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone, a rugged four km (2.5 mile) wide strip that separates the two Koreas.
North and South Korea remain technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed truce, not a peace accord.
Ma Kyung-suk, 79, had left the North in the late 1940s to study at a university in the South.
He said he located his sister 12 years ago through a Korean living in Canada, who learned that she was in Pyongyang.
"One lady visited Pyongyang and met my sister," said Ma. "She said she would like to see me before she dies. She said she eats one more spoon of rice every day in order to see me," he said.