The house is only a few kilometres away from the border.
Kim Jong Il was six years old when his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, took ownership of the house known as "The Castle" near scenic Hwajinpo Beach. When the Korean War ended in 1953, the border between the Koreas was redrawn, and the villa wound up in the South.
Today, the villa is a tourist site, and South Korea is planning to expand tourism on its side of the border. The South Korean government has encouraged tour operators to dream up projects such as ecological parks showing off the rare wildlife flourishing in the demilitarized zone, a four-kilometre-wide buffer between the Koreas. A sprawling US$34 million Korean War museum just north of Kim's former villa is scheduled to open in March. Elsewhere, tourists can peer at North Korea through telescopes.
South Korea's attempts at tourism may become the only chance to glimpse the secretive neighbour to the North. On Dec. 1, North Korea suspended the only remaining tours to its country, visits to the historic city of Kaesong. Earlier this year, tours to the North's scenic Diamond Mountain were suspended after a North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean woman visiting the resort.
Tensions between the Koreas are at a high since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's election in February and a pledge to get tough on the North. The demilitarized zone is studded with land mines and surrounded by barbed wire and the Koreas remain technically at war.
Some 800 tourists visit the former Kim home every day. Reopened after a refurbishing three years ago, the villa displays photos of Kim Il Sung and documents chronicling his life and modern Korean history.
Not all the tourists are peaceful. Visitors scratched out Kim Jong Il's face from a childhood photo and activists threatened to blow up the building to protest his bid to build nuclear bombs.
"I can't understand why we should retain this villa," said Jo Dong-hui, an 80-year-old Korean War veteran from the town of Gimpo, west of Seoul. "I'm seeing many old pictures of Kim Il Sung and that reminds me of the Korean War. I barely escaped death many times back then."
Museum officials say their aim is not to glorify Kim Il Sung but to educate tourists about Korea's complicated modern history.
