Starbucks serves South Koreans coffee and glimpse into the North

GIMPO — The world's last Cold War frontier now has a Starbucks cafe in South Korea where customers can get a glimpse through the heavily militarised border into the North, all while sipping a latte.

Hundreds showed up on Friday (Nov 29) for the opening of the US coffeehouse chain's newest store in an observatory near the city of Gimpo, around 50 km northwest of Seoul and close to the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

The DMZ has become an unlikely draw for foreign and local tourists, despite a spike in tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent years.

Visitors must pass through a military checkpoint on the way to the Starbucks outlet, although it is in a lesser known and less militarised area than more popular tourist spots along the border such as the Panmunjom truce village.

A river designated as "neutral waters" runs between the observatory and the border town of Kaepung in the North just 1.4 km away.

On a clear day, North Korean villagers can be seen from the observatory through its telescopes.

The two Koreas are still technically at war after a three-year conflict ended in a 1953 armistice. A peace treaty has never been signed.

In recent months, tensions have also grown over balloons of trash floated from North Korea, which Pyongyang says are a response to balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets sent by activists in the South.

North Korea blew up inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the border last month, while Seoul warned Pyongyang that any use of its nuclear weapons would spell the end of the North Korean regime.

Baek Hea-soon, a 48-year-old Gimpo resident, arrived early on Friday to try out the new Starbucks outlet.

"I wish I could share this tasty coffee with the people in North Korea,"