4 Days In
North Korea
2015
My friend and I managed to spend 4 days in controversial North Korea. It was as weird as it sounds.
Pyongyang is the showcase capital where most of the resources are concentrated. You’ll see a lot of beautiful places but do not get yourself fooled by these. North Korea has massive shield in front of everything and they do not show you anything from not so good side.
Still in China. Our room at Dandong had a view to North Korea
Got visa and departure card. Of course we did not understand much from it
170km train ride took 6 hours due super slow customs procedures
- first you go through the NK customs and they take your passport
- then you put your stuff to the train and go outside to wait for your passport
- after long wait customs people arrive and let you on the train and give back your passport
- you ride 1km over river
- they come in again and take your passport
- go through your bags and write down model of the phone you have
- again we waited 1,5 hours before train managed to leave that station
Whole ride from border to Pyongyang you see fields as far as eye can reach. Yes its agricultural country but something still seemed wrong. After a while we noticed that there are no machines. We saw like 3 cars and 2 old tractors during the ride. Millions of people are working on the fields only with hoes.
Arrived to Pyongyang and got room with a view
but at night… nights are dark here
First dinner at hotel, some decent beer and our friendly companions from the train. We did not understand them, they did not understand us but we had good time drinking beer and making selfies ☺
First night after arriving to hotel.
guide: “what are your plans for today?”
we: “no plans. we can have plans?”
guide: “if you want to go out then please call me and I’ll accompany you”
we: “cool, lets go out today…”
guide hesitantly: “what would you do at the city at the evening? there is nothing to do…”
then we understood that we actually cannot go out ☹
and of course we were checked at evenings over the phone that we are in our room
Korean Demilitarized Zone — where North Korea meets South Korea
Place where United Nations and North Korea agreed on the border
One place where we saw something from the time before Kim-s. Sad that current government is idolised over Kim-s family and these beautiful artefacts from the past do not have more prominent place
Peasant and party clothes
Whoop! Korean food
Worlds deepest subway
asked from our guide: “why is subway so deep? some geological reason?” guide: “because there are big buildings on top of it…”
(of course not because its also a bomb shelter)
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-story pyramid-shaped skyscraper under construction (Construction began in 1987) in Pyongyang. + one also ridiculous drink
Our hotel had 3 restaurants — European, Korean and Revolving restaurant. All of them had same food.
At one point our guide asks: “how did you like Korean dishes?”
we: “??? there wasn’t any. It was same food as other restaurants”
guide: “ow all restaurants are in the same hotel so the food could not be too different also” o.O
Went for a run. Found out that we can run only couple of hundred meters in any direction — then there was a fences and guards blocking you. Our hotel started to feel a lot like a nice prison
Pyongyang War Museum (what presents heavily distorted history)
our guide says: “seeing is believing”
ehm not so sure about that…
170m tall Juche Tower was built for the celebration of Kim Il-sung’s 70th birthday. Of course Kim Jong-il is credited as its designer.
We were presented most talented children writing, doing embroidery, playing Kayagum (awesome sounding instrument) and taekwondo
and performance by Pyongyang school children
The new Amusement Park in Pyongyang. We had to take stamp when checking out from there :D
Grand People’s Study House — Pyongyang new library — Have to say that priorities are phuked up there as well — massive entrance, really expensive floors, 10m tall leaders statue in front of huge mosaic wall what was decorated with small stones… but books are 20 years old ☹
You can see difference between North Korea and China at the border
ohh it was a good feeling to leave that country
Some more thoughts
- Pyongyang is like real world SimCity
- KimJongilia — They have flowers named from their leaders
- All cars belong to the government
- Had a feeling that you get a medal for jumping under the car — Traffic is horrible — Drivers nor pedestrians do not know how to share the road.
