North Korea: the land frozen in time — part 3
Day 4— Sep 10, 2013
Day 4 featured a trip to the DMZ. Some of you who have gone to South Korea might of course have been there from the other side.
After about an hour or two we stopped at a roadside rest stop. They had mainly fruit and tea as well as some souvenirs.
If you bought an apple the attendant would peel it on the spot for you.
The road was pretty desolate except for a couple military vehicles passing by.
There were a few North Korean-English handbooks being sold — as you can see the phrases were very interesting and “modest” 😏
I bought a couple as souvenirs. Kinda regret giving them away now.
Yoshi decided to buy a shirt. XXXL seemed to fit him fine so if you buy clothes there you prolly should knock off a few Xs when deciding what size to buy.
We made a stop to visit the tomb of King Kongmin of the Koryo Dynasty. When I was walking up I could hear a Despicable Me minion voice giggling “boobies!” for some reason.
There were some locals visiting as well.
This is Kim telling us the legend of the tombs.
She told us that King Kungmin had hired the best geomancer in the land to recommend a suitable site for his final resting place.
The King secretly told his advisors to watch for a hidden signal — if the King did not approve of the site, he would wave his handkerchief upon which his advisors were to execute the geomancer.
After reaching the top of the hill to visit the chosen site, the King was hot and sweaty, pulling out his hanky to wipe the perspiration off his forehead.
He thought the site was perfect, though, and turned around and descended the hill to congratulate the geomancer.
But the poor dude had been executed when the King pulled out his hanky earlier.
I know fhl right.
We finally arrived at the DMZ. There was a souvenir shop before the DMZ proper where some of us bought military-themed hats.
Have you heard of the Korean squat?
This stance is ubiquitous in the DPRK. You see just about everyone doing it when they need to stay in a spot for a while, from soldiers to kids.
According to Kum once you get it right you can squat like this almost indefinitely. I was tired after about 5 minutes though.
Interestingly when I was in (formerly Communist) Hanoi I noticed that locals there would squat on tiny stools just about everywhere too. I wonder if there is a cultural relation.
An officer gave us a rough briefing before we headed in. Basically at the center of the DMZ is a neutral zone which has buildings own by both the DPRK and South Korea. He also pointed out where peace treaties had been signed.
This is just a picture of barbed wire but I felt like a spy taking this because we were told not to take pictures. I don’t really see why though — it was just barbed wire and grassland.
We were brought to see the places where the armistice agreements had been signed.
It was just a bare hall for the most part, but I did feel a sense of “peace” in this room.
This wall was built in remembrance of Kim Jong-Il.
It measures 19.94 meters long for his date of death and is 4.15m tall to commemorate his birthday.
This is the “Conference Row”, a neutral ground where talks were held leading up to the armistice.
@davienne was quick enough to score a pic here with the official who was escorting us. Once she did that though everyone crowded him to do the same and after a couple more pics he didn’t want to do any more :(
On the way to lunch @davienne tried to explain what ChurpChurp does to Kum. How she managed this for someone who didn’t really understand the Internet or capitalism I’ll never know but she did it la.
We arrived at the city of Kaesong for lunch. Can you say “banchan attack”?
It was definitely one of the better meals we had during our time there.
They even had condiments. Hurrah!!
I tried a soup made from a domesticated animal I wont name so you guys wont judge me. In my defense I only had a few spoonfuls in the end — it was really rich and spicy.
The roads here were noticeably less well maintained. The traffic people were also less attractive 😬
After lunch we stopped at Sariwon City to walk in the park and enjoy the view.
I thought that the building would turn out to be a palace, but it’s actually a popular teahouse.
At the next rest stop some of the angmohs decided to give the “korean stance” a go.
And meanwhile Kim decided to give the hoola hoop a go.
This is Zhen from Australia. People take their moms to China or Hong Kong for holidays but not Zhen. He brought her to the DPRK instead wtf. Love his tache!
It was a long ride back to Pyongyang and most of us fell asleep on the way back. We had to make an obligatory stop at another monument though (I’d long lost track of their names) and Marawa decided to give us another hoola hoop show.
We were treated to a barbeque dinner. The waitresses came in and performed a few songs on the accordion and pulled in some people to dance.
We were then taken to the Diplomat Club. Some of the tour group were disappointed as they had dressed up for a nightclub but this was actually a hangout spot for diplomats. It had a pool room, a bar and a game room.
We didn’t stay there long and soon headed back to the hotel.
Everyone was feeling a bit down because tomorrow was the last day of the tour. Some of the tour group were taking the train out instead of flying so there wasn’t much time left.
I had been bugging Kum the whole trip asking him if he had a girlfriend but he hadn’t been giving very definite answers.
He had been on his phone a lot after dinner though and we took the chance to teach him pro emoticons to impress the girl he was going after. He knew the basic :) so we taught him ❤ and =={@.
He sent this to her but she didn’t understand, even when he told her to turn the phone sideways. So he suavely said “I’ll explain to you tomorrow”.
We gave him Churpie as a farewell present.
It was late but everyone wanted to hang out. We went downstairs where there was a small bowling alley and played some games. Then we hung around and played drinking games.
Yoshi was very bad at math for a Japanese any drinking game that i involved counting he confirm fail in the early rounds.
We hung out for quite a while until we finally called it a night.
Day 5— Sep 11, 2013
Rise and shine! We had our last breakfast at the hotel and gathered to say goodbye to the people who were taking the train out of North Korea.
Yoshi was going off by train so we said goodbye and gave him our Churpie bag.
We bumped into a delegation fro South Korea who were taking part in a taekwando tournament. What a coincidence.
We made a stop at a souvenir shop where they sold coveted hand-painted propaganda posters. They have a very distinct style.
I bought a couple and asked Kum to help translate the slogans for me for posterity.
One of the paintings now hangs in my office, forever reminding my colleagues to work hard for the glory of the Netccentric Group ✊✊
There was some time left before the flight so they took us for a visit to their maternity hospital. We had to swap out our shoes for crocs so we would make too much noise walking around.
They gave us white uniforms to wear. I realize now I’d have looked pretty good as Dr. Teoh.
They started showing us around the hospital. They were very proud of its facilities. I didn’t quite like the idea of taking pics of newborns though so I didn’t bother.
Here they demonstrated one of their innovations. In booths like these you can call a doctor or nurse and consult them without them having to come to you. Well teleconferencing lah basically.
The dude on the right is Lee, the third of our local guides. Haven’t mentioned him so far because I don’t seem to have any pics of him. We talked to him the least because he seemed to have taken the most Kool-Aid among all our guides and was quite the ol’ stick in the mud. He’d actually had the privilege of spending some time in Cambodia for work but said that North Korea is much more developed and organized.
Anyway here he is telling us how this staircase had been originally made from wood, but Kim Jong-Un had personally ordered the material changed to blue jade to represent a waterfall.
This chandelier was hanging from the department that dealt with breast cancer. Apparently it’s actually supposed to symbolize boobs! 😏
This is an LCD tv in one of the private wards. The red sticker there is seen in a few objects throughout the hospital to mark items or places that a Great Leader has personally interacted with — you know, like how some Bibles mark the words of Jesus in red.
In this case Kim Jong Un had personally ordered this TV to be installed so patients “wouldn’t get bored”. Good man!
We visited a large meeting room and I saw this odd selection of books on the bookshelf. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that some overzealous decorator decided to throw random books there. Either that or the docs here are very interested in SAT II Bio for some reason 😐
As we left the hospital a van carrying aid had just arrived and was dropping off goods.
Was glad to see that my contributions to UNICEF are not going to waste 😊
We squeezed in one last stop at a museum. Honestly I forget what this map is of — I find that I typed “DPRK claims to get 60% of its power from hydro sources” in my notes though so I think this is a map of their power grid.
I do recall that the squares marked with a red star are simply places where a Great Leader had visited. They are pretty meticulous about stuff like that.
The highest floor of the museum showed off DPRK’s space history. I remember this because they shut off all the lights to show us an info reel and when it came back on everyone had fallen asleep.
That was my last picture in the DPRK so this is pretty much the end of the series.
One last thing — yes I did ask Kum if he knew what “Gangnam Style” was (he denied it). Pretty funny then but that turned into horror and guilt when I read a few months later that DPRK sends people to prison camps for possessing bootleg South Korean dramas 😔
If I were to put my experiences on this trip in a nutshell it would be that:
1) North Koreans are pretty normal. Most are friendly and pleased to meet new people. I felt that they really do hunger for contact from the outside world.
2) Their leaders are Evil with a capital E, but did a brilliant job with establishing their cult of personality.
I asked Lee if he knew whether Kim Jong-Un was married, or where he had studied, how old he was, where he lived — Lee said “no” to all these questions
And yet Lee said that “meeting him would be the greatest honour in my life”. It seemed a whole lot like how religion works actually.
Definitely make the trip though if you are interested. I get a lot of snark about how I “only saw what they wanted you to see”, but that’s not really the point. The trip wasn’t to make a statement.
The opening up of tourism in the DPRK can only be a good thing — it’s the first step in overcoming their isolationism.
YPT does offer Returners Tours for people who have made the Pyongyang visit, and want to experience rural life instead. Don’t expect hot (or even drinking) water on that tour though 😝
