North Korea Trip Report 2016

Let’s get some potpourri topics out of the way before diving into my trip to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or more commonly known as North Korea. I often feel the need to justify my travel to North Korea when I tell anybody that I went. One concern I get from people is the safety of travel, as people often think of the case of Otto Warmbier. I have to say, experiencing the country firsthand, there is absolutely no way he did not know the consequences of his unfortunate actions. I will talk about reasons for this later, but I want to put that out there now. This also does not mean I believe he was deserving of the punishment he got. I feel awful for his loved ones that had to live that experience. I absolutely understand that they are a ruthless and terrible regime.

Second, I often have to justify that my trip provided some amount of direct funding to the regime. I’ll say this. My trip only cost $1,060 for five days and four nights. That included food, accommodation, transportation within the country, entrance fees, and anything else I did within the country. Whatever might be left after subtracting that from the total, along with whatever my tour company takes home (they are not North Korean by the way), and my Australian and American guide’s salary, is maybe going to the regime. It’s not going to buy their next ICBM, that’s for sure. Anyway, many people don’t know it is likely some nonzero amount of their spending each year goes to the regime when the products they buy are getting their manufacturing outsourced from China to North Korea [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. That seems like a greater issue.

Third, I believe, if possible, it is incredibly important for people to experience the effects of human rights atrocities firsthand. From visiting a death camp, or visiting a totalitarian country, it is important for people in much better off parts of the world to realize just how awful the world can be. It’s often a much needed wakeup call because in my experience, the Venn diagram of similarities and differences between a country like the US and North Korea overlap much more than you think and there are really not a lot of steps or actions that can be taken before making the overlap whole. Admittedly, I did not have this view before visiting the country, but it is one of my few foundational beliefs now. If my three points of justification still upsets you reader, then we must just disagree, and I ultimately don’t care if we do.

Okay, now for the fun trip report. First, how did I decide to go to North Korea? In 2016, I was not what you’d call a world traveler, having only been to Mexico and around the states, but I had been working hard at a local YMCA, saving for a year and a half at the time. This is just shortly after completing high school and certification in luthiery. I didn’t really know what to do with my life at the time and was thinking about traveling for a few months to learn more about myself. I spent most of 2016 secretly planning where to go, not really telling anyone about my planned adventure until shortly before my departure.

I remember reading earlier in the year about Otto and his attempted theft of a propaganda poster in North Korea. My first thought was “Hey, that’s interesting. I didn’t know you could go there. I wonder what it is like.” I extensively researched travel to North Korea and there are many options and tours and it looked like a thousand or so Americans, and many more foreigners visit every year through official guided tours (the only way to travel there). After much research on the safety of such travel, I personally concluded that Otto was quite negligent and it was perfectly safe to travel, if you followed clear judgment.

Of the few companies offering tours, Young Pioneer Tours (YPT), sounded the most experienced and professional. It was also much cheaper than I had expected and they offer many off-the-beaten-path tours around the world, which I will for sure attend in the future. Stay tuned for that. I decided on the Grand National Day Tour. It occurs over their Grand National Day holiday, every 9th of September, which celebrates the founding of the country. Basically America’s 4th of July. As you may imagine, it is one of the most festive and important days of the year for them. Festivities include performances, fireworks, mass dancing, sporting events, and military parades. Sounded like a great time, so sign me up!

Day -3: September 4, 2016

I start my trip report on this day because there is quite an interesting North Korea predicament I got myself into. First, I arrived at Sky Harbor airport ready to depart on my four-month-long journey around the globe! My layover on my way to Beijing was Seattle. While I was in Seattle and made my way to check in for my flight to China, there was an issue. I intended to use what was at the time China’s 72-hour visa-free travel within Beijing. There were quite a few constraints to using this though. You had to stay within the Beijing city limits and you had to be traveling onward to a country different from the one you came from. As you might imagine, it doesn’t get much use. I was nervous about using it though since I would not be given my flight information to North Korea until the day before. I was worried about proving my departure. After some research online and speaking to my YPT tour company beforehand, apparently it’s never been an issue at the gate before departure. It is rarely an issue at customs in China, and when it is, they still let you in after a few minutes of understanding.

With my luck it was absolutely an issue with the gate attendant before my flight and she was not budging. After texting with my American guide in China, she drafted an official looking letter on my behalf hopefully good enough to let me pass.

Not even this would be enough to let me pass. With one hour to departure I was very nervous this would already foil my trip. The last resort my guide suggested was to buy the cheapest one-way flight out of Beijing to another country in the next three days. I obviously wouldn’t take it, but it should be convincing enough to let me through. I found a $250 one-way flight leaving for Hong Kong the next day from Beijing. I bought it and thankfully it was enough to let me on that plane to Beijing. The gate attendant was suspicious nonetheless though. I never had any issues at customs in China though!

Day -1: September 7, 2016

Our tour group had a pre-tour meeting at the City Line Hotel, near the Beijing Railway Station to discuss what to expect and ground rules. We discussed items we should leave behind, such as the obvious drugs and weapons, as well as the non-obvious items from religious paraphernalia to the recently released “The Interview” movie. We were made aware that if we brought digital items, such as phones, laptops, or cameras, they may thoroughly check everything on there. Forgetting to remove any of the forbidden items from your device before arrival, wouldn’t be enough to warrant punishment, but they will sternly demand you delete it in front of them. Better to over-exercise precaution if an item may be questionable. We were also notified that our phones and computers would not work within the country.

Topics of discussion were also on actions inside the country. These are pretty obvious what to do, not do, say, and not say. Otto was actually on a tour with my guides the year prior and was given the same very clear warnings. It was also demanded to stay within sight of your tour guides or on the hotel property for the entirety of the trip. As mentioned before, I had one Australian tour guide and one American on my trip, but I also had two North Korean tour guides, which we joined up with when entering the country. One was female, I unfortunately forget her name, was really in charge of leading our group, and was a real joy to be around. The other, a male, was stern and quiet, just following along. He was honestly probably just an agent to keep watch on us in his cool aviators.

There were two non-obvious things you must do though. One, is that if you take a picture of their dear leaders, you must make sure you get the entire portrait or statue in frame. Failing to do so, our guides will ask you to delete and retake the picture. It happens to everyone at least once, including me, as it’s easy to forget. The other non-obvious request is to not take pictures of the military personnel, which is predictable, but also construction workers. The reason for that, which was not obvious prior to arrival, is that almost all construction workers are military. If there was a military parade though, we would be allowed pictures. Great publicity! But, we never did get to see one.

All of the rules to follow were fairly obvious and some of the most obvious that could be broken were clear to have consequences. It was also clear that some of the easier to forget rules would just have stern warnings and be understanding if accidentally broken. I really want to emphasize that it was not stressful at all during the trip to try to adhere to any of these rules.

I was handed at this meeting my flight information and visa for entering the country, you can see below. Unfortunately, I don’t get to keep this visa, and there is no stamping of my passport.

Day 1: September 8, 2016

I arrived at the Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) for my 2pm flight to Pyongyang International Airport on the North Korean airline Air Koryo. The airline fleet consists of old soviet aircraft. It is apparently the world’s only one-star airline. Judging by the picture I took of the inflight propaganda tunes played on the TVs and cross-referencing interior pictures I found online, it looks like I was on their Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft. Upon boarding the aircraft, I was offered an English version of the local Pyongyang Times, which I flipped through on the flight, and have it framed today.

Walking down the aisle to find my seat, everybody was shaking the hand of a cartoonish looking gentleman in first class. You know how there are some people that just give off a vibe as being famous or important? This guy definitely had it. I shook his hand, not knowing who it was until after my entire North Korea trip and reading about Antonio Inoki’s diplomatic trip to North Korea. It was clearly him. He was a legendary Japanese wrestler-turned-politician, who even had a face-off against Muhammad Ali back in the day.

I was also offered an in-flight meal, (I think chicken sandwich???). I don’t think Chick-fil-A has to worry about any competition here. It was highly questionable what I was eating. The flight was short and ended with some of the usual paperwork.

We landed and went through customs. Everybody all had the same nerve-wracking thoughts as we went through and got our items searched, wondering if we thoroughly cleaned everything enough. The customs agents, who probably easily recognize the nervousness of every newcomer, liked to crack jokes and pretend they found forbidden materials. They had a dark humor that I found kind of funny and honestly oddly relieving that they recognize the persona the country somewhat falsely gives.

We met our guides there and headed to the Yanggakdo International Hotel, where we would stay for the rest of the day. It is quite isolated from the locals, being on its own secluded island in the middle of the Taedong river, which runs directly through the capital. Although there are very few hotels in the country it is by far the largest, and in fact, one of the largest buildings in the whole country. It stands out quite prominently among the capital.

It could one day be overtaken as the largest hotel in the country if the hellish looking Ryugyong Hotel (below) ever completes. But it seems to be forever in perpetual construction since 1987. In fact, it would be the 4th largest hotel in the world if it ever does complete. Pretty impressive for a rarely visited country. Sadly could have helped a lot of their people instead.

Upon arrival at our hotel, we are met with the quite grand, mildly decorated for the holiday, and opulent-for-the-country hotel lobby. The hotel had many amenities any normal North Korean could never even dream of seeing. It has a revolving rooftop restaurant, banquet halls, gift shop, bowling alley, billiards room, sauna, swimming pool, barber shop, and a casino, which was considered territory of Macau for legal reasons. It even has a tailor shop where you can get a fitted suit, the same style as Kim Jong Un! It even has a karaoke bar where you can belt out your favorite North Korean tune, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On a Prayer”, or any other of your favorite American jams. You can actually see my Aussie guide, Rowan, give a tour of the hotel here. Also attached below is the view from the rooftop restaurant.

As our guides were checking our group in at the front desk, we could see military personnel in full regalia come in and out of the hotel, occasionally stopping to chit chat or exchange words to each other. Most of them seemed to be of Russian, or ex-Soviet nationality. Maybe here to attend the festivities or attend classified meetings with their allies? There was an issue with checking our group in though. The front desk was adamant that the hotel was fully booked. This was clearly false since the hotel was just so massive and there are incredibly few tourists, even for the busiest of their holidays. It is just one of the many experiences we are to have in trying to convince us foreigners they are a prospering and bustling nation. After a little convincing, they magically found enough rooms for us. What a surprise /s!

I chose not to pay extra for a room and got a roommate from my group. I don’t remember the gentleman’s name or occupation, but I recall him being from Italy. The room had two twin beds, an old radio, television, and probably many hidden bugged devices to listen to our conversations.

I watched the television a bit during my stay and found it absolutely fascinating. If I recall, it was only a news channel. It was in Korean, so I didn’t understand what was said, but I vividly remember how dramatized and animated the female host was.

Before I went to bed for the first night, I believe I was hanging out on the basement level, where many of the activities are, and took the elevator up to my room, which is at a fairly high level. Now, I had heard rumors of the “missing” floors in this hotel, that are supposedly replaced with rooms of surveillance equipment. I do recall the elevator having many missing floors to go to. Well, when I took the elevator up this first night, I was looking at my phone, not paying attention. The doors opened, I got out, and the doors shut behind me. I had not realized that it dropped me off on a dark floor. I pulled out my phone to film, in case anything went wrong, as I looked around the corner to see if there were any stairs, or to wait for the next one to hopefully come and pick me up. If you watch the video below, it may just look like a normal, maybe darker than usual floor without any context of a normal one. But, I assure you this was surely NOT a valid floor to be on. In hindsight, it may not have been a smart thing to look around the corner for stairs, which I did not find, but all was well and took the next elevator up.

Day 2: September 9, 2016 (Grand National Day)

Today is the most important day on the trip. We formally, as required for today’s visit, since we were visiting the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. It is the mausoleum of the late “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung and “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, the Eternal Leaders of North Korea. I show below pictures from the outside as a few so fortunate locals or elites were allowed to pay their respects, from the outside of course.

We were allowed inside though, only after giving up all of our belongings. Unfortunately, as such, I have no photos from the inside and they are very hard to come by on the internet. Below are some of the things I remember seeing inside. It was absolutely the most immaculate, beautiful, and quite impressive place I had ever seen, which, again, is quite sad given the nation’s predicament and what this place is dedicated to.

As estimates for the cost to build the mausoleum range between $100 million and $1 billion, from my personal experience there, I’d easily peg it on the higher end of the scale. Words can’t describe how huge it is either, other than saying it is 115,000 square feet. Inside are rooms full of memorabilia, personal belongings, and even rooms (PLURAL!) dedicated to awards and medals received from foreign dignitaries. Medals and gifts from everyone you can imagine, even US presidents. It even holds Kim Jong Il’s personal car, boat, and train carriage on display. We were there for three hours and still barely saw everything.

Out of all things on display there, two are burned in my mind forever. We walk into two separate giant marble rooms outlined with fresh bouquets of flowers. In the first room, up on the top floor, lies the embalmed body of Kim Il Sung lying in state in a glass sarcophagus, and the body of Kim Jong Il in the second room on the lower level. Military personnel were strategically positioned and at the ready, as if they were guarding America’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, or a member of the Royal Guard of Buckingham Palace. We were instructed beforehand what we were instructed to do in these rooms.

We walk in one at a time, arms to our side, approaching the feet of the leaders first, and perform a long, slow, and deep bow before them. Then, you walk around to their left side, and again deeply bow. Walking around to the top, by their heads, you pass, rounding the final corner. Finally, around to their right side and perform your final bow. With each turn around the glass sarcophaguses, you stare deeply into the perfectly preserved face, as if they are just sleeping, of the two people responsible for some of the most reprehensible crimes against humanity. I took absolutely not a single amount of joy bowing to them, but felt it was incredibly important to see the first-person point of view face of a person capable of such evil. It carries different weight and meaning to see the person, rather than a black and white grainy photo in a book. It is easy to attach the atrocities they committed to their name, or photograph, but to see the face and be able to better attribute the horrors to the person as you physically stare at them just feet away is quite surreal.

Following the mausoleum experience, we headed for a short drive south down the river to the Okryu Restaurant for lunch. Sitting on the river bank, it is one of the most iconic restaurants around town. The main dish served is raengmyon (cold noodles). Other dishes include jijim (green bean pancake), onban (rice with beef soup), and jongol (beef casserole). I’m going to be honest, I consider myself to have a fairly decent appetite for trying foreign cuisine, but I did not eat much this trip. It was difficult to stomach anything more than just a taste of most dishes. I often opted for the cold noodles when possible, which seemed to be palatable enough until a hopefully more fulfilling meal or snack later on. Looking back many years later, I wish I had taken more photographs of this trip. I unfortunately don’t have any of this restaurant or meal, but I found some online that reminded me of the experience (below).

After lunch, we walked next door to the Moran Hill Park to take part in some of the day’s festivities around town. There was much jubilee with dancing and singing in the pavilions all around. There was even a party taking wedding photographs.

After our joyous walk in the park, our North Korean handlers had gotten word through the phone that we had a rare opportunity to go off schedule and attend a performance! We rushed our way over to a large Pyongyang Circus Theater close by to watch acrobats fly gracefully through the air, diving into a pool below for synchronized swimming, and proudly belt songs of the homeland along the way. It was quite an impressive performance, understandably so as these performers were likely trained for such work starting at a few years old.

After finishing the performance, we made our way to Pyongyang Gymnasium to participate and watch festive mass dances with local Soong Ui College students. All men were in their white shirts with black ties and pants, while the women wore their colorful Hanboks. You of course can’t go anywhere in the country without the portraits of the Eternal Leaders watching from above.

After the sun had set on the dances and the day, we headed back on the tour bus, off to visit Kwangbok Department Store. One absolutely incredible event happened on our way to the store. Our bus got rear-ended by a pickup truck carrying construction workers. Looking back at this trip it still blows my mind that this happened, because the roads are just so extremely desolate, this has to be such a rare experience. The truck that hit us actually fled the scene. After getting out and observing the damage, seen below, our North Korean guides were quick to recognize the situation and huddled us back on the bus to avoid us taking pictures of the mishap. We eventually arrived at the department store, but they took the bus away from us and replaced it with another for the rest of the trip, despite the minor dings, probably to keep up the appearance of perfection in the country.

This department store is dedicated to the rich and elite locals of Pyongyang, who look to satisfy their foreign and premium goods desires. I have a photo of the outside, but there are no pictures allowed on the inside. The interior pictures below can be found on the web. I have to imagine it is to not make it evident to the rest of the world they can fairly easily skirt out most trade restrictions. I saw many premium brands and goods, from Jack Daniels to Oreos to Whirlwind appliances.

I’m unsure if the locals I saw shopping were for show or real, since we were trading in the store with the “official” exchange rate, which is many magnitudes stronger than the black market rate everybody commonly uses. Many people probably don’t realize that the North Korean regime has lost control of their currency, or at least the rate they want everybody to use. The famine that ravaged the country in the mid to late 90s, known locally as the “Arduous March”, is one of the most devastating accounts of famine in human history. Estimates peg the famine related fatalities wiped out nearly ten percent of the entire population. Since the government was only reserving food for the few elite at the time, while many people were resorting to cannibalism, black markets flourished and the regime lost their widespread economic control of the populace. Still, with the famine so fresh in the public’s minds, these black markets are still regularly used by everyday citizens to this day. There is a widespread culture of harsh punishment and snitching between friends, family, and neighbors within the country still, but black market trade is largely considered a norm and allowed.

Now is a good point for me to mention that although I didn’t see massively impoverished people as we primarily stayed in the city limits of Pyongyang, more so the best parts of it, I could tell, while glancing at towns far off the roadside, watching people bathe in absolutely disgusting creeks, and witnessing some severely malnourished country folk, that the human condition and lifestyle is still at an incredibly depressing level. I would like to talk more about this topic, but I do not believe I understood and saw enough of it to give the topic the justice and nuance it needs.

What I am sure of, is that foreign media outlets do not know and/or tell the full picture. There are many levels of deception between what goes on in the country of North Korea, and what a foreign citizen, say from the US, might hear. The media and elite within North Korea of course do not want to know, hear about, or report on what real life is like in their country. They of course lie to foreign news outlets on conditions.

Then, we have to further deal with what our outlets decide to report or lie to us about as well. Some of the outlandish tales you hear about the country are for sure real, while others are laughable even to the local North Koreans. You can choose to believe me or not, but in my chats with the locals, they think it’s funny Americans believe that North Koreans revere a supposed rumor that Kim Jong Il scores a 34 on a round of golf. One of my biggest gripes about the many American journalists that publish a “tell all” about their “dAngErOus eScaPE!” during their North Korean visit and having to stick their thumb drives up their ass to sneak their “SuPEr SecReT NeveR beFoRE SEEn PhoTOs!” out of the country. It’s laughable and completely negligent journalism because it does not help the North Koreans actually get the help or understanding of the conditions they need from the rest of the world.

If anyone wants a stellar deep dive into the true living conditions with little barriers between the source material and book, I highly recommend “North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors” by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson.

We finish our long and exhausting day with a visit to North Korea’s first ever Taedong Beer Festival! That was plenty of fun to sit and chat with the locals over a pint. The first two pictures are my own, the other can be found easily elsewhere.

Day 3: September 10, 2016

Early in the morning after our hotel breakfast, we headed to the famous bronze Mansudae Hill Grand Monument of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay respects. The mural in the backdrop of the monuments displays Mount Paektu, which is one of the most iconic symbols in North Korea. It represents the mythological birthplace of the Korean people and of Korean ancestry. On both sides stood a large monument featuring a collage of people from the Worker’s party and their anti-Japanese revolution with a backdrop of a waving communist flag. For such an important holiday, it was quite a barren and empty concrete platform, overlooking the Worker’s Party Foundation Monument across the river, which we will visit later.

Our next visit is just down the road south to the Grand People’s Study House. It is a large library home to many documents, pamphlets, and manuscripts contributing to the study of the Dear Leaders, Juche philosophy, and North Korean history. The library even has many computers to access the North Korean intranet and radios to listen to past speeches. Below I have many photos I took from inside.

We then made our way to the balcony of the library, which overlooks Kim Il Sung square and the Juche tower directly in view across the river. It is from this balcony you have likely seen the many videos and photographs of the military parades roll through with large ICBMs strapped to vehicles.

Of course, we couldn’t exit the library without first going through the gift shop. It was here that I purchased many postcards, a book titled “On the Juche Idea and the Korean People’s Struggle for its Application” by Kim Il Sung, and even a propaganda poster. Yes, I purchased a propaganda poster, which we knew before the trip we would be able to do so. I want to emphasize this just to make it clear that Otto was malicious and negligent in his intent to steal one instead. This book I purchased is one of hundreds “authored” by Kim Il Sung about the Juche philosophy. I also took a photo, but regret not purchasing it now, of one humorously titled book “The Great Man of the Century” by the man himself, Kim Il Sung. If he’s authoring it, why limit it to just the century? Who has him beat on the millennium?

We left the library and had a walk around the square below. You can see the many marks on the ground for positions on where to stand or march for the parades. One thing you may notice in many pictures so far is just how barren the roads are. Pyongyang is obviously the busiest in car traffic in the country, but it is still astonishingly empty and eerie. One building of prominence lining the square is the Worker’s Party of Korea Headquarters, which is the building donning the country’s flag. Walking a bit down the road, we walked by a few common Pyongyang bus stops, one decorated in a beautiful sunset landscape and the other a winter battle scene.

We also see one of the most iconic scenes of Pyongyang, the traffic girls. Since there are no traffic lights in Pyongyang, traffic is monitored and directed in a militaristic manner by these women, and rarely men. It is one of the most respected and revered jobs in the city. One of the most unexpected things I learned from this trip is that there is really little to no misogyny in the country and you can see women in all positions of power. There is one legendary traffic girl by the name of Ri Kyong Sim who received the “Hero of the Republic” award, which is the highest honor, in 2013 for a deed which is unknown, but apparently “displayed the heroic self-sacrificing spirit of safeguarding the security of the headquarters of the revolution in an unexpected circumstance,” according to state media.

We then headed back to the buses and left to the southwest outskirts of the capital to Mangyondae Revolutionary Site, the claimed birthplace of Kim Il Sun. It is a beautiful perfectly preserved large park area and near the center is a little yellow adobe looking hut with straw roofing. Here is supposedly his birthplace.

We had a brief walk back to our bus, parked next to an amusement park, which is occasionally open for a lucky tour or festival. Today, it was closed and barren.

We then headed over to the Puhung station on the Chollima line of the Pyongyang metro. It is one of the longest escalators in the world and took probably a minute to go all the way down. That is because many of the stations in the metro system double as bomb shelters for the people. At the bottom are three beautiful murals. One at the end is aptly titled “The Great Leader Kim Il-sung Among Workers.” One on the left side is titled “A Morning of Innovation,” featuring workers at what I think is the nearby thermal power plant. The one on the right when you enter is titled “Song of a Bumper Crop,” which I did not get a picture of, since a metro car was in the way, but I found a photo below elsewhere on the internet.

Riding the rail cars was unexpectedly a very loud experience. You could not easily hold a conversation as it was going at nearly 70 km/h. The trains were built in the late 50s to early 60s for the West Berlin U-Bahn system and bought second hand by North Korea in 1999. Each car of course featured the portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to keep watch over the travelers. We took this train down one station to the Yonggwang station, getting out for some pictures of the scenic murals here, and to wave at the passing by workers and school children, which you see below.

We hopped back on the following train and headed four more stops down the line to the Kaeson station, located under the Arch of Triumph. In this station is yet another inspirational mural titled “The People Rise up in the Building of a New Country”. It has since been refurbished in 2019 with new lighting, TVs, and LED signs displaying the local weather. At the end of the station stood an illuminated golden statue of a young Kim Il Sung. I did get a warning for standing too close to it for the picture below. Oops.

We exited the station above to the Arch of Triumph, a very impressive structure commemorating the Korean resistance to Japan in the early 20th century. It is the second tallest triumphal arch in the world at 200 ft tall, behind the one in Mexico City. Here we could also see to the east the Kim Il Sung stadium, which is primarily used for soccer matches and the start and finish line of the annual Pyongyang marathon.

Now is actually a good time to mention the government’s and people’s foreign relations as I experienced in my travels there. In my time there, I recognized a deep hatred for Japan and the Japanese people there, largely due to the atrocities Japan had committed against all of the Korean people in the previous centuries. It is actually the only foreign nation that I felt the North Korean people actually had a deep-seated hatred of the foreign people as well as the government. In my experience as an American, I actually didn’t feel like I got glances of hatred from the locals there, nor did I feel they were aggressive when I communicated with them. My assumption is that they despise our government, but not the people, aside from the ones that participated in the Korean war, as I will get to later. It feels similar to how much of the American public feels toward Russia in that we don’t enjoy the people in power there, but are indifferent to the people. One thing that I found interesting there was actually the extreme longing for a reunification of the Korean peninsula. It is a true goal that all of the people and government want to work towards in my experience there, but of course they want it under the terms of a North Korean culture and philosophy, rather than a southern one.

Next we headed west to the Fatherland Liberation War Victory Museum, which is a history museum dedicated to the Korean War. The outside square is adorned with statues of animated North Korean soldiers in battle and some structures covering a few American tanks, a helicopter, and a plane, which were recovered or shot down during the war. The museum sits against the Potong river in the capital and docked against the museum is the captured USS Pueblo on display.

We visited the inside of the museum, but very unfortunately pictures were not allowed to be taken. This is probably one of the most fascinating parts of the trip to me. It sounds insane and an oxymoron to say this, but it is definitely one of the most well curated and put together museums I have ever seen, akin to a Smithsonian, but just about everything inside was just clearly dramatized fake history. It is so intriguing seeing our museum tour guide show us extremely detailed wax dioramas of a “common” Korean war scene of American soldiers eating North Korean babies, while speaking to a group with a couple Americans. It was so odd seeing her talk in deep hatred about these supposed atrocities we committed to the level of devouring infants, but between walking between halls and talking to her, there was no association in her mind to me being an American attached to these supposed atrocities.

One piece of “history” on display there was memorabilia and claims of a sinking of our USS Baltimore, being torpedoed by their Navy, but our USS Baltimore was nowhere near the Korean War. The actual boat involved in the battle they describe was the USS Juneau, but it actually destroyed three of their torpedo boats without suffering any damage itself. It’s quite hilarious to see such a lopsided portrayal of history. Skimming through books I find through the country, and the one I purchased, these false accounts are very common.

The most impressive feature of the whole museum was a rotating room with a 360 panoramic cyclorama of the Battle of Taejon. There are very few pictures from the interior of the museum in general, but I did find that someone was allowed to video a guide talking showing and talking about this cyclorama here. It is actually more impressive than the video because here you just have the museum guide talking about the battle and cyclorama, but in our case, we sat on the bench as the lights dimmed, spinning us around the room for about five to ten minutes narrating the battle, shooting light and smoke around the panorama, while providing war sound ambiance. Credit where credit is due, North Korea can make a killer museum.

After leaving the museum, we headed to the Juche tower, across the river. It is a large Washington Monument-esque tower with a large, red, permanently-illuminated red flame at the top. It is easily visible all around town to remind everyone, as if they needed it, to live a life consumed by the Juche philosophy. As I noted previously the Juche philosophy is permanently and pervasively in the minds of every single North Korean. It is a unique variant of Marxism conceptualized by Kim Il Sung where the main ideas actually focus on self-reliance and independence. While Marxism famously endorses the working class owning the means of production and relying on fair distribution of its output, Juche truly encourages the individual and nation state to work towards independence and sovereignty. It is a much more nationalistic ideology than Marxism. Although they still struggle in achieving these goals and largely rely on trade with China, Russia, and African republics, you can see how having such a pervasive encouragement of working toward independence and heavy nationalism in its citizens has had some benefit to their success in keeping the regime alive to this day compared to formerly Marxist nations.

Usually, tour groups get a chance to ride the elevator to the top of the tower, but it was out of service for our visit. Just inside at the base of the tower are 82 plaques of famous foreign dignitaries and proponents of the Juche philosophy. Also near the base of the tower is a statue of three figures each holding a sickle, hammer, and writing brush. Directly across the river from the tower we see the library, residential buildings, and the pyramid hotel. We were also surprised with a passing by school band.

We then headed just north to the Worker’s Party Foundation Monument. It is a large stone monument consisting of a hammer, sickle, and writing brush held high in the sky, each representing the worker, farmer, and intellectual, respectively. It is lined on the inside with an inscribed mural of North Korean people standing up to the Japanese during the revolution. It is dedicated to the founding of the Workers’ Party, which is the one political party of the country. Members of the party wear a red flag pin on the left side of their chest over their heart, which most of the population participates in. Directly across the river is the Mansu Hill Grand Monument which was our first stop of the morning and an ominous high-rising Ryugyong hotel in the background as dusk fell.

We finish the evening with a trip to the Pyongyang International Cinema Hall to watch a locally made film, Hong-kil Dong(1986). Kim Jong Il was famously an avid film fan, starring and directing in many films himself.

Day 4: September 11, 2016

Today was the day we got to escape the capital, and travel south to the DMZ. We got an early start and on our way out of town we stopped by the Arch of Reunification. It towers above the Reunification Highway on the way from Pyongyang to the DMZ picturing two women holding a picture of the Korean peninsula, meant to commemorate a reunified Korea. As I mentioned before, the North Korean people actively want and long for a reunification of the peninsula, just with the demand that it be a culture and governed in the style of the North. As you can see, even the highways are barren and we could easily walk out and take a picture.

The drive to the DMZ was our best chance to observe life in the countryside. Although they seemingly strategically pushed the towns away far from the highway from tourists’ eyes, you could see from the distance it was clearly decrepit. It was approximately an hour and a half drive, but cars are such a rare sight, I could probably count passing by less than ten the entirety of this trip on a multilane highway. Nobody in the countryside would ever be able to afford a car. Having a bike would be quite well off. It is for this reason in my first person experience there that I find it very odd that a common excuse for not liberating these people is that it would cause a mass migration of their population into China or the south. A vast majority of these people can not travel, unless by foot, and no, they do not have livestock like horses or mules to travel either. Interestingly, cannabis grows like weeds along the roadside.

Halfway to the destination, we stopped for ten minutes at a rest stop, arching above the highway. Below are two pictures looking in both directions down the highway. Remember when we got in an accident earlier???

Adorning the highway, particularly as we got closer to the DMZ were very large concrete towers with a cut out wedge near the base. This is to quickly lay explosives and block the highway from tanks and other vehicles during an oncoming invasion.

Finally, a mile from the border, we stopped at a small building, which we learned was the North Korea Peace Museum. It is the building where the Korean War Armistice Agreement was signed. The building was quite bare, containing three tables in the center with a copy of the agreement in a glass case. Along the walls hung various portraits and pictures of the Dear Leaders. Also, it housed the axe used by the Americans to cut down a large tree in the Joint Security Area (JSA), which resulted in a skirmish that killed US Army soldiers in the Korean axe murder incident of 1976.

After this quick stop, we headed the mile up the road to the JSA. We crossed the Bridge of 72 Hours parked right next to the Kim Il Sung Last Letter Monument below, which is the same spot that the North Korean defector, Oh Chong-song, departed his vehicle in the infamous escape video over a year later. Here, we visited the Phanmun Pavilion, behind the famous blue buildings on the border. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit the blue conference rooms, which is occasionally allowed. However, I did make a trip to the DMZ from the south in the summer of 2018 and visited the inside of the conference rooms, which is a trip report for a later date. We were allowed up to the balcony of the pavilion, which overlooked the border and took a picture with one of the guards there.

After an exciting visit to the DMZ, we made our way to the large town ten minutes west called Kaesong for lunch. Before lunch though, we went to the northern outskirts and stopped at Songgyungwan a preserved Confucian academy originally established in 992 which housed traditional buildings, which held various pottery and relics of the time, which was quite peaceful.

All that I remember from lunch was that it was a fancier place, with a beautiful mural. I do remember that the meal had an optional upcharge for dog-meat, non-domesticated dog, which is a delicacy they refer to locally as “sweet meat”. Being an avid dog person, although it was not domesticated, I could not stomach or justify ordering such a meal. I’m sure I just ordered another dish of cold noodles.

The exterior of the restaurant sat against the main road of the city, and we could see much foot traffic.

As we left Kaesong to the northwest was the Mausoleum of King Wang Kon, a tomb belonging to the founder of the Goryeo Dynasty in the mid 10th-century. The tomb was largely destroyed during the Japanese occupation, but has since been restored. This was actually one of the most beautiful parts of my trip here in North Korea and I think of it fondly. It was mesmerizing looking at the rolling hills through the statues lining the steps to the tomb.

Our last stop on the way back to Pyongyang was a park in Sariwon. We walked around for about half an hour, to take pictures and see a nice view of the town from a pavilion, then made our way onward.

We finished our day driving back to the hotel.

Day 5: September 12, 2016

We woke up early the next morning to head to the airport, taking a flight back to Beijing. Amusingly, I have pictures and remember seeing the two movies below for sale at a gift shop in the airport. They must be a hit in North Korea if there’s a sequel.

Being in North Korea, you hear nothing of what goes on inside the country, unless you know Korean and watched the news or read the local paper. This also meant that I had no idea what went on in the rest of the world. I started to hear mumblings while I was in the airport from others that on September 9, my first full day in the country and the Grand National Day, that North Korea had tested an underground nuclear bomb. This was the fifth time they have done so, out of the six times in history. It was obviously big news around the world and likely in the country, but I had no awareness of it for many days. When I look at the time that nuclear bomb went off and cross-reference it with the timestamps of my photos that day, it went off during the time I was in the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, which was the mausoleum displaying the bodies of the past Dear Leaders. It is surreal and frightening to think that I could have been bowing before these dictators at the exact same time that the nation was exploding their fifth ever nuclear bomb.

Opening up the newspaper they handed us as we boarded did not ease the stomach.

Day +1: September 13, 2016

Although my trip had concluded by this day, I want to finish the trip report similarly to how it started, with another fiasco related to my North Korea travels involving China. In the evening of this day, I was sitting in my hostel in Beijing having a cheeseburger in the hostel-owned restaurant/bar on the ground floor, in eyesight of reception. During my meal, in walked a group of four Chinese policemen who started to converse with the receptionist. The receptionist looked in my direction, left the desk, and approached me. Apparently these officers wanted to see my passport. My heart immediately started racing. In my research on the safety of traveling to North Korea, I never read of any issues related to China’s perception of travel there. My heart started beating fast. Thoughts started racing through my mind of if I’d have to end up calling the US embassy from a Chinese prison that night. I didn’t even know the number to do so if I needed to.

I nervously left my meal on the table, shuffled up the stairs past the officers up to my room. I grabbed my passport out of my bag and headed back downstairs to them. I was shaking while handing my passport to the one seemingly in charge. He spent about two minutes, but what felt like a century flipping through my pages and taking notes in his little notebook. He didn’t talk to me, just diligently took notes. Finally, he handed my passport back, and they turned around and left, without saying a word. I was quite on edge for a while after that and stayed at the bar for a little while afterward to order more drinks, understandably.