Democratic People's Republic of Korea / DPRK / Korea (north)

[Daver6]

I think this is the most fascinating TR yet!

 

[Chicken]

Let's go to the stadium for the mass game.



Still got people trying to sell you coughpy program guide and what not, even in Korea. (the last photo, 2 ladies standing right there)

 

[Chicken]

Let's go inside.



Everyone, please stand for national anthem and flag raising.

People carrying the flag, then hooked the flag onto cables for raising.

 

[Chicken]

We are a great country, we have agricultural, we have industrial. We needed to fight for socialism, fight for our great country, and we can still come out strong, even multitalent.

 

[Chicken]

We are a rich country with aplenty.

 

[Chicken]

We are Korea, and we look forward to the day when we can reunite again.



The second photo is the drawing of an actual monument, to celebrate the day when we will be reunited again. We will see this later in the trip.

 

[Chicken]

In case you did not notice, the 'picture' at the back of the stadium was not a LCD / TV / projector. It was thousands / tens of thousands of people, holding placards of different colors, then flip the placards together, to create a different picture / message.

 

[Chicken]

Remember we haven't had any food, since the inflight meal on the plane?

We had dinner at a rotating restaurant with night view. Food was western because this was the first night. We complained that we wanted Korean food, and the tour guides were very surprised; but they said this is the first night, Korean food later.

This is the beer we had, called the 'number 2', and this 'brand' / 'variation' would be the best beer we had during this trip. It is actually really blend, like water.

 

[Chicken]

After some beer, and 3 weeks after the trip, need to back track back to the stadium.

If you look at the drawings at the back of the stadium, you would noticed that the drawings slowly became more modern e.g. from coal train in the 50s to the electric trains now.

Well, go to this post, and look at the second last picture of this post, which is people playing circus running inside a metal ring. The background was quite dark, but you can see that they were modern public transport vehicles.

Well, in my full 6 days in Korea, every car and bus was from China (except those trolley buses so old I could not tell). Yes, we did drive pass THAT new modern electric tram, and the tour guide pointed it out, saying it was built in Korea. Yes, THAT new tram, THAT = 1.

 

[Chicken]

Pyongyang there looks very clean and tidy

Good observation.

They do cough and spit everywhere (guess they don't know much about spreading germs), but they never throw rubbish, and they don't even walk on grass. Streets in Pyongyang are kind of like Sydney, many small parks with grass at street corners, sometimes a slide for kids, sometimes nothing, all useless.

Everyday, everywhere we went, were people sweeping the roads with bloom sticks. I don't mean they sweeping the streets, as in sidewalk, I mean the actual traffic lanes.

We had an overnight storm, so everywhere was covered with tree branches and leaves the next morning. Yep, the whole Korea was out, to clear the branches and leaves, with bloom sticks. Our bus driver simply drove around them people with bloom sticks.

If you have to maintain the park by hand, and you have to sweep the streets and the highways (yes, highways) with blook sticks, I guess you would not want to create more work for yourself? But then again, in Korea, we have plenty of time, and plenty of labour, nothing is impossible if we have the will ......

but also quiet and maybe a bit sterile? What was the atmosphere like? I imagine it must have felt quite surreal to be there.

I think it has a lot of similarities comparing against other cities.

If you look back at the 3rd photo in this post (I took the photo from the front of the bus, with a police car in front), look carefully at the left, you will see heaps of people walking down the road. You would also see right on the left edge of that picture is a bus stop with people standing waiting. Most buses I saw in Pyongyang thru out this trip were standing only (not enough services too many people obviously).

When I walked pass people like this and in certain areas, who were clearly commuting, people were, well, like in SYD / MEL, blank face.

When we went to a department store later in the trip (the only place where we could exchange (north) Korean Won currency), in was evening, and people were clearly more relaxed and louder.

Then when we went to a pub later on, people were different again. (insert typical stereotype of drunk Korean old man). Younger people at another hipster bar would be different again (date, trying to impress the girl and what not).

I also noticed that, often, if the shopkeeper of a Korean version of 7-11 (you will see that later in this trip) is a woman, and it is evening, then there would often be another woman or 2 standing there at the shop chatting.

Also the minute we got out of Pyongyang, into small villages, kids look much more like kids, riding fast on bicycles, women standing around gossiping, men standing under the tree together having a smoke.

Yes, it is probably a lot more sterile in the sense of color, buildings, clothes, advertising; but I don't think it is any more sterile than say, some German cities or eastern Europe.

 

[Chicken]

Speaking about how we all have so much in common. Notice towards the end of the mass game at the stadium, that all messages were written in Chinese simplified? Well, that's because, Australia and Korea have another thing in common: Chinese tourists everywhere!!!

Today is our first day in Korea, we would all be politically correct, and not comment on the tourists from China. From tomorrow on, the tour guides would unleash their views on the bad behaviors of the Chinese tourists: loud, rubbish everywhere, pushing in don't queue. Yep, there are tourists from China everywhere, and all the bad habits would be on full displays, and we would spend the next 5 days trying to avoid them. They go left, we go right. They drive forward, we drive faster. They get off their buses, the tour guides would make us jump and run. That's all I can tell you.

Oh, not just the Chinese, we also encountered a group, which looks like from Hong Kong. The slightly older men (in their 40s? ) would be exactly the same.

See, we are just a small small world ......

 

[Saltywings]

someone commented that there is ZERO advertising / commercialism around.
that's what it feels like living in a communist country.

Guess China isn't communist then
(I mean, it really isn't)

 

[Saltywings]

The photos of the stadium and its proceedings are absolutely insane in scale. The only other time I've ever seen anything like it is in China.

Awesome. And really emphasises the (low) cost of human labour there.

 

[stm1sydney]

Well, it is effectively slave labour so, yes, very low cost.

 

[Chicken]

Guess China isn't communist then
(I mean, it really isn't)

Well, the party is communist when they want to bulldoze your home. For development ......

Well, it is effectively slave labour so, yes, very low cost.

Also, time is what Korea has plenty of, unlike the evil imperialist

 

[Chicken]

Waking up to a 2°C morning, and the best activity in a cold morning is to get onto a freezing cold bus!



You can see a traffic police, and an underground road crossing. We did question if these are really necessary for such light traffic; but our bus drive had 3 near misses on day 1 driving us from airport into the city (and he got pretty pissed that journey).







Another work day, another day battle public transport. NYC / Hong Kong / London / Sydney / Pyongyang, all the same cough. Exactly same during PM peak, even in Pyongyang.



This is the Korean version of 7-11. Some sell food, some junk food (prepackaged like can beverage or potato crisps), some sell gifts like teddy bears, some sell flowers.

 

[Chicken]

We are now at the Palace, where our President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il are. Inside are also gifts received from around the world.

 

[Chicken]

As we arrived and going into the compound, our lady tour guide specifically told us to be very careful, there are a lot of people ‘watching’ us.

Before going inside, we needed to cloak everything, including cameras and phones. Nothing was allowed in. I would say that security here at the Palace is the tightest for this whole trip. Even my FitBit Charge HR was thoroughly investigated. I was asked more than 5 times what it was and if it has GPS.

As we were not allowed to bring any camera into the Palace, we were all given a book with photos taken inside the Palace, and explanations. There were 3 versions – English, Chinese simplified, Korean. They ran out of English, so I took the Korean.

Now is the time to brush up on protocols, since we are being watched from everywhere and by everyone.

Photos

When you take a photo where a leader would be in the photo, it must be taken:
- directly in front, 90 degree, not from an angle, not from the side;
- the whole ‘thing’ must be included in the photo. If the photo of the leader is the full body photo of the leader, then the full photo of the leader must be included in your photo, you cannot take a photo with only the head of the leader then the rest of the body cut off;
- monument must be taken in full, from the top to the base.

Bowing

When we need to bow (say in front of a sculpture of a leader), both arms must be on the sides of the body, not in front, and not behind. We bow 1 time in front of monument, but 3 times in front of the leaders.

 

[Chicken]

Below are photos from the book, but they are accurate depictions of how it looks inside. Everything inside is clean and shiny. We often had to walk thru wind tunnels to have dust and hair blown off before going into an indoor area.




This is the first place we stopped. We had to form lines of 5 per row, and each row walk up to bow.

After this, we walked into the room where the body of President Kim Il Sung was laid. He was in the middle of the room, 4 corners of the rooms stood uniform soldiers with pistols. We would form 3 people in a group, each group would walk to the 'feet' of the President, bow once, walk to the left of us / right of the President, bow once, walk around his head then to our right / left of the President, bow again, then leave the room.

Repeat again with Chairman Kim Jong Il


This is the train used by President Kim Il Sung. The map on the wall shows the destinations he traveled to on this train.

We also saw the train where Chairman Kim Jong Il was traveling on, and died. The clothes he was wearing were inside. If you have a look at the clothes he was wearing (you can internet search), you would notice that he dressed more tone down than his father. We were told that Korea was experiencing famine at that time, and he was told by other party officials that walking around in a suit when others starved to death would not be a good look.



There are rooms after rooms of gifts from around the world.

There are some crazy things like:
- photo of him with Fidel Castro
- photo of him with Putin
- bullet proof car gifted by Stalin
- car gifted by Chairman Mao
- a lot of gifts where from 20 to 50 years ago
- gifts from states which no longer exist, like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
- gifts from the Socialist Party of Australia (we should vote for them in the next federal election! )
- photos of Dennis Rodman with 3 signed basketballs
- photos of him with Donald Trump

There are a lot of gifts from trade delegations, so not all are from country leaders. Also many certificates and honorary degrees were questionable. I saw one certificate which had Hotmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses on it.

In the words of our Tasmanian tour organiser "some of them look like $20 knock-offs from eBay".


The boat used by Chairman Kim Jong Il. They say this is the real actual thing. I looked at the paint and the parts; but we never question our leaders, right?!

 

[Chicken]

Time to drive back into town. There are 7-11 everywhere, especially street corner.