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

[Chicken]

Slave labour can accomplish anything.

In the words of our tour guide "In Korea, if there is the will, nothing is impossible"

 

[Chicken]

View attachment 145865

Drove past this, lets do a shoot and run.

 

[Chicken]

This morning, we are leaving Pyongyang for DMZ. This is a 3 hour drive each way.

 

[Chicken]

Morning fog started to clear.


Truck stop. Go to the toilet, then more junk food.


Look carefully into this drinks fridge. They are Pokka from Singapore.

 

[Melburnian1]

Why are the small trees planted in the middle of vegetable fields? (Apologies as that may be a really dumb question). Wouldn't they reduce yields?

 

[Chicken]

Why are the small trees planted in the middle of vegetable fields? (Apologies as that may be a really dumb question). Wouldn't they reduce yields?

Exactly the question I asked the tour guide.

He said to plant now (winter), so they would seed the farm. If this is true, then this is very rudimentary.

We all commented how sorry the soil looked. They look dry and rocky, don't look fertile at all.

 

[Chicken]

DMZ





This is where cease fire talk was held between Korea and USA, on 1951-07-10 10:00 AM. This meeting would last 2 years, to reach agreement on 5 items, including the location of demarcation line. Table and chairs are all original items.





Yep, all tourists from China.

 

[Chicken]

This is the room where the Armistice Agreement was signed. The agreement would be signed the military representatives from both sides, then it would need to be executed by the leaders from both sides within 12 hours.


Picture below are the 2 tables where the signings happened. Table to the left is US, table to the right is Korea.

View from the other side of the tables. Table on the left is Korea, right is US.

Picture below is the table for Korea.


Table below is the table for US.

As the general explained, the US lost the war, but they did not even have the guts to admit that they lost, so they stuck a UN flag on the table instead of US flag.

 

[Melburnian1]

Exactly the question I asked the tour guide.

He said to plant now (winter), so they would seed the farm. If this is true, then this is very rudimentary.

We all commented how sorry the soil looked. They look dry and rocky, don't look fertile at all.

Possible that they lack the money to buy superphosphate.

 

[Chicken]

Possible that they lack the money to buy superphosphate.

The first page I got from Google is Why phosphorous is important from NSW DPI. Thank you very much, learnt something new today.

 

[Matt_01]

@Chicken Thanks for sharing this trip report, I find it fascinating as visiting North Korea is on my bucket list.

 

[Chicken]

Now let's go outside.



Pic below, that big silver in the middle is south side, the blue huts is the north side.

Look at the top floor of the south side building, there is like a CCTV every 1m apart.



With the picture below, look on the far left, at a long distance, you would see a flag pole. That is the flag of south Korea.



let me zoom in for you



And this one is the flag of Korea, right here on our north side. They face against each other on a straight line, but they are I would say 1km to 2 km apart



He is the general who had been guiding us, and giving us the tour / information.

OK, this is me. There is a side show to this.

Remember how we must never photo any military / personnel? Well, this general was very nice. He was willing to take 1 on 1 photo with quite a few people, started with a bunch of Germans, then our tour group, including the 2 x Sydneysiders and 1 kiwi. I then asked the kiwi to take photo for me. The Chinese group spotted us, came over, the general saw the Chinese group, he freaked, he waved his hand to signal 'no more photos', then ran off.

That's why the awkward facial expressions from the both of us (yep, the Chinese tourists were to the right of this photo, the direction where the general was looking, and the general was starting his escape right at this moment)

I think the Koreans are more scared of the Chinese than the Americans in the current period.



Time to leave. A soldier would board our bus, and watch our drive to drive us out, then exit our bus.



While the general is here, let me show you this pin on his chest again.

This is the pin of the President and Chairman. Every party member has one and wears it. You would notice a lot of people in Pyongyang wearing it while in the streets. Poor farmers, not so. Our tour guides didn't wear them while they were taking us to 'normal' places, but they always wore them while we went to official places, like here, or the Palace.

This is also why you must never buy any fake Korean stuffs from China before going into Korea, because those fake souvenirs from China have specific meanings and purposes in Korea.

 

[Melburnian1]

Chicken, while many of us will have seen some photos of NK before, your in depth coverage is extremely good and interesting.

As with other communist or despotic regimes, I'm always in two minds as to whether one ought visit and give them the hard currency the leadership so badly wants. That, however, is a question for elsewhere.

 

[henleybeach]

Well played chicken .
As melburnian1 mentioned, great depth in your coverage

 

[Welsh-Kiwi]

Great TR - very informative. I was surprised how quiet the main city was.

 

[Chicken]

After long drive this morning and DMZ, we are driving down the road to the nearby town of Kaesong. I think this is the nearest town to DMZ our guides said. We would spend some time at Buddhist temple to chill a bit, and get lunch.















Yeah this is an empty swimming pool.

 

[Chicken]

Sorry my mistake, we are not going to temple, we are going to Koryo History Museum. There had been 3 dynasties, with the last one being Koryo, which actually means Korea.

Let's go in. Yep, it is outdoor, like a park.

No, there is no admission. We are socialist, we provide for the people!

 

[Chicken]

This is the model of how this place used to be, before the Japanese set fire and burnt this place down when they arrived.

On the left is our other Korean tour guide (we had 2, him and the other lady who was too busy playing on her phone in subway )





Below tells us the different industries in Korea back in those days during the Koryo dynasty. Right in the middle is ginseng, the Chinese love these and they buy heaps here in Korea. This region right here is famous for ginseng and we will have this for lunch in a second.



Different types of ginseng



There was also slavery back in those days. Koreans would be brought to this region, then sold as slaves. Here is the price list. How much are YOU worth?

 

[Chicken]

One of the huts is guarded by a dragon and a phoenix.

This is on the left of the front door.



This is on the right of the entrance.



This is the other side of its face (still on the right hand side of entrance).



So, which one is male which one is female?

 

[Chicken]

What they dug up.



Traditional clothing of a passenger in Y.



Traditional clothing of J or F, or Y but DYKWIA.









This hole was where the king was buried and all the treasures. No one knows if how much did the Japanese take when they came and burnt this place down.