All abandoned: Chernobyl / Pripyat, Nara Dreamland, Anti-Zombie Fortress, Japanese Sex Museum – and many, many more! Plus: North Korea Special – 2 trips, 16 days / 14 nights! As seen on CNN…
Everybody knows the Berlin Wall – but have you heard of the Korean Wall before?
According to North Korea the wall is 240 kilometers long, 5 to 8 meters high and packed with soil form the southern side (so it can be accessed by vehicles / military personnel) and it is completely invisible from South Korea. The United States and South Korea claim that the wall does not exist… but the DPRK is more than happy to show it to tourists.
We left the *JSA via the DMZ* and headed to the countryside; most likely northeast, probably for an hour. I tried to pin down the exact location of where we went to, but I failed. There are military posts on both sides of the DMZ every couple of hundred meters and it’s close to impossible to figure out with one we visited, so please consider the mark on the map a more or less wild guess.
Our driver parked the bus directly next to a small manned outpost and from there we went up a hill through a narrow trench like passage. Up there we found a rather flat building, partly hidden into the mountain, although the southern side very well knows what’s going on there…
What was going on? Well, a retired Colonel of the Korean People’s Army asked us to take a seat in surprisingly comfy chairs and told us all about the Korean Wall. How big it is, when it was built (between 1977 and 1979) and that it is slightly shorter than the DMZ, since there are openings at border crossings and at the Joint Security Area.
Afterwards we went outside to have a look ourselves. Sadly it was an overcast day and the visibility was everything but good, although the South Korean fortifications were less than 4 kilometers away. Even with the help of the ready to use binoculars and rather big zoom lenses it was impossible to clearly recognize the wall. The visible South Korean outposts were all on top of a mountain range and it looked like there was a wall or two below – whether it was a 240 kilometer long wall to separate the country or just a small construction to support the slope is hard to tell…
There is no frozen banana stand in the DMZ, dear Arrested Development fans! Which isn’t really a surprise, given that it’s not exactly easy to get bananas in the DPRK. Or chocolate. Or nuts. Or a freezer. Or a reliable source of electricity…
Nevertheless I kept my eyes peeled after watching the show’s final episode (of season 3…) for the gazillionth time – at the *Minsok Hotel* on a media player the night before going to the North Korean side of the DMZ / JSA.
I decided to not bore you with too many facts about the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), especially after I dropped way too many numbers and Korean terms in the previous article – there are plenty of ways to educated yourself about the Korean war and its end, and you probably know the basics anyway. Instead I would like to talk about how it is to visit the DMZ when in the DPRK.
First of all: People who say that they’ve visited the DMZ most of the time actually visited a very tiny part called Joint Security Area (JSA), the only portion of the Demilitarized Zone where soldiers from both Koreas get close to each other and don’t stand 4 kilometers apart – to the best of my knowledge tourists can only visit one other part of the DMZ: A lookout where you are supposed to see the Korean Wall. “The Korean Wall?” you ask? Yes, the Korean Wall. More about that topic next time!
I’ve never been to the southern side of the JSA, but I’ve heard it’s not exactly a relaxed trip. You have to sign a waiver (since there is a theoretical chance that you might be injured or killed…), groups are split by languages (sometimes prohibiting couples of different nationalities to go together), you have to apply several days in advance (some nationalities have to go through a background check), there is a dress code, you are not allowed to do certain things (like pointing at DPRK soldiers) and overall it seems to be quite a rushed experience.
Going to the northern side of the DMZ / JSA is actually quite laid-back. We went through a background check before entering the DPRK, none of us brought offensive clothes, no matter what nationality all of us spoke English, 80% of the previous locations were a rushed experience anyway and our guides knew we would behave properly without reminding us – and signing a waiver was not necessary. It felt like just another place to see, to my surprise without any photography limitations. Even usually off-limit motives like military personnel were no problem at all. Heck, our local guide in the rank of daewi, Captain, patiently posed for photos with everybody who was interested in having one.
Visiting the JSA from the northern side started a couple of kilometers northwest, pretty much at a distance where the DMZ technically begins. There everybody had to leave the bus at a military checkpoint for checks unspecified to us. The procedure took about 20 minutes – and to keep people busy there was a decent gift shop and a separate restroom building. When the buses were ready to continue the waiting groups got a little lecture about the history of the DMZ in front of a huge painted map. Meanwhile the buses actually drove about one hundred meters past a checkpoint and everybody had to pass through an opening in a wall next to the road (rows of two, like in school!) before boarding the bus again. (No metal detectors or being padded down involved…)
About 1.5 kilometers down the road was the first of two stops, a neatly gardened area with a building where the armistice was negotiated and the building where it was signed, now housing the North Korea Peace Museum. Located in the former village of Panmunjom, the buildings were specifically constructed to house the negotiations and the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement.
The second stop was the actual Joint Security Area, which most people visit from the southern side. First we visited a monument dedicated to Kim Il-sung reading and signing a document about Korea’s reunification on 1994-7-7, the day before his death. The signature plate is 7.7 meters wide, the whole monument 9.4 meters; and of course it is richly ornamented with Kimilsungias, an orchid named after guess who. From there we went to the Panmungak, the building for visitors on the northern side of the JSA, to take some photos and… that was it. There was barely any activity on the southern side and since it was a quiet sunny morning, the whole visit felt quite peaceful and slightly surreal.
People always seem to be so excited about visiting the JSA, especially those who step into North Korea for half a minute in one of the blue conference buildings on the border between North and South Korea, but after having spent six and a half days in the DPRK the experience was rather underwhelming; nothing in comparison to standing in front of *Chernobyl’s Reactor #4* or *having lunch with North Korean locals*. No disrespect to the incredible importance this place has in history, but to me the first stop was much more interesting than the second one…
The Koryo Museum in Kaesong was without the shadow of a doubt the historical and cultural highlight of my trip to North Korea.
As I mentioned before, Koryo was a kingdom on the Korean peninsula from 918 to 1392; the modern term Korea derives from that name. With modern day Kaesong (then Songdo, later Gaegyeong) being the capital for most of its existence (919-1232 and 1270-1392), it’s not really a surprise that a museum about Koryo is located in Kaesong.
The current day Koryo Museum is located at the Songgyungwan Academy since 1987 and houses more than 1000 artifacts from the Koryo period – and of course the academy itself has a very long history that dates back… to the Koryo kingdom. It started as the Taemyon Palace in the early 11th century and later became first an imperial guesthouse and then the Bureau for Confucian Doctrines. In 1089 it started to house the highest educational institution of the kingdom (for the children of state officials), the Gukjagam. In the early 14th century it was renamed Songgyungwan Academy and burned to the ground during the Imjin War in 1592, when Japanese troops failed to conquer Korea. The Songgyungwan Academy was rebuilt in 1602, so going to the Koryo Museum is impressive for the fact alone that you usually don’t have the opportunity to visit museums in buildings more than 400 years old…
Except for the missing English labeling (compensated for by a local and one of our regular guides) the Koryo Museum totally lived up to international standards, not only exhibiting countless artifacts, but also presenting plenty of photos, models and recreated places like a tomb. I’ve been to quite a few museums in my lifetime and this was definitely one of the better ones!
Even better than the museum itself was the gift shop in front / outside of the museum. Gift shops in the DPRK are more or less the same, but this one was amazing! It offered a huge selection of stamps (to collect and for use to send postcards to all countries but South Korea), a decent selection of art, quite a few different T-shirts, local ginseng products as well as… propaganda postcards and mini-posters! Most gift shops only sell photo postcards, but this one had about 40 different painted propaganda motives – anti-American, anti-Japanese, pro-education, pro-industry, pro-reunification; about a dozen of them available as mini-posters, slightly larger than DINA4. Luckily Sarah told us ahead of time, so I bought all the postcards I’ve sent to family and friends there, plus a few spare ones; but not nearly enough.
I actually regret only one thing about my trip to North Korea – not buying more stuff at that gift shop!
Dog meat soup was the most unusual dish I ate in North Korea – yes, dear canine lovers, soup with dog meat, locally known as boshintang or gaejangguk… But I guarantee you: nobody harmed your Chihuahua or Golden Retriever, so please get you blood pressure down again and don’t take it personal.
Eating dog meat (gaegogi) is one of the last few taboos in Western societies and honestly: I am a bit annoyed by it. I totally understand that a lot of people have a close, personal relationship with their dogs and nobody expects them to have their pets for dinner – but don’t look at people who eat dog meat as if they just butchered your first born child! Fact is: we eat smarter animals, we eat cuter animals, and we eat more endangered animals – leaving dogs out is animal racism! (Or rather “speciesm”? Hello, dear vegans, BTW… :))
Having said that let me tell you about my dog soup experience and why I won’t repeat it.
The second to last night of the *trip to North Korea* we spent in Kaesong. Dinner at the *Minsok Hotel* was good as always, but unlike the previous hotels this one offered dog meat soup as an additional optional course – for 5 Euros, which is a more than fair price by international standards (you can eat dog meat in most Asian countries, including Japan, prepared in all kinds of ways). Dog meat soup being a local delicacy and me not being an animal racist I gave it a try. My friends’ dogs always hated me and after them nibbling on my legs for 35 years I finally got the opportunity to get revenge and nibble on one of theirs… (Again, dogs eaten in Korea usually are Nureongi / Hwangu, specifically bred as livestock and not kept as pets!)
The soup came towards the end of the meal and in addition to dog meat had scallions, sesame seeds and some spices in it – a regular, rather thin grayish soup with some meat. On a small plate we received a spicy paste, most likely gochujang.
Before I even had the chance to try the soup its smell hit me – or rather its stench. Dog soup smells so bad! Basically like wet dog, I kid you not. Realizing that I’ve made a huge mistake I put the spicy paste into the soup and luckily the gochujang covered the smell and therefore most likely part of the taste, too – especially since the gochujang was quite hot in addition to smelling nicely. So in the end the soup tasted not nearly as bad as it smelled. The texture of the meat was a bit like chicken, the taste closer to beef. The broth was quite unspectacular and overall the taste was dominated by the gochujang; which was a good thing I might add, because I can only imagine what kind of taste adventure the soup must have been without the spicy paste! (There was another order of dog soup shared by two members of the group – their verdict was pretty much the same and they neither tasted the soup without the gochujang AFAIK.)
So will I ever order dog meat soup again? Highly unlikely, because I just didn’t like it – overall by far the worst dish I ate in North Korea. But I’ve heard that grilled dog tastes a lot better…
Korea’s former capital Kaesong was the next major destination on my itinerary, but before reaching the DPRK’s last city with lots of historical buildings surviving the Korean War we had a busy yet unspectacular day; most of the locations visited during that time I will talk about in the other locations article at the end of the series. (I already mentioned the lamb BBQ in the *Food For Tourists* entry the other day.) Since there is no direct highway between Nampo and Kaesong we had to go back to Pyongyang via the Youth Hero Motorway and then take the Reunification Highway (a.k.a. Pyongyang-Kaesong Motorway) south, making a stop at the “tea shop” mentioned in the Vice documentary. Just in case you saw it – the (unspectacular) building is a very basic highway rest, not a tea shop. And the “tea shop girl” has company now as there were two sales stands outside of the building both times we stopped there, although I can’t say for sure if Pun-Yun-Chi a.k.a. the original “tea shop girl” (pitied by countless Youtube comments) is still working there; heck the place was so unspectacular I didn’t even take photos or a video… And unlike claimed in the generally quite outdated documentary they are not waiting for six or ten months for customers! Even during both of our short stops (about 15 minutes each on May 2nd and May 3rd) we saw other tourist groups and local cars stopping there. Sure, only a fraction of customers a highway rest in North America or Europe has – but nothing like the out of thin air assumption made by Shane Smith, who IMHO tended to interpret everything he saw and experienced in the most negative way anyway. While it’s always a bad thing to jump to conclusions based on observations (especially when travelling alone and wondering why you are always alone…), it gets a bitter taste when it’s done to sell a product; in this case his documentary. I feel sorry that he and his cameraman had a bad time, but I think it was at least partly their own fault. Anyway.
Although built ten years earlier than the road to Nampo, the Reunification Highway is in much better condition, probably due its strategic importance, which was made clear by several military checkpoints (none of which we were allowed to take photos of) and countless tank traps – huge concrete blocks at the side of the road, some disguised as monuments, that can collapse onto the motorway in case of a foreign invasion. (I’m sure most of the bridges were rigged, too.)
By the time we arrived in Kaesong it was almost dark. What really struck me was the fact that the city didn’t have many lights. Maybe one in five apartments were lit, the rest was dark. The only construction lit up like a Christmas tree – the statue of Kim Il-sung on top of Mount Janam… (Interestingly enough some buildings had what looked like solar panels on their balconies. Not many, but still… Who would have thought that?)
The statue actually was our first destination the next morning after a night at the Minsok Hotel, but to the disappointment of all foreign visitors (…) it was closed since some people were cleaning the square in front of it – so we had a look at the city from a nearby viewing point; beautiful! When we came back to the statue we still weren’t allowed to see it, so to everybody’s surprise we were asked to board the bus to head out to the Koryo Museum since it was still too early to hit our time slot at the DMZ. And so that’s what we did…
The Chongsan-ri Cooperative Farm halfway between Nampo and Pyongyang was the second time that my fellow tourist group grew kind of impatient (the first time was at the rather boring Museum of Metro Construction, where taking photos was forbidden for no apparent reason). It’s the DPRK’s showcase farm and whenever you see tourist visit a “typical North Korean farm” with “typical North Korean farmers” you can bet that it’s this place; which is actually more than just a regular farm…
I think we all had a huge communication problem right from the start. When we drove up to the Chongsan Cooperative Farm it didn’t look much like a farm. We parked on a huge concrete parking lot in front of what looked like a museum, announcements in Korea coming croakily from age-worn speakers – we were waiting in the direct heat for a couple of minutes and nobody seemed to know what was going on. Instead of showing us some crops next we were lead up a gentle slope to… a statue of Kim Il-sung surrounded by farmers and their families. It turned out that the Dear Leader stayed at the farm for 15 days in 1960 and 84 times more afterwards, giving on-location advice and developing the “Chongsan-ri Spirit” (about leadership) in the farm’s honor; later being part of the Chollima Movement (promoting economic development) and the Juche Idea (promoting autarky). It also turned out that the building that looked like a museum actually was a museum, though I am not sure if that fact was made known on location – like I said, there was a huge communication problem…
From the monument we went back to the parking lot, past the museum and straight to some of the farm houses, where we were welcomed by a couple of playing kids and an elderly woman. Shoes off and in we went, taking photos that have been taken a thousand times before – of the woman with her grandson and twin kids on a couch, of the generously equipped kitchen, of the technical equipment on a decent level. On the one hand it was quite interesting, on the other it was completely pointless as this was an arranged photo session. Our hosts claimed it was a typical farmer’s house, but well, I guess it’s up to you whether you want to believe it or not. (BTW: I don’t think the house was much of an exaggeration since they didn’t put in a washing machine or a DVD player – and at least in Pyongyang DVD players must be quite common as, according to the latest rumors, the government has a serious problem with South Korean drama TV shows that seem to be quite popular among the North Korean population. DVDs and especially USB sticks make it possible to copy those shows to small and easy to hide storage devices.)
Afterwards we were able to have a look at a different (predetermined) house and then we waited for like 20 minutes at the parking lot to get the heck out of there – we didn’t see a single field or animal, although the farm is supposed to produce rice, corn and beans. We also didn’t have a look at the museum or some of the facilities at the farm, like the hospital, the cultural hall, the kindergarten or one of the schools on the premises. I really wonder what went wrong there, because it seems like the other group with the grumpy guides actually saw a lot more of the farm. Most of the information in this article I had to gather afterwards – and of course nobody mentioned the surface to air unit that was on the farm and just 200 meters away from the houses we visited…
The West Sea Barrage is an eight kilometer long system of dams, three locks (capable of handling 2,000 to 50,000 ton ships) and 36 sluices near Nampo. It was built from 1981 to 1986 to close off the Taedong River from the Yellow Sea – the goal was to prevent seawater from entering the Taedong, causing floods. At the same time the Taedong’s water level was supposed to be raised under controlled conditions to improved ship traffic and to make it easier to irrigate fields along the river. Critics claim that the raised water levels destroyed farmland, contributing to the famine that struck North Korea from 1994 to 1998.
Considered a major technological accomplishment the West Sea Barrage is a standard stop for international tourists as well as foreign dignitaries – nevertheless photography was strictly limited until a couple of years ago, since the dam was considered strategically important (if you watched the Vice documentary, this is one of the many aspects where it is completely outdated). Even the former US president Jimmy Carter visited the West Sea Barrage during his stay in the DPRK in June 1994. (Interestingly enough Carter arrived by boat, not by car – I assume you can guess why…)
After a good night’s sleep at the *Ryonggang Hot Spring House* we drove to the West Sea Barrage, more specifically: P’i Do Island, which was included into the dam’s construction. There you can find a visitor center, which is also home to the P’i Do Lighthouse, the tallest and most powerful lighthouse in North Korea, its focal plane at 86 meters. The tower itself is 33 meters high and shaped like an anchor, so it’s also a nice looking monument.
Visits to the P’i Do Lighthouse usually start with the local guide showing you a video tape about the construction of the West Sea Barrage (which was actually quite interesting, despite the fact that it was what most people would consider “a cheesy propaganda video” – nevertheless I liked it quite a bit!), followed by a Q&A session about the dam. Then you go outside to take some photos and leave when your group guides tell you to… The underwhelming opening to a generally slow day.
Nampo / Nampho is the center of the North Korean shipbuilding industry and has a population of about 370,000, making it the fourth biggest city in the DPRK; other important employers are the Nampo Fishery Complex, the Nampo Smelter Complex and the Nampo Glass Corporation as well as several sea salt producing companies.
My trip to Nampo began, like most trips there, on the Youth Hero Motorway, a 46 kilometer long expressway between Pyongyang and the industrial city on the north bank of the river Taedong. Construction started in November 1998 with the massive support of young Korean volunteer workers; hence the name Youth Hero Motorway. While on the highway Mr. Yu told us that he was one of the volunteers when he was a university student – you could read between the lines that it must have been an excruciating project for everybody involved… Opened in October 2000 the widest motorway in North Korea (5 lanes in each direction!) already is in really bad condition. At least half of it is full of potholes, so we were able to drive faster on most countryside roads. (A video taken on the Youth Hero Highway came with *the first article of this series*.) I didn’t have a look at the watch how long it took us to get from Pyongyang to Nampo, but I guess it was about 2 hours, probably longer…
Nampo itself looked a lot more like how most people imagine North Korea to be – a bleak industrial city full of decay, with a lot less of those colorful apartment blocks and post-futuristic buildings I loved in Pyongyang; the streets being in a lot worse condition, too. We never stopped anywhere within the city limits, but parts of Nampo would be a perfect location to shoot a remake of Michael Radford’s 1984. When we drove past the Nampo soccer stadium I thought that most of the abandoned buildings I visit were in better condition – the FIFA would never approve of that one! (A *look at GoogleMaps* confirmed that the stadium basically is a ruin…)
The sun was setting and it was a beautiful evening, but quite a bit of Nampo looked rundown and rather depressing. Some government buildings and the huge paintings of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il looked nice, but overall it was pretty clear that Pyongyang had priority over Nampo in many ways. I am actually a bit surprised that we drove through Nampo as there is a bypass north of the city center – so they could have avoided showing us stuff like the soccer stadium if they really wanted to… (I took some photos and both videos published with this article the next morning on the way to the West Sea Barrage, just in case you wonder about the different lighting conditions.)
The Ryonggang Hot Spring House (in most itineraries referred to as the “Dragon River Hot Spa Hotel” is not in Nampo city, but 20 kilometers northwest in a small town called Onchon – and like so many rather modern things in Korea it dates back to when the country was under Japanese occupation; which also might explain why you take off your shoes at the entrance and switch between house slippers, apartment slippers and bathroom slippers… The House actually is a resort, consisting of seven small villas with four apartment units each, and a so-called service center with a restaurant, a karaoke room, a pool room, and all the other usual stuff. Each apartment has its own private hot spring tub; the water is said to treat “hyperpiesia, non-tubercular arthritis, neuralgia, neuritis, lumbago, varieties of wound (sic!), sequelae of operations, chronic gynecologic inflammation, functional disorder of nidamental gland, sterility, chronic gastritis, chronic colitis, skin diseases including eczema and prurigo” according to the spa’s brochure. Speaking of the brochure – it was too large to scan as a whole since it was three big pages each side wide. So I scanned the more interesting two connecting pages on each side, leaving out the pages that mainly consist of water analysis data and tourist spots nearby.
Upon arrival Mr. Yu, Mr. Kim and Sarah started to set up the famous petrol clam BBQ *I wrote about in the food article*. By then it was pitch-black and rather cold outside, but the soju and vodka warmed everybody from the inside. Half an hour later the whole group went to the main building to enjoy dinner – a pitch-black dinner at times as Nampo, unlike Pyongyang, suffers from regular blackouts. But the food was good and the company was nice, so it was a really successful evening again…
Oh, one last thing about the Ryonggang Hot Spring House: The tree covered resort is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and the main entrance (facing open fields, not the town’s center) is guarded by an armed soldier – your guess whether he is there to protect guests from locals or locals from guests is as good as mine!
The human side of North Korea.
That’s what the title of this article should be, but I guess I’ll stick with the naming conventions I decided weeks ago – nevertheless the trip to the Taesongsan Park & Funfair was hands down my favorite part of the eight days / seven nights I spent in North Korea – although I most likely contracted food poisoning there…
After finishing the first ever *Fun Run* in the DPRK everybody went back to the *Yanggakdo Hotel* for a quick shower and some hearty breakfast. From there we drove to the Mansudae Memorial for a deep bow in front of two gigantic statues and a couple of photos of the area with a great view at the city, directly down to the *Workers Party Foundation Monument*; nice, but not interesting enough to deserve its own article.
The Taesongsan Park & Funfair are in the north eastern outskirts of Pyongyang, near the Pyongyang Zoo and the *Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery*, basically right next to Rakwon Station, the final stop on the Hyoksin Line of the *Pyongyang Metro* – nevertheless they are not marked on *GoogleMaps*.
People always say that there are barely any cars in Pyongyang, that the city feels deserted – not on May 1st near Mount Taesong! As soon as we got closer, traffic became quite heavy. Still nothing in comparison to any bigger in an industrialized country, but the traffic policemen were pretty busy and we actually had to wait at intersections. (BTW: Contrary to the internet phenomenon most of the traffic police are male, not female… about 2:1 or even 3:1 of what I saw!) There even was a taxi among the cars. Yes, a taxi! They have taxis in North Korea… The most crowded area was around Rakwon Station, where a constant stream of people left the metro system. Sadly most of the traffic and people photos turned out to be blurry or had window reflections in them, nevertheless I’ll include a couple of them to show you that there are people actually living in Pyongyang and that it is not a ghost town populated by a couple of actors who play “perfect country” for the handful of tourists who visit the DPRK every year…
The Taesongsan Park & Funfair is exactly what the name says – a huge park with lots of funfair rides. We drove about 1/3 into the park and when we left the bus our guides told us to everybody’s surprise that we could explore on our own and that we would meet about 40 minutes later. The announcement was borderline shocking since nobody expected anything like that. Yeah, we were told that we would be able to mingle with the locals on May Day, but everybody thought it would be a group experience. People bolted off in all directions, but I stuck with Jeff, Ben and Jimmie; having a feeling that this could be a great experience if I was able to keep up with Jeff (who had no intentions to shake anybody off!). But first the three decided it was time for a bathroom break, so all of a sudden there I was on my own, in a park in North Korea… completely unprepared, to be honest.
If this isn’t your first visit to Abandoned Kansai you know that I am not much of a street photographer – I take pictures of buildings, abandoned ones usually, to be more specific; not of people. And we were told not to take photos of people directly anyway. Which I ignored right away by taking a photo of one of those tent like food stands that spread all over the park and Pyongyang in general. (Privately operated, BTW! You have to apply for a license to run one, but that’s pretty much all I found out about them.) The woman running the tent immediately waved me over and I thought I was in deep trouble, but instead of yelling at me she had a big smile on her face. Before I knew what was going on I had a cold bottle of water in my free hand – and I had no idea how to manage the situation, because as I told you, we weren’t prepared for that. Was it a gift? Did she expect payment? But how could I pay without having any local money on me? (Foreigners are not allowed to have local currency, although they sell you notes fresh from the press on your last day at the Yanggakdo Hotel, at a ridiculous exchange rate though.) After a quite confusing (not to say panicking) moment I remembered that I had some sweets from Japan in my backpack, so I opened it and gave her some green tea chocolate – and everybody was happy. (It must sound trivial if you weren’t there, but it was a truly amazing situation to me…) Seconds later my fellow travelers showed up again and we continued our tour through the park. (And I found out that we can buy stuff from the tent stands with Chinese Yuan, although I thought it was forbidden for them to accept foreign currencies.)
I knew that it would be impossible to shoot a decent video with the whole group, so a minute later I went on a stroll by myself again, still trying to reflect what just happened. So I walked around for about 10 minutes and as you can see in the video – just a normal park with normal people enjoying themselves.
By the time I got back to my new friends from the States, Canada and Australia the next big thing was going on already. I saw Ben and Jimmie, but Jeff was nowhere to be seen, just some dozen local kids crawling over a table… and Jeff. While I was gone my American buddy sat down, took out his tablet and started to play a flight simulator; much to the interest of almost every Korean coming by, especially the kids. It was amazing! I’ve never seen that many smiling and curious kids at the same time, even a couple of adults stopped by to find out what was going on. Including Mr. Yu, who kind of broke off the spectacle… which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Mr. Yu was clearly uneasy about the situation, so I talked to him for a minute or two while Jeff headed deeper into the park – I followed shortly after and reunited with the rest of our mini group.
As I mentioned in a previous article, the Taesongsan Park is a popular spot for BBQs. A blanket, a gas heated pan plus lots of food and alcohol. Fun for the whole family. Dozens, probably hundreds of groups were spread all over the park, enjoying the blessing of a late spring under still blooming cherry trees. It kind of looked like home (which currently is Osaka, Japan), it felt like home. We were passing by quite a few groups when Jeff decided to approach one of them, us three still in tow. Almost instantly Jeff was offered a seat and before we knew what was happening all four of us sat down. Jeff gave me 20 Yuan and asked me to get some beer – I tried to find some at the food tents, but since I don’t drink beer I didn’t even knew what it looked like; of course nobody there spoke English. Except for Mr. Yu, whom I met again, but only for long enough to find out that we would meet half an hour later than planned since everybody enjoyed themselves so much.
With good news (but without alcohol) I returned to the group and sent Jimmie on the beer mission. By that time Juliette came by and was invited to join everybody, too.
The group we joined was a big family, at least three generations from toddlers to grandma. Jeff was in his element, showing pictures on his tablet to our hosts, introducing everybody, translating parts of the conversations – and what got lost was made up with nice gestures and big smiles. By the time our bottoms hit the ground we had chopsticks in one hand and a paper cup of soju in the other. Meat was sizzling in the pans and the scarf wearing grandma next to Juliette was cutting up delicious baechu kimchi; from a big plastic bag, the napa cabbages still in wholes.
Those 10 to 15 minutes we sat with that group of locals was the best time I had in the DPRK and I still don’t know how to describe the way I felt. (Not only myself, but everybody involved – we talked about this experience for the rest of our trip.) I grew up with a certain image of North Koreans, which is probably pretty similar to yours. Partly based on North Korean material (like parades, official news reports, interviews with average people after Kim Jong-il died), partly based on Western media portrayals – and here I was eating and drinking with (random!) locals on a sunny day in a beautiful park in Pyongyang; sharing THEIR food after THEY invited us. The nicest, most open-minded people I’ve ever met. Not a single negative word, not even a single negative vibe. Jeff, him being American by definition an oppressor and arch enemy, was actually the most popular one of us. Those people were nothing like the image I had of North Koreans before the trip! There was no way they could have been nicer or could have made us felt more welcome…
(Of course we didn’t take advantage of the situation and contributed some bottles of beer as well as sweets we brought from our countries to the feast. BTW: When our Austrian group members Anton and Veronika passed by halfway through our time there, our hosts invited them over, too – nobody was left out, everybody was welcome!)
All good things must come to an end, so after a while we had to leave to get back to the bus, but not without Jeff chatting up some more people on the way, all of them reacting very friendly and interested. Sadly I didn’t get a good end, but a rather bad one. I was feeling a little bit under the weather all day, but it got worse on the bus ride to the city center, where we had lunch on a boat. By the time we sat down I was freezing and sweating at the same time, feeling seriously sick. With Jeff’s help I was able to lie down in the cabin of a crew member and when I got up again I almost fed the fishes across the ship’s rail – luckily my stomach was almost empty and my body seemed to appreciate the gesture. I was feeling a bit better, nevertheless I stayed in the (boiling hot) bus while the others explored Moranbong Park for more interaction with locals; afterwards everybody said Taesongsan Park was way better since this time it indeed was a group experience again. I guess I picked up an undercooked piece of bulgogi and contracted food poising, which I literally sweat out for two hours or so. Which was another blessing in disguise as the evening bus ride to Nampo was the shakiest and bounciest you can imagine, but that’s a story for another time. (Oh, and just in case you wonder – although I could have done without the food poisoning, it was totally worth the experience at Taesongsan Park! No regrets whatsoever…)
“Fun Run” is an oxymoron, at least to me. I hated running at school, I hate running to catch the last train (and if it isn’t the last I usually don’t run and wait for the next one…) and I especially hate running during *urban exploration*, after all the main topic of this blog. So when I read in the itinerary of my trip to North Korea that one of the (optional) items on the agenda would be a fun run I completely ignored it. It wasn’t until after I booked the tour, actually until after applications for the tour closed, that I started considering joining the fun run. It would be a new experience, it would be for a good cause (minimum donation: 20 Euros) and let’s be honest, when do you get the opportunity to go running in Pyongyang?
The 2013 Pyongyang Fun Run actually was a world premiere. There is a regular Pyongyang marathon, but this event was the first charity run in North Korea. Originally it was planned to have a 5k version and 10k version, leading from the Ryanggang Hotel through Pyongyang’s “sports district” (where most of the competition venues are) to Kwangbok Street. But things didn’t go according to plan and when the organizers found out that a renovation project in the sports district was starting just before the event (and a group of tourists running through a camp of army construction workers wasn’t an option…) the 10k version was axed and a new route was found: along Taedong river, from the former site of the American spy ship USS Pueblo past the *Yanggakdo Hotel* to the city center at Kim Il-sung Square. (*Click here for the exact route on GoogleMaps.*)
Since the Fun Run was optional and we had a tight schedule for the day (May 1st, one of the most important national holidays in North Korea – guess why…) all participants got an early wake-up call – 6 a.m.! A blessing in disguise as I was able to take one of my favorite shots from the window of my hotel room, sunrise in Pyonyang… beautiful!
Originally I intended to run the whole distance with a couple of brief stops for a photo here and there, but after I found out that some people would rather do a Fun Walk I decided to join that relaxed group and take it easy – a smart decision as I woke up slightly sick. Instead of my usual DSLR I brought a pocket camera. Less weight, less “threatening” – photography is treated differently in the DPRK as you know by now.
Although my fellow group member Juliette and I usually were at the rear end of the runner field I never had the feeling that we were under supervision. Every once in a while I saw a Korean guide standing around to show us the track (we started running / walking on top of a small dam along Taedong River, but to avoid bridges and roads sometimes we had to go down to the road north of it or to the waterside promenade to the south). It was early in the morning on a national holiday, so the streets weren’t exactly crowded, but I passed pedestrians or got passed by cyclists on a regular basis – it felt like a genuine morning stroll in a country that is nicknamed “hermit kingdom”. I guess I should have tried to “escape” to find out how tight supervision really was, but I didn’t feel supervised at all – and if I would have been able to speak Korean it would have been easy to make contact with locals. I took a small video with the pocket camera, too – maybe you will be able to demask all the secret service agents I wasn’t able to see; probably because I was too busy enjoying the experience as the weather was great and the atmosphere was tranquil.
Now you might ask: What’s the point of a Fun Run that hardly anybody sees and that had only about 50 participants, none of which were regular locals?
Well, first of all: Those 50 people (and non-participating donors) raised about 2000 Euros to buy milk powder for an orphanage in Nampo – that alone would be reason enough to organize an event like that. But I don’t think it was the main reason why Koryo Tours did it. I think they organized the Fun Run to once more push the boundaries. Some people took the run very seriously, others (like myself) basically went for a stroll, so by the time the winner reached the goal the starting field must have stretched over two or three kilometers – too much to supervise with a dozen helpers or two. Since the track wasn’t closed off the runners and local people mixed, a first in the DPRK. North Koreans don’t see many foreigners – let alone see them running through the city, feeling the wind of change in their hair. Okay, let’s not overestimate the importance of this event. It still was just a fun run. But many events in history started with only some dozen people. Maybe next year there will be 100 people running, the following year employees of the Yanggakdo Hotel might be allowed to join and one day regular locals – you never know…
And even if not, it still was a great experience for all participants. It was just nice to walk around, to see locals interact with each other, to take photos from a different perspective other than from a bus or from a building. To hear the wind in the willow trees, to swallow a couple of bugs that were swarming everywhere along the river, to see locals spread herbs to dry in the warm spring sun, to have a moment for yourself without seeing any guides or fellow travelers. To pay attention to details – even though I had spent three full days in Pyongyang I never noticed the solar powered street lights, because on a group tour there is almost always somebody talking, there is almost always something to see. Yet I missed the solar panels. Nothing worth mentioning in most countries, but if anybody would have told me “Pyongyang has solar powered street lights!” I probably wouldn’t have believed him. But see for yourself, they are visible on quite a few photos I took that morning.
When I first found out about the Fun Run I completely ignored it – luckily I changed my mind and took part, as it was one of the highlights of my trip. If you ever go to North Korea and have the opportunity to join… do it! You’ll make memories for life!
Abandoned Kansai 