North Korean museums do things differently than museums elsewhere. First, I don't remember seeing art museums there. They seem to make museums for historical and technical things, like wars and subway systems. Second, instead of trying to present the history or teach understanding of the technology, its development, or the people who created it, they do two things: describe the involvement of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il and make elaborate, detailed dioramas of it. I shouldn't overstate things. They do show some historical things and technical things, but those don't seem their main goals. I'm used to inspiring kids being a major part of a museum. I didn't see that in museums we saw. Here is a video of a subway museum diorama…

Near Pyongyang's Arc of Triumph (bigger than the one in Paris!), we saw this boy with his mother at a county-fair type target practice contest. How could we not stop and watch the his calm determination and his mother's help shooting a rifle in the middle of town. The rifle only shot little corks, but it was fun to watch. Not weird, but just different than you'd expect to see in America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ2T9H05Xos

Kim Jong Il loved movies so North Korea has a small movie industry. Part of our tour was visiting the movie sets, which look like small parts of cities. I guess many movies have the same few sets. Today has a fun video of one of our group getting in costume and having fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT6kWHaTI8M

We discuss seeing North Koreans seeing Kim Jong Un speak for the first time, which he did while we were at a hotel the night before. They were utterly transfixed, some cried. His father, Kim Jong Il, spoke publicly only once in seventeen years in power. Now he spoke within the first weeks in power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbVrd7C-e8 Here is a quick view of a North Korean roadside entering a modest-sized city. We visited about a half-dozen cities and they all looked similar -- soviet-looking uniform buildings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j47ydkAYQCA

While we were stuck at the little state-fair-like celebration for foreigners, the elite and military of Pyongyang were participating in this: You may recognize the place as Kim Il Sung Square, where we were meeting and joking around with regular people just the day before. We did, however, get to see everyone streaming from the parade. Our bus couldn't move because we got stuck behind a road closing. First we waved to people from the bus. Here you see lots of friendly North Koreans and North Korean families exiting from the parade. We're saying the only relevant Korean we knew, which was "an yang hassimnika," which means hello. I understand that in South Korea it's formal, but standard in North Korea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XicbwYTr_yc Getting out of…