One of the more touching moments of our trip was our guide, Ms Han, singing Arirang for us on our last night after nearly two weeks. According to Wikipedia, the song “is sometimes considered the unofficial national anthem of Korea.” Since the government requires tourists be accompanied by two guides plus a driver at all times and the guides communicate only the party line about North Korea’s history, politics, etc,[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

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.

Dozens of North Korean couples celebrate their weddings in a park with a giant statue of Kim Il Sung. Part way through, they start inviting us — Americans! — to join their parties (we think they thought we were Russian). Amazing insight to an intimate part of North Korean life.

If you want to see the most amazing kids, you might be surprised to find some in this country schoolhouse in North Korea. Yes, we only see what the government lets us see, and the government seems to have learned showing off its kids shows off a part of the country the world will love, but this did happen and it’s part of North Korea. Watch this video. You won’t[…] Keep reading →

Another reason visiting North Korea became one of my most educational and thought-provoking experiences, as well as of my travel-mates. This experience was too incredible not to include it on my blog’s main page (if you haven’t been reading my North Korea posts, click to see the videos I’ve been posting of my trip there last April — some inspirational, all educational). Our tour bus took us to a kids[…] Keep reading →