DPRK

Tupolev or "Crasholev", as we cleverly joked, "dropped" us safely to Pyongyang.

As we arrived to the Pyongyang "international" airport, left our passports and mobile phones to the border control, we met our guides/guards, attractive Mrs. Key and charming Mr. Lee. The guy second from the left is Mr. Driver.

While looking at this picture of us and a young school girl, I will make an awkward transition to rules. If I'd have to say one advice for timetravelling in DPRK, it would be, that follow the rules. Trust me, you don't want to know what happens, when you do not obey the rules. The rules will be explained to you more than once for sure. 

In a few words, Pyongyang is a colossal city, with lots of all sort of monuments and effective architecture displayed. One thing, that makes the city abnormal is the absense of traffic, which of course is a good quality.

View from our hotel balcony. Don't look down.

At first we were a little bit suspicious and regretful, that we ever came to this country, ...

..but soon we realized, that they had alcohol in DPRK-beers too and everything was good.

We visited an amusement park in Pyongyang. It was seriously scary shit. We took a ride in a gigantic swing, that went 180-degrees up in the sky. People at the ground were screaming in horror to let us down. Unfortunately we don't have any better pictures, because our photographer thought we were going to die and stopped shooting pictures. Total madness!

DPRK waiters tried their best to smile at us, but it was understandably hard, because we were ignorant imperialists. We discussed about DPRK's food shortage and ate three times a day five-course meals. No conflict there.

We chilled with a DPRK army colonel at the DMZ.

At the DMZ, we also discussed some tactical military shit with a high-ranking officer and spotted few South Korean guard-posts with binoculars.

At Pyongyang we visited a US Navy ship, that was taken by the DPRK. We got to pose with the captain who captured the ship himself. He had an entertaining story, how he enslaved the crying americans.

We shared intimate moments at our hotels sauna.

One night I was trying to get some quality sleep, while the guys were getting drunk. For some unexplained reason the guys attacked me. Luckily, the DPRK officials have recordings from the hotel room, and the insanity will be revealed to the public.

At some museum in Pyongyang, this crazy military lady made us count how many dead american soldiers we see on the panoramic painting.

We visited a huge school in Pyongyang, which was said to have some exceptional young students. We visited lots of classes in the school, such as this computer class. One kid at the back-row was apparently playing the legendary Space Invaders.

We went to a concert in the school building as well. Singers had a competition, who can get the highest pitch. Painful for the listeners and for the singers as well.

What the fuck are you doing? Just give the flowers to any child and get back over here. You're getting us sent to a concentration camp.

To the top floor! We explored our mysterious hotel by visiting other floors. It was a bad idea, because apparently there were no electricity in most of the floors and guards were lurking in the dark aisles of the floors. We also tried to escape the hotel in the middle of the night to go out and sing some karaoke. It was a clear no go and there was no arguing about the subject.

We were left with no choice, but to sing some improvised karaoke at the balcony of our hotel room. It was a good idea to fool around at the balcony at night time, because at day time you could see to the ground and realize, that the ledge was only 40 cm high and it's about 20 stories to the ground.

So, while I'm sipping this delicious tea, I gotta wonder, did we get the insiders tour to DPRK? No we didn't, we scratched the surface and under the polished surface, there probably are some disturbing secrets hidden. Although, if you disregard the obvious faults, you might discover, that there's a beautiful Korean culture concealed in the DPRK people, that deserves to be treasured.