Jul 122015
 

As I mentioned in the last post, after a long day of touring around Pyongyang we were taken to the Number 1 Duck Restaurant, which was promised to be a big treat. Contemplating dinner…and North Korean beer:

dprk-1611-B-boat restaurant

Final evening chat with the variety of interesting characters on the trip:

dprk-1617-B-boat restaurant

After dinner, it was back to the glamourous Koryo Hotel to crash. It was honestly reasonably comfortable, completely clean, even though the mattresses seriously felt like they were filled with straw:

dprk-1639-B-hotel room

The uninspired hallways…if you would knock on the walls there were clearly lots of hollow spots in them…we decided there must be secret compartments and one-way mirrors…

dprk-1644-B-hotel hallway

Final breakfast at the Koryo Hotel. What the food made up for in quality and quantity, they certainly tried their hardest with presentation…and bowtied waiters:

dprk-1648-B-hotel breakfast

Koryo Hotel lobby…note all the marble. Like old Soviet hotels, it was everywhere. I can’t remember if the pink flowers are Kimilsungia or Kimjongilia:

dprk-1651-B-kimilsungia

Goodbye Koryo Hotel…waiting for the bus to the airport:

dprk-1673-B-hotel sign jason matt

Busy city streets of downtown Pyongyang at 7am:

dprk-1685-B-empty streets

One last shot of the two towers of the Koryo Hotel:

dprk-1718-B-koryo hotel

Shot with our “tour guide” by the bus before heading to the airport:

dprk-1724-B-jason matt kim

Unauthorized secret photography on the way to the airport. Lots more people “risking” pictures at this point because, hey, what would they do, deport us?

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Goodbye from the Eternal Leader:

dprk-1935-B-airport road

Very busy day at Pyongyang International, with four flights arriving, including the two charters to take the visiting South Koreans home;

dprk-1972-arrivals sign

Waiting area, including a V.I.P. Lounge…unfortunately, they don’t accept Priority Pass…yes I asked…

dprk-2071-B-vip lounge

Waiting hall…all flights wait in the same room:

dprk-2083-B-departures hall

Inspirational reading on the walls while you wait for your flight. I wonder if Kim Il Sung would approve of the Kindle:

dprk-2092-B-sign

Sympathy might not be the word they wanted:

dprk-2095-B-sign

Our plane being prepared on the tarmac:

dprk-2101-air koryo P561

Walking down the stairs to the bus to take us to our plane:

dprk-2113-B-air koryo bus

So long Pyongyang!

dprk-2231-B-pyongyang airport

Boarding…was fun to get a different plane than the first flight!

dprk-2237-B-air koryo 561 Jason

Air Koryo flight 221
Pyongyang, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (FNJ) to Beijing, China (PEK)
Depart 9:30, Arrive 10:00, Flight Time: 90 minutes
Tupolev TU-154B, Registration P-561, Manufactured 1983, Seat 26D

The Air Koryo crew continued to photobomb my pics!

dprk-2279-air koryo jason

No doors on the overhead bins this time, just put your bags up and pray!

dprk-2297-B-air koryo luggage racks

On the takeoff roll. You can see all the bags in the overhead, and the flight attendant standing in the aisle and bracing herself by holding onto two seats!

dprk-2336-air koryo P561 cabin

The Air Koryo burger, and some kind of juice I think. The burger was actually surprisingly edible, but I have absolutely no idea what it contained!

dprk-2348-B-air koryo burger

Final shot of our plane from the gate in Beijing:

dprk-2360-B-air koryo P561

We had a few hours to wait for our connecting flight to Newark, and got some Starbucks in the airport and then just hung out in the lounge. Back then you needed a visa to even transit China, so might as well leave the sterile area of the airport and get some Starbucks while waiting!

Continental Airlines flight 88
Beijing, China (PEK) to Newark, New Jersey (EWR)
Depart 15:45, Arrive 17:25 Flight Time: 13:45
Boeing 777-200, Registration: ???, Manufactured ????, Seat 9A

Was absolutely and completely exhausted by this flight, and ended up sleeping a lot of it. So tired I didn’t even think to take any pics of the meal or anything unfortunately.

Continental Airlines flight 1153
Newark, New Jersey (EWR) to Washington, DC, National (DCA)
Depart 19:00, Arrive 20:15 Flight Time: 1:15
Boeing 737-500, Registration: ???, Manufactured ????, Seat 5E

Speaking of exhaustion, this is when it hit. Flew economy on the domestic segments because buying first on those would have been hundreds extra, and it wasn’t worth it for such short flights when you could get the bulkhead. Remember the days when Continental flew 737s 10 times a day from DC to Newark?

All in all, it was an amazing trip, and a fantastic opportunity to be part of the first group of Americans to be allowed into North Korea. We got to see a slightly less-polished propaganda machine that wasn’t quite certain what to do with us. I look forward to going back for a much longer trip so I am not so severely jetlagged for most of it, and we can see more sights. Especially would love to take the aviation tour!

Jul 052015
 

After walking around the city for a bit, caught an early morning cab to Beijing airport, where the monitors advertised it was true. Our 11:30 flight really existed, and it seemed we were really going to North Korea!

dprk-0097-B-PEK departures board

Found our group from Koryo Tours clustered around the Air Koryo check-in area, and did quick introductions all around. There were about 25-30 of us, all Americans, since this was a first-time 72 hour tour just for Americans. Check it was reasonably quick, boarding passes in hand, and we set off to explore duty free. But first, we stopped at left luggage to drop off a backpack containing our laptops and cell phones. We were told these wouldn’t be allowed in North Korea, and that we would have to check them at the Pyongyang Airport upon arrival. Rather than subject them to inevitable scrutiny during our visit by North Korean security services, we decided to just check the at Beijing Airport for a few days.

We’d been told it was customary to buy gifts for our tour guides to stay on their good side, and we were told the best gifts to buy were cigarettes, ladies moisturizer, and hand cream. Picked up one of each, included the first and only time I’ve ever bought a carton of cigarettes, and duty free gave us one of those “you may be a winner” scratch off tickets…and figures just when I don’t need to win anything I do…a Ferrari suitcase, lol.

dprk-0106-jason red bag

Cheap plastic, probably worth five dollars, but there was absolutely no way they were going to let me leave without taking it. So, instead, I decided to just haul it with, filled with my duty free stash. A few days later, it would be abandoned in the Pyongyang hotel room.

Got to the gate, where for some reason it had the wrong time for the flight. Note the 07:50 departure time, but the clock reading 11:28. It wasn’t delayed, it was just…a time warp…like everything in North Korea would soon be:

dprk-0112-A-JS222 departure sign

After a short bus ride, there she was, the aircraft that would take us to North Korea. I was a little shy about taking pictures, but there was no need. Nobody seemed to care:

dprk-0121-air koryo P881

dprk-0142-B-air koryo P881

Boarded through stairs, and the adventure was set to begin!

Air Koryo flight 222
Beijing, China (PEK) to Pyongyang, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (FNJ)
Depart 11:30, Arrive 14:00, Flight Time: 90 minutes
Ilyushin IL-62M, Registration P-881, Manufactured 1986, Seat 19B

One of the many flight attendants, checking boarding passes and directing people to their seats. One strange part was the 4-5 bulkheads in the plane, dividing it into many identical mini-cabins:

dprk-0145-air koryo stewardess

Waiting to find my seat with fellow American tourists…and photobombed by a very stunned looking flight attendant. Yes, I had 19B. Until this year was probably the last time I’d sat in a middle seat for nearly 10 years:

dprk-0154-air koryo jason

Not sure what’s in all those containers, but a rather huge galley area. Clearly reducing weight was no priority when building this plane:

dprk-0160-B-air koryo galley

You sit here:

dprk-0166-B-air koryo stewardess

Getting suspicious looks for taking so many pics during boarding:

dprk-0172-air koryo stewardess

In-flight, a pic of the main cabin from the washrooms in the back:

dprk-0178-B-air koryo cabin

Here comes lunch! Despite being only about 75 minutes in the air, a full lunch was served:

dprk-0184-B-air koryo stewardesses

Quite huge and impressive portions of foodstuffs of dubious origins. The pain was a sweet and sour chicken with pineapple in it, which was pretty good. I don’t remember if the drink was white wine or sparkling wine, but either way quite impressive how much they served. I didn’t want to risk serious intestinal distress in North Korea, so just nibbled at the cake and wine:

dprk-0190-B-air koryo lunch

All in all the flight was pretty uneventful, and the Ilyushin-62M was a fascinating experience. Pretty sure I’d been on one previously with Aeroflot in the late 1980s, but don’t have any records from that trip to prove it. The service by Air Koryo was polite and efficient, and considering they were dealing with Americans for probably the first time ever they were all still quite refined and not at all nervous looking.

Immigration was a pretty quick affair, and no passport stamps were offered. Our visa was several sheets of paper with everyones’ pictures and passport details on them, and it was pretty much one large group visa. Several people tried to get passport stamps, but there was no way to do it.

After arrival, milling around outside the airport waiting for our bus…and I still have the Ferrari bag:

dprk-0211-FNJ parking lot jason

Poster outside the airport advertising the Arirang Mass Games, the event we had all been invited to witness:

dprk-0214-B-arirang mass games poster

On the way to the hotel in our tour bus, we met our guides Mr Lee and Miss Yang. There was another “guide” who constantly sat in the back of the bus and never spoke to us, and we were told he didn’t speak English. He was, however, quite fond of getting upset and yelling at us frantically in Korean whenever he caught people taking pictures of things we weren’t permitted to photograph. Lee seemed to be quite a nice guy, and was fond of cracking really poor jokes, often related to building nuclear bombs and “America going to go BOOM hah hah” whenever anyone asked him a vaguely military-related question.

First stop on the way to the hotel was the Arch of Triumph, built to honour the Korean resistance to Japanese occupation from 1925-1945. One thing that was hammered into us over and over is no matter how much the North Koreans distrust America (and are going to invade and conquer it) they distrust and dislike Japan a hundred times more. The Arch looks suspiciously like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and is much larger…supposedly the biggest arch in the world:

dprk-0280-B-arch

dprk-0301-B-arch

Finally, we headed to our hotel, the Koryo Hotel. We had been told to expect the Yanggakdo Hotel, because it’s located on an island and at night they can close the bridge off to prevent you from getting off the island. However, we ended up at the Koryo Hotel instead. Rumour was because the rooms were better…connected…and was better able to monitor suspicious foreign guests. From the outside, it was a rather impressive structure:

dprk-0310-B-pyongyang hotel

We were given a bit of time to freshen up, before being taken out to dinner. It was described as hotpot, and we were given a plate of raw meet, noodles, and vegetables to cook in the hotpot. This came with several large bottles of North Korea beer, which was actually mildly decent. Never once did I get anything resembling food poisoning on this trip, so the hygiene standards must have been reasonably good:

dprk-0322-B-hotpot

After dinner, we were herded back into the bus, jetlagged all to hell since we’d just flown into Beijing the night before, and hurried off to the Arirang Mass Games. We were explained that for tourists there were three types of seats. Standard seats, which if I remember right were like 70 or 80 Euro, better seats right next to the field which were like 250 Euro, and VIP seats which were like 500. Since our guide couldn’t explain what make the VIP seats better, we all went with standard seats. If 500 would have gotten me a photo-op with Kim Jong Il I would have paid it in a heartbeat, but alas. Then, it was time for the main event!

Jun 252015
 

A reader posted out that I’d never posted this, and realized this trip happened way before I had a blog. I was sitting at home one night back in 2005, after I’d already decided I wanted to visit every country, and had decided that North Korea was going to be by far the most difficult because they simply didn’t allow American Tourists. Period.

I was reading CNN online that evening, and there was an interview with a British guy in Beijing who said he’d received permission to do the first ever tour of Americans to Pyongyang. Thinking it was a joke, I emailed him. Yes, it was for real, and they were leaving from Beijing. This didn’t seem real. At this point, I didn’t see any other way I’d ever get to North Korea, because for all we knew they’d shut the door again after this one trip.

That hasn’t really happened, however, but it still makes a great story to be part of the first group to go there in decades. I understand a scattered individual here and there had been allowed in prior, but never a group. North Korea would be my 34th country visited (seems so long ago) and it’s funny that even way back then I was worried about how I’d check off the “difficult countries.”

Tickets purchased, and literally 48 hours later we were off to North Korea. I’ll do my best to clear the cobwebs off my dusty memory, and tell as much of the story as I remember 10 years later. I have tons of pictures, however, and about 130 of them are worth posting I think. For that reason, I’ll split this into six parts:

I.  Washington DC to Beijing on Continental Airlines, 1 night in Beijing
II. Beijing to Pyongyang on Air Koryo, arrival in Pyongyang
III. Arirang Mass Games
IV. Trip to DMZ and Kaesong, return to Pyongyang
V. War Museum, Movie Studio, Pyongyang Metro, USS Pueblo, Childrens’ Palace
VI. Evening in Pyongyang, and Pyongyang to DC

Even though a trip to North Korea isn’t quite so unusual anymore, I hope you’ll enjoy!