In 2017 we have taken six months off work to go travelling. Once we decided that Southeast Asia was our destination of choice, it soon became clear that we should begin the journey with a trip to North Korea. Having been to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea ten years prior to our 2017 trip, I was very curious about how much it had changed. And I was keen to experience this strange place where everything seems to be to big for it’s purpose again. July 2017.
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The Great Peoples Study Hall
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Traffic Lady
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Korean White Collar Workers
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Jill and the Late Kims
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Our Group of Adventurous Tourists
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Pyongyang Tube Stations are Rather Grand
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The Carriages are Old Berlin S-Bahn Rolling Stock
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With Impressive Chandeliers and Murals
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and a lot of uniformed station staff
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Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia
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Kims and flowers
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Pyongyang skyline
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group of girls dancing in a circle
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Workers at the plant
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The factory
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The Kims
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Koreans getting comfortable
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Middle school headmaster pointing at things
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Bernd in discussion with some very smart middle school kids
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Primary school head mistress explaining and pointing at things
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This is a cat
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We were shown computer classes
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English classes
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With singing
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Ballet
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With one poor girl left out
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and singing
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with stern supervision of the teachers
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and singing and drumming
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and under the watchful eyes of the Kims
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and Pulp Fiction style twisting
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8 year old kids playing ping pong
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and beating tourists quite easily
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Kim Jong Il doing the Usain Bolt
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The latest additions to the Pyongyang skyline
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Our local guide at the third most boring museum
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Let's go bowling!
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expertly done
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Jill posing with a bowling ball
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Building in the shape of a flag
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Aussie man doing the barbecue
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Lunch
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Night in Pyongyang
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Look! There!
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Our local guide in the museum of revolutionary science
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Big Kim pointing at something in said museum
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and on to the space section
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Local guide explaining space travel
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The latest satellite of the DPRK
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Jill on the bus
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Permitted haircuts for men
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Munsu water park
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Spot the white tourists
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Jill looking at a mural of the people worshipping the Kims
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Our local guide at the railway museum
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Health and safety is taken seriously
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They like a diorama in the DPRK which combines elements of a painting
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with real objects
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Our local guide at the children's palace
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and palatial it was!
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and ballet
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Playing the gayageum
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Playing the accordeon
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Embroidery
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Painting
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and volleyball
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but they did have a good diorama
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Packing our stuff onto the bus
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Military and school boys
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Jill at some old Korean king's grave
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In the DMZ
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Bernd with the friendly soldier
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An aphorism by one of the Kims cast in marble
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The DMZ
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Woman writing at the Korean history museum
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Bernd eating dog meat
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Look! There!
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we are on horseback like Putin
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Jill having a well deserved beer at the micro brewery
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Circus
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Acrobatics
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Bernd having a chocolate flavoured beer
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Stalemate day
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Mass dance
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abandoned due to bad weather
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Shooting range
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Local guide at the party foundation monument
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Party foundation monument
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yes, it looks like a penis
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Roadside weeding
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Inside the great peoples study hall
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Reading hall
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but not many readers
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Jill pretending to read a book in Korean
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Reading under the watchful eyes of the Kims
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The Juche tower and Kim Il Sung square
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Construction site
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Tourist trolley bus driver
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People in a regular trolley bus
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Us in front of a tourist trolley bus
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construction site
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Energetic guide at the war museum
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Ryogyong hotel
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This plane is kaputt
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Gardening with scissors
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Energetic guide explaining the fate of the USS Pueblo
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Kwak and Bernd
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Monument
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Camera man
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Last night of the tour in the karaoke bar of our hotel
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Our group and the Kims