Vacation North Korea

[Charon]

With all this vacation talk, I've always though North Korea would be interesting. A virtual time machine back to the heart of the 1950s cold war era. I pitched it to the wife for our honeymoon, several times in fact, but she didn't seem to think it was a good idea. These guys took the challenge in 1994 though.

It's scenic...

Most of the buildings that we saw on that short drive were just drab brown rectangular blocks, with the occasional Chinese-roofed structure placed amongst them to great effect. But every now and then we caught a glimpse of a pyramid-shaped, 1000-foot high building rising out of the skyline like a hulking grey Godzilla.

We had never heard of, or seen pictures of, this amazing structure, but our guides seemed oddly coy about it. They call it the 105 Building when completed, it will be the tallest hotel in the world. And this in a city that probably gets as many tourists as Chernobyl. When pressed, the guides disclosed that construction had started in 1987. Eight years later, it's still nowhere near finished. Apparently scurrilous tongues in the West (and the South) have been suggesting that the structure is unsound, so we were forbidden to photograph it up close.

historic...

The War Museum in Pyongyang serves to promulgate the North Korean version of the war. We were met by a stout museum guide who, like almost all of her colleagues in NK, spoke no English (our guides translated) and seemed to be delivering a memorized monologue. The tour took about 2 hours, but I think it could've easily have been shortened to one hour if they just said 'Kim Il Sung' instead of `The Supreme Leader Generalissimo Kim Il Sung' and `America' instead of `The Imperialist American Aggressor'.

One of our first stops was an entertaining light-animated map that showed the seesawing nature of the war. In the NK history books, it was the Americans who struck first, launching a sneak attack on Sunday June 25. To put it mildly, this seems unlikely. The North Koreans claim that the Americans poured military hardware into South Korea for years and then launched a surprise imperialist attack on the peaceful and defenseless North Korean peasants who were busy out tending their rice paddies. It was strange to see, then, that according to their map, the well-prepared American attack was halted by said peasants after progressing just a few miles over the border. The 'counter attack' had the victorious North Korean forces in Seoul by Wednesday. The museum proudly houses the first tank that entered Seoul - a Russian T-34!

When I remarked to the guide that this accomplishment seemed `incredible', she smiled and thanked me.

and then there is the nightlife...

The guides' snickering and guffawing reached a crescendo as the next portion of the meal [dog] was brought out. "This is the essence of the restaurant, the essence", they kept repeating, "You must eat this essential part most of all". They mysteriously called it "middle leg" but we soon figured out what it was. The shape was unmistakeable. As if on cue, a drunken Korean jumped up from the next table and started belting out a patriotic folk song on the karaoke machine. Was it all a dream?

http://www.travel-library.com/asia/north_korea/trip.bakker.html

Charon

[gofaster]

I like that anti-aircraft gun, complete with separate butt-stocks in case the imperialist Americans overrun the perimeter and the patriots need to arm the workers!

You might want to re-think your vacation plans, since it looks like NK is on the verge of nuclear war!

=====Blurb From Yahoo News (emphasis added by me)======
Standing in neat rows on a snow-covered plaza, tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied Tuesday in Pyongyang calling for a stronger military. The communist state said U.S. economic sanctions against it would lead to war. North Korea's saber-rattling came hours before the United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to urge Pyongyang to renounce its nuclear weapons programs if it wanted better ties with the rest of the world.

[Wlfgng]

should be easy to find.. they're the 'other' glowing spot on the map

[GRUNHERZ]

Magnificent!