Nick of Koryo Tours gave us one more piece of caution. He said the North Korean and American governments are still at war in a sense, and this is the most Americans they've had in their country since 1953. So no funny business. Good point, Nick.
After one last chance to pick up gifts at the duty free shop in Beijing, we hopped onto another bus which would drive us out to our plane. All of us took a snapshot of the boarding sign. A rather embarrassing moment, as one of my fellow travelers remarked. For the next few days, you'd think we were all Japanese tourists at Disneyland.
As we were carried over the tarmac in our bus, all eyes were peeled for the Ilyushin soviet jet that would be our ride to North Korea.
The plane was quite a trip. I was sat next to a Polish man and a Malaysian aid worker. The Pole remarked to me rather dryly that his country only had one major air disaster on record, and it happened to be a plane similar to the one we were on. "It just dropped from the sky," he said. I gripped the arm rests a little tighter.
As we roared down the runway for takeoff, I could actually feel the plane veering to the left and right. But once at cruising altitude the ride was rather smooth. Fortunately no one had to use the special bag marked "for your refuses."
The rules were rather lax on board Air Koryo. Tray table down on landing? No problem. The flight attendants didn't even bother to take a seat, they were still collecting trash from passengers when we touched the runway.
As we exited the aircraft, we were greeted by the smiling portrait of an elder Kim Il Sung.
There is no other place on Earth like this. This is North Korea.
After passing through customs we were divided into four groups. Group A, B, C, and D. Each group held around 25 people. After being greeted by our respective guides, we were hurried aboard the buses to be driven into Pyongyang. Our guide immediately began by giving us a lengthy introduction to his country, but I think we were all too awe-struck by the passing scenery to actually focus on what he was saying.
There are only two hotels in Pyongyang that foreigners can stay in. Because the Yanggakto Hotel was apparently filled by South Korean tourists, we were all placed in the Hotel Koryo.
Reports that rooms are bugged, in my opinion, are false. My roommate and I did a quick check but we couldn't turn up any mics. I'm pretty sure they knew more or less how we felt about their politics, so why bother to record our conversations? At this point we had to be careful about how we spoke in the company of our guides or other North Koreans, but it's not like a team of secret police broke down our door when we spoke critically in the confines of our hotel room.
Regardless, our hotel was peculiar. The Hotel Koryo consists of two towers. Between the two, on what I imagine was the 35th floor, there is a walkway connecting them. The strange thing is, to my knowledge, nobody on our tour walked across it. It seemed very likely that tower two was completely shut down, for lack of occupancy.
Once while exploring on my own, I tried in vain to find some kind of access to the walkway. After walking to the 35th floor I was greeted by a couple of heavy locked doors. I couldn't get access to this floor in any way. Even the elevators refused to stop there. A little suspicious, isn't it?
By my count, there were three regular elevators and one service elevator for our tower, but there could have been more because there seemed to be one tucked away behind every corner.
They all moved very slowly so if we wanted to take the lift down, we'd push all the elevator buttons and wait for one of them to arrive, otherwise we'd have to wait around for a very long time. And it just so happened that the buttons were not connected like they are in other modern hotels, so each elevator had its own button and queue. So because of this rampant button pushing, on the way up or down we'd often make "ghost stops." The doors would open but nobody was there.
The people we saw step on or off the elevator least were North Koreans. Going up or down, between floors 20-34ish we'd make constant stops. Nearly every time it'd be somebody from our tour group. We came to expect it. We even began to craft a game around it. "Who will it be this time?" we wondered. For a brief period, Americans owned the Koryo Hotel. :)
The lobby of the hotel was quite beautiful. It was decorated with a variety of Christmas lights and other strange effects.
Todd, my travel partner in Beijing, and I decided to be roommates. We were given a room key for level 33, room 23. If you're ever in the Koryo Hotel, make sure to check out my old North Korean stomping grounds. The view from our room was fantastic. We really enjoyed the window -- just turn the handle and the whole thing swings open! Remember, we were on the 33rd floor. Fortunately neither of us had any suicidal tenancies.
Is anybody out there?
After taking a little time to settle down in our temporary home we were herded back together for dinner. From what I heard, we'd be dining at "Restaurant Number 3." It must have been the counterpart of Restaurant Number 2, which I later saw at the Yanggakto Hotel. If anyone finds Number 1, let me know!
We were taken upstairs to our own private floor, away from Koreans. It was like this at everyplace we ate. Most of us had never eaten traditionally served Korean food before so we were a little confused.
"How do we eat this...?"
After dinner we immediately headed over to May Day Stadium for Mass Games. No expense was spared in building this stadium. Our guide claimed it was capable of seating 150,000 people and it was definitely the largest stadium I've ever stepped foot in. Entering was like stepping into some fantasy Orwellian world -- the pre-show card flipping spectacle had already gotten underway.
Opposite the spectators, the stadium held thousands upon thousands of North Korean school children, each holding a booklet of colored squares. Each booklet must have contained dozens of unique colors. On command, the children would "flip" their cards to create enormous nationalist montages. The whole picture depended on the individual efforts of each student. Thousands of hearts and minds merging to create one -- so socialist.
Our guide told us on the way to the stadium that tickets ranged from €50 to €300. I expected him to up sale us, but he actually recommended the cheaper seats. And for being the cheapest price bracket, my seat really was pretty good -- 20 rows back, a little off center. It could have been a bit better, but certainly not €250 better! Apparently, one man from our group paid the full €300 and was sat next to a North Korean general in the prime seats. For each his own, I suppose.
The performance was truly amazing. You need to be there to appreciate the scale of this undertaking, photos just can't do it justice. But I'll try anyway. Here are some of my favorite from the show.
After the show we were given a few minutes to look around at a couple souvenir stands near the exit. They probably knew we were coming that night and seized the opportunity to unload posters, pins, and booklets on us. I bought a cool Arirang pin from the two nice girls pictured below.
And at that, our first day in North Korea was coming to an end. A few of us checked out the book store at Hotel Koryo before hitting the hay. The store offered a wide selection of works about the revolution and the glorious leaders. I picked up Kim Jong Il's "Guide to Cinema" and some Japanese war crime books.
These will be wonderful sources for the paper I'm writing at school about Korea. :)
Next: Sunday Morning
