I´m going to North Korea (updated)

Sound really cool! Make sure you rent a bike and go around the island of Bohol. Good roads, Asian trafic rules, but not very crowded. Some of the hills there are an amazing ride. You can go see the Chocolate Hills and the Tarsier Sanctuary if you're interested. Should be plenty of time to scuba too you're so lucky, I want to go back! The western Islands are amazing too if you have time next round. Probably the most scenic

Yeah it's definitely excessive. But like you said, different country and different rules. They sell propoganda in the hotel which you can bring home legally, so they regard it a crime against state property. Such a stupid thing to do, one would think he could contain himself while there, if only for one short trip. Same goes for the stupid missionary who insisted on leaving a bible in the hotel where no North Koreans stay anyway. There is one religion in the country and that is "juche" - the state and its leaders. Why even bother...
I'll leave my phone and laptop back home, and only have new and empty menory cards for the GoPro and camera so they have nothing to conplain abaout when I get there. If they wish to delete some of the pictures before I go, so be it, its not uncommon if you have accidentally taken a picture that cuts a statue of the leaders in half etc. That's usually not a problem as long as you delete it and retake it if you want to

So, just got back. Damn was that ever interesting and intense. Sort of lost for words. I have seen and heard some of the craziest stuff this past week. Including celebrating new years with party members, being invited to sell car wash equipment to NK, drunk singing Metallica on the bus as punishment for being 2 mins late one morning. And the helicopter ride was simply awesome.
I also got to see the dead embalmed corpses of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Un. There is so much to write and tell but I'm on the bus to work, so I'll post some pics for now. And rather answer any questions if anyone is interested. Typing on the phone is tiresome. More and better pics to come.

I need some tech help btw, all the pictures won't upload dispite the SD card is ok and Mac says they were uploaded. The best ones from the heli-ride aren't in my library for some reason.

No, no pictures allowed in thw mausoleums. Which is a shame because there is so much crazy stuff displayed there.
One guy on my tour said as we rounded the corner and saw the statues "well, I know one family with small dicks". I laughed so hard yet got kind of worried someone heard it as there were people everywhere on the square

Ok, I'll give it a try from my phone, the macbook freezes up on both chrome and safari when trying to upload pics.
Krallang: I just do it from the standard pictures app on mac. It was new in June so no idea why it doesn't work.

Please excuse typos, typing on the phone is not my strongest point, missing characters etc.

So, I flew in from Beijing. Treated myself to a suite at Shangri La next to China World Towers, as I knew luxory wasn't going to be expected the following 6days. I have expedia gold membership so I often get free upgrades and other goodies - it helps when traveling. When I backpack I choose hostels - cheap and easy and perfect for getting travel companions or share experiences. In NK you can't decide where you want to stay or go, so this trip was different.

Boarded Air Koryo's flight JS151 for Pyongyang and got to experience their TU204 plane (basically russian B757). Very comfortable plane and the quitest plane I have been on except for the A380. Felt like it made less noice than the dreamliner during take off too. In flight about the same. Comfort - ok but looked like an old DC10 interior wise. Decent to Pyongyang was weird. The stewardess announced it and we went into a loud dive and what felt like 5 mins later we landed.

Customs was easy and we drove through the city on the way to the Yanggakdo hotel, which is placed on a small island in the city centre. You can not leave it on you own.

The hotel is from 1995 and totally weird. There are shops and old Soviet spas located in the basement which is like a maze, and some entrances or doorways are like what you see on Nat Geo from the pyramids. Tight and cramped, you feel like you are somewhere you shouldn't be, but it was the only pathway.

The city itself is being modernized and looks like a poor version of Beijing. However it has some amazing communist sights which makes you feel like you are a spy behind the iron curtain. Few people but everyone is employed. Go into a store and 5 people hand you the one item you want. Very strange. Shops have few of each item, but they are never empty. Most of the items are not made in NK, so I think someone out there makes billions by importing primarily Chinese, SK and Japanese goods to NK.

We had guides all the time with us, and one minder from the government who minded the minders. He was called Mr Lee and was a nice guy to us. Strange and watchful, but nice.

We got to ride an Mi17 over the city which had interior decoration which included rose carpets, wooden door to the cabin, wall clock, old sofa and a wall mounted a/c. We could take as many pictures as we wanted at the airport and from the helicopter, which was strange. But the airport is new so they are keen to show it off. It's not a pretty airport, with lots of strange shops, random goods for sale and no people except employees.

The Mausoleum was the strangest. Huge with little content except for two dead bodies, an old railcarrige from Kim Il Sung with the biggest wall map to show of where he had traveled by train and by plane and total distance. I counted like 10 places and thought "wtf?!". We had to keep quite and bow before the dead leaders which was strangely awesome. I kept singing "i'm so wronwry" from Team America in my head as I bowed to Kim Jong Il.

We went to a "beer festival" which sounded very man-bun-hipster-like, but they had one tap with 7 options and roughly 10 beer glasses. The beers were called 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. We got dried fish and vinagre dip with mustard with the beer. And then ice cream afterwards....

I'll poat some pictures and write more later, my bus stop is coming up. Feel free to ask questions in the meantime

Yeah, the Rui Hotel I believe it's called. Started building in 1987, and halted in 1992 due to the collaps of the soviet Union. Restarted in 2008. It's basically an empty shell for now. Funny story, the NK's think revolving restaurants are the shit. So they were bragging about the one on top of my hotel. But then said that it was nothing conpared to the Rui hotel which will have 5 revolving restaurants(!) That's typical of how crazy NK is, they do stupid or pointless things and think its awesome.

Now, the war museum was something to behold. NK still believe they won the Korean war, and keeping the threat alive keeps the people obedient to their leaders. So America is only pronounced as the "American imperialists", and the museum is huge!! It is also devited to the "anti Japanese struggle". They recently opened up a newer and bigger section which had the weirdest stuff in it. Alternative history for sure, and they spendt a great deal of money on artistic portrails etc in it. They showed US airplanes and equipment their forces had captured from fleeing American imperialists. Funny thing was all the planes were wrecks and had been shot down, not cought from fleeing. You can see the propelleres have visible markes from crashing and are total wrecks. The jet pictured "had been shot down by women". One expo had a battlefield with tons of US bodies, one blond guy stood standing up at the front looking beaten and utterly miserable among his dead friends. Next to him lay his buddy with his toungue hanging out and a crow eating his eye. The speakers in the room only played the sound of a crow picking at the eye. Totally crazy to see. But no pictures were allowed to be taken inside the museum, only outside. If you google it you may or may not find a picture of that one particular absurd scene.

They also have an Arc De Triumph in Pyongyang to commemorate their victory, and for good measure it is two meters taller than the one in France, which they of course made sure to point out many times.

The main Metro stations are very nice, like in most soviet countries. They were built far below ground and can act as bomb shelters from nukes. Once inside the carriges they play loud communist music praising the dead leaders and Kim Jung Un.

The two dark beers where exactly the same, except one was served at 10Degrees Celcius, and the other (no 7) was served at 16C

Thanks!
Yeah parts of the river through Pyongyang had ice on it.
Did not go into any factories, but saw quite a few from the outside. Also went to a town built around iron mines and factories. Very strange, bad lighting and looked miserable and dead

Thank you, it's fun to be able to share it on here too! I can take some pictures of merch I got there soon. Really cool stuff

Ok, so here is an actual video of the helicopter ride over Pyongyang. A really nice German guy made a vlog, I thought it was quite well made. Such a sick experience! as you can see we are all pretty hung over from heavy drinking the night before, but it was the perfect hangover cure
https://youtu.be/Bu7Jpl20Dd0