Day 6, Sunday May 5, 2002

We left Mount Myohyang in the morning, returning just in time for lunch.

On the way, Mr K allowed us to take pictures off the bus wherever and whenever we pleased, so he must have realised that we were a trustworthy, non-troublemaking group. And we were anyway! We had come to see weirdness and weirdness we got, but we were polite about it and had taken quite a liking to the guides individually, who we did not want to offend.

Flags in a field

Ox Cart

After lunch we were joined by Nick, who'd spend the afternoon with us and H from Sweden was back, who had been taken so ill that he had to miss the trip to Mt Myohyang.

At least ten of our group of 17 were at some point during the week affected by an upset stomach. H so badly in fact that he not only missed the trip to the mountains, but was even taken to hospital in an ambulance and spent the night there. Thankfully he was OK now and told us of his experience. The NK had obviously been quite concerned about his well-being and four nurses were looking after him. He said himself that maybe they took it more seriously than it probably was. The hospital was a cadre hospital, clean, but with a 1960s look about it.
When Nick visited him he had to wear a white coat and mask.
The whole experience was a bargain at $99!

I don't know what may have caused the upsets, because various people were ill throughout the week, not all at once, say after one bad meal. The other group wasn't affected at all, so I wouldn't want to say the food was unsafe to eat. I enjoyed the food mostly, only when they tried something Western they obviously didn't know what they were doing and those were dishes I skipped... Be prepared though and bring Imodium, just in case!

First stop on the afternoon's agenda was the much anticipated Book Shop. So far we had only seen the hotel book shop and the various souvenir shops at the sights we had visited. This was more of a dedicated book shop on everything NK had to offer. Still, it wasn't large at all, see picture, but reasonably well stocked nonetheless. Nick had arranged, following popular demand, that hand-painted versions of those fabulous propaganda posters you see everywhere would be for sale. It was feeding frenzy when the assistant brought them out. Thankfully there were pleny to go round and I got myself a couple of nice ones. Those, plus a larger, also hand-painted, Arirang poster have now pride of place in my study and hallway.
One of the books was more of a catalogue actually, listing virtually everything that NK produces for export from ammunition for sports rifles to garments and shoes to turbines, it was in there. At $53 however it was a bit too much for me though. Maybe next time...
Other books were the usual fare of KIS and KJI penned tomes on Juche, children's stories, tourist guides. Interesting, but not very...

Bookstore

NK does a range of 3D postcards, which are so bad they are almost good! I got myself a small handful. So when I saw a larger version of this type, depicting KIS in front of a lake, I could not resist. Or rather, I picked it up and then resisted, thinking 'Don't be so stupid, what you want that for!', but walking to the check-out I just could not fight it and ran back for it. I still don't know what to do with it. It won't fit into the album and it's too ghastly to be hung anywhere visible, but still, I'm glad I got this piece of Northkoreana!
They also did any number of CDs and videos and they were fantastic. It probably doesn't matter which one you choose as they're all very much of a muchness.

I got myself Songs Of Korea Vol 7, every one of its 13 tracks a priceless gem with titles such as Pyongyang is a Scenic Paradise, Let's Enrich the Communist Economy First with Rice, Let's Farm Well This Year a Asked by the Rural Theses, Happy in the Party's Embrace, The Enthralling Street of Changgwang and of course Mine is the Best Country. This is actually quite a good CD for easy listening and I still put it on every now and then.
The fold-up inserts even gives the lyrics. If only I read Korean!
Another one I got was Korean Film Music (Music for TV play) Vol 20. Not so keen on that one. Titles include Youth Is the Days of Devotion to Motherland, Trust Me Motherland and intriguingly Trust Us Motherland. This CD is as boring as it sounds. As I said earlier, NK TV is dire and this is what they play inbetween programs, with lyrics to sing along and images of mountains ranges, wildlife or glorious soldiers.
The third one I got is another must-have, namely the Korean People's Army Merited Chorus, Volume 7. Led By You We Will Win, Snowflakes Falling from the Night Sky and Our Comrade Kim Jong Il.
Love 'em!

CDs

For Sale:
CDs as above	$15.00 each
'Pyongyang' Multimedia CD (Windows 95/98)	$35.00
DVD containing 250 songs in mp3 format (1 DVD or 2 CDs)	$50.00
Video tapes containing 3 hours of DPRK Television (two versions) - PAL format only!	$30.00 each
Payment: cash or Paypal - EMAIL ME

 

 

 

 

 

As it is just over the road and because we had asked to see it, we were allowed to also pop into Department Store Number 1.
I read that such stores are out of bounds to foreigners and was very surprised to be able to wander around freely while inside, taking pictures and buying stuff. The fact that they accepted Won only suggests that indeed they're not geared towards foreigners.
Have a look at these pictures for an idea what the place is like. I found it very interesting (of course). In some way it's not unlike the stores I saw in China 12 years ago, and they were more modern then than this one was now.
The merchandise was all behind counters, nothing like department stores in the West where you can pick things up and examine them.

Department Store #1	Counter	Toy section display
Wooden machine guns in the children's toy section	Display decorations	Men's suits (we never saw anybody wear such suits)
A bunch of customers in the men's suit section...	The taxidermy department	Children's clothes
		(All these are stills taken from the video I shot, so picture quality is not as good as from a photo camera.)
Sports section, Badminton shuttlecocks	Counter

It was not at all busy. Thinking about it now, the store was open on a Sunday afternoon, as was the book store! Surprising!
Brave K and D bought a stuffed bird in the taxidermy section, which baffled the sales girl judging by the trouble she had finding a way to wrap the bird up securely.
The toy section carried a range of crudely made cars and machine guns (!), carved from wood and hand painted.
The Badminton shuttles were very poor. Seeing that I play with Chinese-made ones often, these really didn't stand up to comparison.
There was a cosmetics as well as a records section. The latter only carried vinyl and only of Korean music. Imagine for a minute: you want to go shopping on a sunny Saturday afternoon and you pop into the music section of your local department store: 'Have you got anything new in?' and the sales girls says 'Oh yes, My Country is the Best, Happy in the Party's Embrace and I Love an Unmarried, Disabled Soldier have just come out!' ??
[I kid you not, they all do exist!]
What a country! That's your choices, always, week after week after week! Life in NK might be more bearable if there was a bit of variety, but there just is not, in anything!

The place was decorated throughout with Christmas type light chains and NK flags hanging from the ceilings. Unfortunately I had hardly any Won on me and therefore only got one of those small flags, otherwise I might have considered a couple of the toys or a shirt.

After that, back to the bus and on for some 'proper' sightseeing.
We went to see KIS's hideout during the war. It was a bit of a drive along dusty roads and I have no idea where it actually is in relation to Pyongyang, or indeed the name of the place. I've scribbled down Gon Si Ri Historical Site for the Korean War, but if anybody knows for sure, please email me, thank you!

The bunker at Gon Si Ri is in this modern building

The hut and surrounding buildings were carefully restored and a larger glass-fronted building was built around them! We also saw other rooms and tunnels that KIS used, shrapnell from bombs that exploded (or not) in the area, the chicken coop in which KIS kept his chickens and the original chair and tables he sat on when talking to his comrades.
Like all sites of this type this was immaculately well kept.
KJI had inspected the site and approved of it as "very good", a fact the guide was obviously very proud of.

Our guide at Gon Si Ri and the gardens

Back into town.

I was looking forward to the next stop, but others dreaded it. The Stamp Shop.
When I still worked for a stamp dealer and auctioneer in London I was on the NK Stamp Corporation's mailing list. Every now and then they'd send me illustrated leaflets of the new issues they released and descriptions as to why and what was commemorated. One year I even got a Christmas card off them, which I still have somewhere!

The shop wasn't quite as big as I had hoped, but still impressive. There were displays on all walls of current and older issues, covers, miniature sheets and catalogues. I knew what I wanted, namely the Arirang miniature sheet to send to friends in England, Denmark and Germany (all of which arrived at their destinations by the way!), plus a couple of gold foil stamps of KIS and KJI for the album, to use as frontis pieces. So I was done quite quickly.
The others marvelled at the hideousness of all the Charles and Diana Royal Wedding 1981 stamps NK had issued. No place in the world has less to do with Western European royalty, but here they were, issue after issue of not only Royalty, but also kittens, dogs, space craft, sports cars, high speed trains, tropical fish etc. This is probably the only area where NK shows a willingness to embrace western tastes and they actually produce something they can sell abroad. Obviously they're not stupid anyway, but they must have realised that only very few people collect 'North Korea' the country, but many people will buy Diana or the kittens for the pretty pictures they are. Just this once they took the option of making money over staying exclusively Korean.

Those not spending much time in the stamp shop had the opportunity to quickly pop into the Koryo Hotel that's immediately next door.

Pyongyang Koryo Hotel

It's bigger than the Yanggakdo and more 'shiny'. I grabbed my camera and hurried up and down the escalators and left and right into the various shops, which were considerably bigger and better stocked than in our hotel. The supermarket even had a chiller cabinet, containing bags of apples. I've said it before, all fruit is a scarce commodity in NK. We never saw any at meal times.

If you've followed the diary so far it won't surprise you at all to hear that the road outside the hotel was quiet, even though we were in the centre of town. Some people walked by, but hardly any cars passed, a few tour buses stood empty. I wanted to capture the eeriness of it, but was too conscious that the very absence of any motif would make any filming a suspicious undertaking. So I left it and consigned the scene to memory...

Foyer and street cafe of the Koryo Hotel. The cafe scene is obviously staged, no NK look like this unless they are tour guides, in which case they would not sit down in this area for guests. The six-lane main road is immediately to the right.

After this there was yet another shop we were taken to, namely the Tourist Souvenir Shop (it's actually called just that) in the Pyongyang International House of Culture. The merchandise on offer was the same as everywhere else, pictures, ornaments, vases, ginseng tea and spirits of various kinds. I don't think anybody actually bought anything except one of the Canadians, who got himself a furry hat. He will no doubt have use for it back home.
The only thing a bit different here was the abundance of musical instruments, including a piano, giving J from Spain and Nick the chance to delight customers and staff with a brief musical interlude.
This was the last place to try for my Pyongyang t-shirt, but alas, there were none to be had in my size (M)!

Interior of the Tourist Souvenir Shop

As this was our last night in Pyongyang and NK, we had dinner in a restaurant in town. I didn't make a note of its name, but it was a barbecue place not unlike we had on the ship on day 2.
Our two groups spent a bit of time together there, but group A was leaving not long after we arrived, which I thought was strange. If they were only heading back to the hotel they might as well have stayed to enjoy the Karaoke the waitresses treated us to. You never know, maybe they were ex-Children's Palace performers!
They were quite good and battled bravely against an erratic sound system that kept breaking up.
Some of us ventured to dance and C from Austria even taught our guide Ms R a few steps of the Viennese Waltz! It's was all very nice and wholesome and came to an end much too early.

Back at the hotel I tried my hand at packing my suddenly much too small suitcase and more or less failed.
You don't realise how all those damn books, leaflets, maps and videos eat up space and weigh a ton!
I would have to try again the next morning as our plane was scheduled to leave for China in the early afternoon.

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