The first time I used one of these motorcycle taxis was going from my couchsurfing host’s apartment into the city. It was a little nerve-wracking knowing that I’d be on the back of the motorcycle with no control, inches from other scooters on both sides. I also didn’t know how to be a passenger. In all the movies I’ve seen, a guy is often driving the motorcycle and a woman gets on the back. She grabs onto him and holds him tight. Or, there’s always Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, who did the same thing My driver was an older Vietnamese gentleman who spoke no English. As we started to move, I grabbed onto him as I’ve seen in the movies. We weaved in and out of traffic for half an hour as my helmet buried itself between his shoulder blades. It was awkward for me, as a heterosexual male, and no doubt it was awkward for him for reasons that’ll become obvious in the next paragraph. But we couldn’t talk and I didn’t know any better. I just held on as if my life depended on it.

After I got into the city, I watched how other people rode on the back of motorcycles and noticed that grabbing the back handle was the preferred way to stabilize yourself if holding onto the driver wasn’t preferable.

This story felt particularly poignant as 2016 came to a close. 2016 was a pretty tough year for me. While I previously traveled the world I was able to really ground myself in the passions that make me happy. I was able to focus on constantly challenging myself to inch closer to the goals I set to transform myself into a better person. My environment was constantly changing and I met new people at every turn, always inspiring me with new perspectives.

Motorcycle Ride Once I Learned How To Be A Passenger!

Though my life on the road was full of constant challenges, like staying healthy or safe, in some ways they paled in comparison to the challenges of “normal” life. Where on the road I saw abundance everywhere, in my normal, PhD-seeking life I saw a world of scarcity. That perceived scarcity turned me into a more selfish person than I want to be, and a person stingy with his time, money, and even affection for those around me. The stress of working toward a PhD, and being in my first serious relationship, ultimately proved to be too much. The person I became to adapt to the reality I perceived isn’t who I want to be. Not at all. Instead of confidently holding onto the back handle bar and enjoying the journey, I was holding onto the driver for dear life as if things were out of control.

After the relationship came to an end, and the semester wound down, it all hit me at once and I descended into a downward spiral. I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror and I felt so disconnected from “the happy nomad” I had once been and the kind of person I want to be. Luckily, in my life as a nomad I had already figured out who I want to be and who I am. I just had to figure out a way to merge what made me happy on the road with my current, stable life. I had to find a way to continue the journey of self-improvement and self-exploration in a frustratingly stable environment. Since I’m prone to symbolism, I’m calling it a caterpillar to butterfly transformation. Caterpillars rummage around in the dirt and in trees and aren’t much to look at. Butterflies, on the other hand, are beautiful, graceful, and have the gift of flight. The transformation is a bit ugly and arduous, but the end result is one of this planet’s most beautiful creatures. What else symbolizes the journey of life so well?

Caterpillars on a leaf in Costa Rica

It won’t be easy. It’s hard to explain the excitement I have when going to a new place. It’s a kind of excitement hard to recreate in daily life. I used to look forward to visiting new places. I still do. But there are still plenty of things in daily life to look forward to with the same anticipation, and that was lost on me. I hadn’t been putting forth much of an effort to create things to look forward to.

But that is changing for this year. Apart from general attitude changes and inner-work, there are three aspects of my life I’m focusing on for 2017.

Art/Expression

As a recovering introvert, self-expression doesn’t come easily to me. In fact, I think I’m still quite bad at it. Writing is one outlet that helps express myself. So is art, though I never gave it a try. I’m not artistic or creative, I told myself. I’ve been to some of the world’s best art museums and often couldn’t wait to leave them. I didn’t understand art. In December, before joining my family for the holidays, I went to a local place that allows you to paint your own pottery. I picked a plate out of the many options. I then had to figure out what to put on it. All I could think about was where I was at that moment and where I wanted to be in the future, symbolized by this transformation to a butterfly. It would also be a nice gift to myself upon returning to school after the holidays. It’d be a reminder to continue my progress as well as a decoration for my apartment. To date I have not decorated my apartment at all and I’ve ignored the idea of making my apartment a home. These are the kinds of things that turn bare walls into a home.

Below is what I created. In the middle is a butterfly, and each corner represents an aspect of life I need to focus on – living, laughing, loving others, and loving myself. Putting these into practice will allow me to soar. Below is the “before” picture and then the picture after it was cooked in a kiln.

Between picking the object to paint, coming up with an idea, tracing it, and then painting it, it took about three hours to create this. And few things have held my attention like this did, putting me in a sustained state of flow and focus. It was great. Though it was difficult for me, I was able to express myself. I hadn’t made something like this since elementary school. While I regret not exercising my art muscle for all that time, I couldn’t be happier to find and exercise it going forward. And I think it’ll help me be more expressive in general, and creative as well. I’m already looking forward to some art events where I live, as well as some opportunities to create art in a group setting.

Exercise

Speaking of exercise, I’ve gotten into running. I’m a regular exerciser, but I’ve been in a rut with an unexciting exercise routine for a couple years now. In just about two months, I’ve been able to shave almost two minutes per mile off my 5k time. I’m planning on running my first 10k in April. Again, this is something to look forward to and assuming my knees cooperate it’s a great way to challenge myself. Ideally, I’d like to run a half marathon later this year and maybe a full marathon next year. And there are running groups where I live, so I can meet new people. Similarly, I haven’t been doing yoga and I’m getting back into it. There is something magical about stretching and strengthening your body while focusing on your breath.

Volunteering

I haven’t done much volunteering lately. And I don’t like that. I haven’t been very social in general, actually. So I decided to give back to the community I now live in by volunteering at the local Boys and Girls club at least once a week. In an effort to spread the joy of volunteering, and hopefully get others engaged in the community, I’m organizing local volunteering outings with my colleagues as well.

It’s a process. Making changes on the road was easy. No one knows you and the risk of presenting yourself differently to the world is close to nothing. Making changes in normal life is harder. You have to be so much more intentional and break routines that feel set in stone. Overcoming inertia is difficult. But making a plan and getting started is the hardest part. And I’ve done that. I think 2017 is going to be a great year as a result. I’m living live intentionally and consciously again. Sometimes you just need to change your perspective and attitude. And, in extreme cases, you can get on an inversion table and literally turn your frown upside down!

If you have any experience turning frowns upside down, or making big changes for a new year, please share them in the comments below!

The post Turning A Frown, And A Bad Year, Upside Down appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

A couple days before my flight, I measured my hair to see how long it was. I didn’t think it would be long enough to donate (12 inches), but I figured it had to be getting close. Since my hair is so curly, it never looks very long! But when I measured, it was about 12 inches. I was so excited!

The next day I searched on the Wigs For Kids homepage for salons near my family where I could get my hair cut. Many salons offer a donor a free haircut, or a half-price haircut. More importantly, the salons affiliated with Wigs For Kids know how to properly bundle the hair for donation. The first donation went so well and I’m happy to say that the second time did as well.

My mom came with me to the salon and took some pictures. The hairdresser, Kelly, was an optimistic mother-to-be come January. She did a great job. She even straightened my hair before making pigtails! I had never seen myself with straightened, long hair before so that was quite a change!

I couldn’t help but think about the origins of why I decided to donate my hair in the first place, the passing of my uncle. I also couldn’t help but think about how different my life was during the first time I grew out my hair, traveling the world, and then this time, working on a PhD. Two very different challenges with two very different rewards.

Either way, it felt really good to get rid of my hair and make a positive contribution to some kid’s battle with cancer. If you’d like to donate time, money, or hair to Wigs For Kids, you can find more information here.

Before Picture

Straightening My Hair

Straightening My Hair

Straightening My Hair

Straightening My Hair

First Time I’ve Ever Seen Myself With Straight Hair

Making The Pigtails

Making The Pigtails

The Donation

Almost There

So Happy To Be Making A Donation

The post Donating My Hair To Wigs For Kids For The Second Time! appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

I generally don’t do much preparation before I travel somewhere. It depends. If I’m going somewhere dangerous I prepare, or somewhere unique like North Korea. But in general I prefer to do the bare minimum. I like to arrive somewhere without having seen all the amazing things to see, and without knowing all the historical significance. That can all be read about later on, but first impressions only happen once.

As I left the port in the shuttle and headed toward the city, I was taken aback by how beautiful the city was. I knew St. Petersburg would be pretty, but I expected more Soviet-influenced drabness. Instead, the buildings and churches were colorful with beautiful architecture. There weren’t tall buildings, which was refreshing. There were, however, lots of extreme luxury vehicles on the road. It wasn’t hard to spot Maseratis, Ferraris, and the like.

Pretty Buildings

Pretty Buildings

Pretty Buildings

Churches

I knew Russia’s churches would be beautiful and I do have a soft spot for those onion-shaped domes after seeing some in Kiev, Ukraine. The first one here blew me away though.

First Impression Of The Church Of The Savior On Blood? Gorgeous!

St Isaac’s Cathedral

Kazan Cathedral

Random Church Tucked Away Behind The Street

I happened to be there just before the summer solstice. The days were long.. very long. I was too jet lagged and sick to stay up, but basically the sun just dips below the horizon for a couple hours at night and then bounces right back up. I remember waking up at 3am to go to the bathroom and the sun was already well on its way toward its morning ascent. There were many events planned for what they call “white nights.”

3am Sunlight

There were canals throughout the city. They weren’t as plentiful as Amsterdam or Venice, but it was nice to take a small boat tour and see the city from the water.

Colorful Canal

One thing that surprised me was how fast everyone walked. I’m generally a fast walker, but I felt like a slowpoke there. Everyone seemed to move with a purpose. While I think the Russians are unfairly attributed with stereotypes noting their gloominess and poor customer service, I certainly saw much of this there. That said, customer service was nonexistent in Soviet times and is it really any better to be artificially treated well and smiled at in the U.S. by underpaid service providers? I don’t know. I feel like manners are one of life’s great lubricants, making life pass much more smoothly with manners than without. But then you lose some authenticity and create what psychologists call emotional labor (faking outward emotions that aren’t coherent with how you really feel). I guess if I lived there I’d get used to it, but please don’t misunderstand me. I did meet plenty of kind and smiling Russians while I was there and from previous chapters of my life.

The highlight in St. Petersburg is a visit to the Hermitage, one of the biggest and oldest museums in the world. You could easily spend more than a day in it, and it’s full of art and cultural artifacts. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time and, honestly, I don’t care much for art. I enjoyed walking the streets of St. Petersburg much more than I would have enjoyed spending a day walking around the Hermitage, at least I think that’s the case. There were some areas outside the city I wish I had been able to go to, like Peterhof, but again, I didn’t have time and getting there was complicated. Next time.

The Hermitage

The Hermitage

Arcade Museum

One cool museum I did go to was the museum of old Soviet arcade games. They have a big selection of arcade games from the 70s and 80s that you can play. When you pay the entry fee, they give you a bunch of Soviet coins (value of 15 Kopek if I remember correctly) to operate the machines. Most machines were operable, though whether they were playable was a different story. The instructions were all in Russian, so I’m sure I misunderstood the point of some of the games. But for others, like a car racing game I played, I literally just pushed the gas pedal and lined up the car where it should be and I didn’t have to do anything else the whole time

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Soviet Arcade Games

Food

I didn’t have much Russian food while I was there. I’ve had borscht before, so I tried solyanka for lunch my first day. It was ok. But St. Petersburg was full of Georgian restaurants and I fell in love with Georgian food when I was there. So I had an Adjarian khachapuri for dinner my first night and for lunch my second day. I couldn’t help it! They are so good, though I wish I would have ordered khinkali for one of the meals, Georgian dumplings.

Georgian Adjarian Khachapuri

The post Incredibly Beautiful St. Petersburg, Russia appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

The Princess Maria

From Helsinki there is a ferry/cruise company called St. Peter Line. They connect Stockholm (Sweden), Helsinki (Finland), St. Petersburg (Russia), and Tallinn (Estonia). Some people use the two ships they have to visit all four destinations like a Baltic Sea cruise. However, you can also use the ships as a ferry to go from one point to another. This is what I did.

St. Peter Line has a special agreement to bring people to St. Petersburg, Russia without a visa for up to 72 hours. There are a number of caveats to this that you can read here. Most importantly, you have to take a St. Peter Line ferry in and out of Russia (so you can’t arrive by boat and fly out, or arrive by train from Finland and leave by ferry). You can’t stay longer than 72 hours, which really means you can stay a maximum of 2.5 days since the ship arrives in the morning and departs at night. Thus, the longest you could stay would be arriving on, say, a Monday and leaving on a Wednesday night. You have to book a 25 Euro “city tour” that is really just a shuttle that takes you from the port upon arrival and back to the port upon departure. And finally, you have to have a visa (if required for your nationality) to re-enter the Schengen state you will go back to (Sweden, Finland, or Estonia).

I booked my ticket online. The website is in English among other languages and had no problem booking a ticket. Booking early saves you a ton of money. While you buy your ticket they try to upsell you on a variety of goods and services. They offer excursions for the city you are going to, which is probably a good option for those who are on a cruise and just have hours to visit the city. They also offer pre-booked meals like buffet dinners and breakfasts for inflated prices and expensive hotels. Technically, you are supposed to stay at one of the St. Peter Line hotels. Well, not exactly. They say that other hotels may refuse you a room if you show up without a normal visa and the St. Peter Line approved hotels know what to do with ferry passengers that arrive without a visa. Your mileage may vary, but I booked a non-St. Peter Line hotel using points for a free stay.

Ferry Ticket

In Helsinki I checked in showing the ticket above. They just needed the booking number and my passport. At check-in they gave me my boarding card that had my room number and a bar code to allow me to open the door to my room, a departure card, and an arrival card. The arrival card is presented when you pass through Russian immigration on the way in, and the departure card is presented on the way out. This will show the immigration officer how long you are staying. At check-in in Helsinki they asked where I was staying in St. Petersburg. That was the only question I got about where I was staying and I don’t think she recorded it in any way. I think she just had to make sure I had a place to stay before letting me board the ship.

Boarding Card

I wasn’t sure if my room was private or not since I paid so little. I thought maybe I’d have a roommate. On board I found out that the room was, in fact, private even though I only booked it for one person. Even for the cheap rooms there is a toilet, sink, and shower ensuite.

The Room

The Bathroom

The ship had many different options for eating, drinking, and entertainment. When you board the ship you get a program full of all the events going on that night. There was live music, a casino, and a dance club. On the way back to Finland, as I boarded the ship everyone was huddled around the TVs watching Russia lose to Slovakia in the Euro 2016 soccer tournament. People weren’t happy, as you can imagine.

The Program

I mentioned that the food options you can pre-order are expensive. Onboard there is an Italian restaurant and Japanese restaurant. There is a take out coffee shop that had coffee and snacks in the evening, and breakfast options in the morning. Going to and from Russia I ordered a plain pizza for dinner for just 6 Euros, which was quite reasonable. In the morning on the way to Russia I ordered eggs for breakfast for just 1 Euro. Bottled water is available in the duty free store for 1 Euro per bottle. Stock up on water there as if you buy it anywhere else on board they charge 2 Euros.

The Italian Restaurant

I’m a very sensitive sleeper and I was able to sleep well on the ferry. There is decent noise isolation, once the ferry leaves the port and gets moving it is very steady, and the engines aren’t very loud.

The only downside is immigration upon arrival. In Russia they told me to just stay on the boat for an hour after arrival. Those who have purchased excursions get priority to leave the ship first since their time is tight. The ships can hold something like 1800 passengers, so it’s as if 6 or 7 big planes land all at once. Even after waiting I had to wait for half an hour to go through Russian immigration. It was the same on the way back in Finland. I waited about 30 minutes before I got off the ship since they said that Finnish immigration goes much faster. The problem was that the ship was more full of Russians than is normal. Russians have to give a fingerprint and are more heavily questioned as they enter Finland. Had there been more EU citizens on board, they can speed through immigration without even having to talk to an immigration officer.

Russian Entry And Exit Stamps

All in all, it was a great experience and I’m glad I took this trip to St. Petersburg. It’s a beautiful city and the ferry ride was far more comfortable and convenient than I expected.

The post How To Travel To Russia Without A Visa appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

When I was getting toward the tail end of The Happy Nomad Tour I was running out of empty pages in my passport. I’d need an empty page for the visas I’d get in the East African countries I’d visit (Ethiopia, Somaliland, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania). I could either renew my passport or pay for extra pages. Extra pages was about $30 cheaper, but I preferred to renew my passport. When I was in Ankara, Turkey I went to the U.S. Embassy and asked what my options were. I could renew my passport but it would take ten business days. I didn’t have ten business days, so getting extra pages was my only option. Hence, the 96 page passport made even thicker by many full-page visa stickers. After this doubling of my passport, the countries I visited at the end of the Happy Nomad Tour didn’t really care and didn’t really look through my passport when I crossed borders.

Below you can see my current passport on the right, my previous one in the middle with 48 pages, and my passport from when I was a kid with 24 pages.  The coffee cup is there to keep my current one closed since it no longer stays closed by default.

Passports

That was different on my latest trip, however. Neither China nor North Korea paid attention to my passport. When I entered Finland, however, the immigration officer literally spent 4 to 5 minutes flipping through every page of my passport three times. I have no idea what he was looking for. He asked me how long I was staying and where I was staying, and then the flipping began. He asked me nothing else. At the end of the page flipping he looked at me and said “You lived in Denmark.” He saw this via my Danish work visa. I said yes. He stamped my passport and I was on my way. I try not to be rude, but I really didn’t understand what all the looking was about. Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps there is extra scrutiny given the migrant crisis in Europe, perhaps he was bored. Who knows. No questions were asked when I left Finland.

Entering Russia was a different experience. The immigration officer also looked thoroughly through my passport. As she flipped the pages from one to another, looking at stamps and visas, she came upon my visa for the country of Burundi. She held up the visa and asked me where this visa was for. I said Burundi. She looked at it again and then said “I said which country.” Confused, I said “Burundi, it says so right here” as I pointed to the bottom of the visa where it clearly says République du Burundi and Republic of Burundi. Apparently she had never heard of the country. I later looked it up and the country does not have a different name in Russian.

Burundi Visa

On the last few pages were stamps for Georgia and Ukraine. She didn’t ask anything about Georgia (where they fought in 2008 over South Ossetia). She did ask me where I went in Ukraine. I told her I went to Lviv, Kiev, and Odessa. In the back of my mind I thought “I went there before you guys stole Crimea” but what came out was “I was there before everything happened.” Since Russians speak with minimal inflection it felt like an aggressive question, but a minute later we were talking about other things. She was telling me to make sure I don’t miss the “White Nights” events happening around town. White Nights refers to the fact that the sun doesn’t fully dip below the horizon around the summer solstice, and St. Petersburg had several things going on to take advantage of all that sunlight. She found an empty page in my passport with the picture of a cactus. She asked if I thought this was a picture of Arizona. I said it could be, or maybe New Mexico or somewhere else in the southwest. She said she had friends in Arizona so she wanted to stamp that page.

Russian Entry And Exit Stamps

Leaving Russia I wasn’t asked any questions. On the way back into Finland it was a similar experience. The immigration officer looked through my passport thoroughly. I thought maybe he was looking for my previous entry to Finland or my exit stamp from Russia. I told him which pages those were on, but he insisted on looking through every page. He just asked me the same questions as before, how long I’d stay and where I was staying.

None of these experiences were bad and I realize that my brothers and sisters from other countries face dehumanizing questioning while applying for a visa to visit the US, for example, let alone the questioning at immigration upon arrival. I’m not complaining. I just noticed that it seemed like I was subjected to more scrutiny with my bigger passport compared to past journeys to Europe where they paid no attention to my stamps. Again, it could be a result of the times and the era we live in now. I don’t know.

The post More Passport, More Questions appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

I took the budget route and took a train and a series of subway connections to get to my hotel in southwest Beijing. By the time I arrived I felt dead tired but it was my only opportunity to explore Beijing a bit. I visited Beijing in 2006 and saw the main sites then, including the Great Wall. I was eager to see how things have changed after ten years and after hosting the Olympics. I had just one day in Beijing, and by the time I got to my hotel it was more like half a day with an empty internal battery.

The following day I woke up early to catch my flight to Helsinki. I confirmed within the first couple seconds of waking up that I was definitely sick. The show must go on, however. The flight was nine hours and my head and nose were quite unhappy the whole way. As the plane landed my right ear was pretty painful. I figured my cold was interfering with my ear’s ability to equalize pressure after landing. It felt clogged. As I walked to the baggage claim I blew my nose. This made my clogged ear very unhappy and I had to stand with my hand on a wall to stand upright. Without the wall I felt like I was on a boat that swayed unpredictably, capable of falling over at any time!

I arrived in Helsinki at around 5pm on a Sunday, so not a good time to try and find a non-emergency doctor. I visited my friend despite the jet lag and illness and vowed to go to a pharmacy the following morning to get their advice about a medicine to take and to ask how to see a doctor in Finland. I had to check out of my hotel the next morning at noon and my ferry to St. Petersburg, Russia was at 6pm. There was enough time to figure everything out, but the need to check out could prove to be inconvenient.

Using Google Maps I walked to the closest pharmacy, but I couldn’t find it. The second pharmacy was visible from the street so I walked inside and ascended the escalator passed some offices to the pharmacy. The pharmacist said anything that would be helpful for me would require a prescription. I asked how to visit a doctor, and I turned out that the offices I had just passed were doctors’ offices!

I walked in, took a number, and sat down until my number was called. When my number was called I registered with the attendant. She took down the information in my passport and asked me a couple questions. I had to sign one paper, and pay a 50 Euro deposit before I could see a doctor. The whole process took about five minutes. I asked if she thought I could see a doctor soon and she offered me an appointment with a doctor at 9:45am. I looked down at my watch and it was 9:40am. Perfect!

The doctor called my name at 9:45am and examined me. I told him about my nose and he had a look at my nose, throat, and then ears. When he saw my right ear he asked if my ears were giving me any trouble. I had forgotten about the pain during the landing the previous night, but then told him about that and how my ear sounded weird whenever I blew my nose. He said I had a cold virus. Some of the mucus that I produced as a result of this cold virus drained into my ear canal and got infected resulting in a middle ear infection. He used a handheld ultrasound machine to scan my sinuses. I had never seen such a machine before, but it showed that my sinuses were thankfully clear.

He wrote a prescription for a nasal decongestant and an antibiotic to clear up the ear infection. I had to pay another 22 Euros and then I went next door to get the prescriptions filled.

The prescriptions had a barcode on them. The pharmacist only had to scan the barcode and the prescription showed up in her system with the notes (in English for my benefit) that the doctor wrote. The pharmacist ordered both medicines and, like magic, they dropped into a basket right before my eyes.

Apparently all the medicines are kept in a store room and a system is in place, like an enormous vending machine, to dispense the medicine. This is made easier by the fact that in Europe you usually buy prescription medicine in a box with pills in a pop-out sheet. So no pills needed to be counted or anything like that. It was incredibly efficient, and throughout the whole process I couldn’t help but wonder/wish why the excessively complicated US health care system can’t be as efficient and advanced as what I witnessed in Finland and in Denmark from when I lived there.

All told the doctor visit cost 72 Euros and the medicine cost about 40 Euros. My travel insurance should reimburse most if not all of the cost. If I were Finnish the cost would be substantially lower, if not free. Most of all, the process was painless and efficient. I’ve spent more time, despite having an appointment, waiting to see a doctor in the U.S. (at a significantly higher cost) than it took for me to register, get an appointment, be seen, and fill the prescriptions in Finland.

The post Getting Sick And Appreciating Finland’s Healthcare System appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

I’m writing this article because a lot of what I read was wrong. I don’t know if people inflate or distort their experiences to boost their ego, or if they genuinely remember things wrong. Either way, there are a lot of exaggerated claims on the internet by others who have gone to North Korea. Based on my experiences, here is what it is really like to travel to North Korea.

Do they take away your phone or inspect your belongings at the airport?

Upon arrival, I was asked if I had a phone while going through customs at the airport and a customs officer took it along with a couple others. I have no idea what he did with it. It was gone for a minute or two and I had a lock screen enabled, so they did not go through it or anything. Apparently they record the number of phones going into the country, and what brand each is. They did take my camera and a booklet my tour company provided. They looked through a couple pictures on my camera and that was it.

One guy in my group had his computer inspected and they looked at some of his video files, including Tom and Jerry videos. They are looking for any anti-North Korea materials you may have. The tour companies do a great job of explaining the rules way before you go, at least mine did. Your phone will not get a signal in North Korea, but sim cards can be bought. There are packages available, one with data and one without data. The sim card with data costs about $200, whereas the one without data is more affordable. Calling the US cost something like $6/minute. If you do get a sim card, you’ll be on a network separate from the one North Koreans use. You can call other foreigners in North Korea and you can call abroad, but you can’t call North Koreans.

On the way out of North Korea, the procedure was exactly the same as in any other airport. They didn’t inspect any of my belongings. I’m sure experiences vary with how things go on the way out.

Are there restrictions on what I can photograph?

Yes. But assertions that every photograph needs to be approved by the guides is way overblown. At the Mansu Hill Grand Monument, we were instructed to make sure that we captured the full bodies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in our pictures. At the war museum, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the museum.

In Pyongyang we were told not to take pictures of buildings under construction. Apparently, it’s a cultural thing. They don’t like something unfinished to be photographed, and military members are often part of the construction crew which is an issue as you’ll see in a second. Similarly, we were told not to take close-up pictures of local people. While everything about daily life in North Korea is interesting, few Westerners would like a camera to be put in their face while riding public transportation or while shopping at a grocery store. They want the same courtesy any of us would want in our daily lives at home.

The biggest restriction on photography was that under no circumstances were we allowed to take pictures of military things, which is par for the course in most countries around the world, or of people in the military.  The exception to this is the Demilitarized Zone, where I did ask for permission to take pictures of the soldier taking us around. Otherwise, I took hundreds of pictures and never had to ask permission.

In the metro we were told not to take pictures of the tunnels the trains travel through. The metro stations double as bomb shelters, so although we could take pictures in the stations we had to avoid taking pictures of the tunnels. Plus, it’s probably not safe for the drivers of these mostly ancient trains to emerge from a dark tunnel and enter a station amidst a barrage of flash photography.

What are the guides like? Are you being followed or under surveillance?

It’s easy to build up North Korea in your mind as a crazy place before you go, and then you can’t help but look for things that don’t exist. In short, I can’t say for sure that my group wasn’t followed by secret agents or something like that, just as I can’t say for sure there weren’t Martians there watching all of us. That said, no, we weren’t followed and I highly doubt that my hotel room in the Yanggakdo International Hotel was bugged as some say.

Our guides led us around the city and country. While it’s true that we could not deviate from the group or explore things on our own, everyone knew that this is how it would be going in. You have to be with the guides at all times. This does not mean that guides follow you into the bathroom, and if they do it’s because they have bladders too! At most of the places we went, we could roam freely. We just couldn’t walk outside and decide to go somewhere else by ourselves.

The guides were incredibly nice, curious, and funny. The atmosphere was not tense at all, and I can’t imagine anyone on my tour leaving with anything less than a stellar impression of our guides. They were very open and answered our questions earnestly, even the ones you might think would make them feel uncomfortable. They’ve heard it all before. Just be respectful and understanding. You aren’t there to correct them or change their mind about issues you disagree about.

Were things staged?

Before going, this was the hardest thing for me to believe. Some asserted that scenes in public were one big charade put on for a handful of tourists. I can’t imagine that is true. Nothing seemed staged and our itinerary changed on the fly several times as well, making staging difficult if not impossible. There are too few tourists to North Korea to justify putting on a show for them!

Can you access the Internet?
No. Very few North Koreans have access to the internet as we know it. What is available is an intranet featuring what is estimated to be around 5000 websites. This is accessible and we saw people at Grand People’s Study House (national library) and the new science museum using it. I only checked a few times, but never did my phone detect a wifi signal during my time there.

At the Yanggakdo International Hotel I was able to send an email to my mom to let her know everything was going well and allay her fears. It cost $3, it was sent from the hotel’s email address, and she couldn’t reply. But she appreciated receiving it nevertheless.

What was the food like? Is beer available and do North Koreans drink?

Lunches and dinners were traditionally Korean fare. Breakfasts were a buffet of Western dishes like eggs and bread with Korean dishes like noodles and kimchi.  They can cater to vegetarians and yes, there was an opportunity to eat dog meat at one of the restaurants. I should point out that dog meat is eaten in other Asian countries and is not unique to North Korea. And it’s not a normal meal for them either.

In the hotel and at many of the souvenir shops there are drinks imported from what seemed to be Singapore. There were Pokka drinks and coffee latte drinks, for example. Bottled water was very cheap ($0.25) and available everywhere.

One beer or juice was free with every meal. I don’t drink, but everyone seemed pleasantly surprised with the quality of the North Korean beer. On our last night we stopped by a local watering hole and yes, there were plenty of North Koreans there. There were seven different local beers to pick from. Two were dark beers and the other five were beers with varying amounts of rice and barley, with the most expensive and from what I could gather best tasting ones having no rice. Rice wine was included with our last meal as well. Recently, Pyongyang even held its first beer festival.

Are there souvenirs to buy?

Yes, by the end of your first day you’ll realize that there are souvenir shops at every tourist site and they generally sell the same things. Pins, dolls, ginseng, propaganda books, postcards, posters, etc. You can send postcards from the hotel and with patience your recipients will receive them in a month or two.

What is the hotel like?

The Yanggakdo International Hotel is located on an island in the Taedong River. While it would not get any five star ratings in other countries, I found it perfectly adequate. The room has two beds, there was good water pressure, there is a rotating restaurant on the top floor, and the basement has a bowling alley, a massage parlor, ping pong tables, etc. In the room there were two channels in English: Al Jazeera English and a movie channel. Ironically, the first time I turned on the TV the movie The Patriot starring Mel Gibson was on. There are channels in other languages as well.

No, I didn’t visit the 5th floor and I have no information about it. Despite the rumors, we were told it’s where the hotel offices are.

There are other hotels that can be used by foreigners in Pyongyang, and depending on where else you go there are hotels in other cities.

Do locals really revere the leaders?

This is hard to say because on the surface everyone will toe the line. So I don’t know. We were told in our pre-tour briefing to be very careful with how we handle printed material featuring a picture of one of the leaders. You are not to fold a newspaper, for example, such that a picture of the leader is folded. All images of him were above the fold, so that made it easy. But folding it in half the other way shouldn’t be done.

Did you feel safe?

In terms of personal safety and crime, I couldn’t have felt safer.

It’s easy to get comforted into a sense of security there. You build up an image in your mind before you go that makes you feel incredibly paranoid. Then you get there and are lulled into a sense of security. You always have to remember that you are in North Korea and you have to operate by a different set of rules, but for 99.9% of people this is not a problem. I followed the rules and never felt worried about my safety.

If you are concerned about whether going is a bad idea for you given your particular circumstances, I can’t recommend highly enough that you reach out to the tour companies. They’ve already heard every question you can imagine, and they are happy to help you.

Is it ethical to visit North Korea?

This is a hard question to answer, and it’s one that several of us debated on our last night. Renowned traveler Bruce Kirkby was on my tour, and he presented an interesting contrast. During the military regime in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi advised foreigners to stay away so as not to show any support to the regime. The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, encouraged tourism in Tibet so the outside world could see the cultural destruction of Tibet. Two Nobel Peace Prize winners, two opposite opinions. I’m of the philosophy that traveling connects people and increases empathy. By no means do I condone the human rights abuses committed by the North Korean government, and I sincerely hope that things change there. But people are generally the same everywhere, and my interactions with the North Korean people were all wonderful.

One other note on this point is how little money would actually go to the regime. Given what I paid, which included a roundtrip Beijing-Pyongyang-Beijing plane ticket, all transportation and meals in country, a British guide, two North Korean guides, a bus driver, entry to just about every site we went to, and a profit for the tour company and all the service providers, the corporate tax these service providers pay to the government due to my visit is a pittance.

Concluding thoughts:

In the end, North Korea is an insular society. Part of the reason they are so poorly understood, or misunderstood, is their own fault. They don’t allow foreign journalists, and when they do the journalists often make the story about them and the lack of freedom they have while reporting there.

While I was there I heard fascinating stories about how news broke in the West about some aspects of North Korea, like the fact that South Korea’s intelligence service predicted that Kim Jong Un’s wife was pregnant before she was showing as a result of her switch to flat shoes instead of heels. In the end, they were right, but a lot of news is gathered in this way and a lot of it ends up being wrong. I remember coming across stories about how men can only pick from two or seven haircuts there, for example. Then you step onboard the Air Koryo flight in Beijing, you look at all the North Koreans easily identifiable by the pin above their heart featuring Kim Jong Un or the previous two leaders, and you realize immediately that the “news” article you read was hogwash.

Obviously, as part of a group tour to North Korea’s best places, I’m fully aware of the fact that I didn’t see “the other side” and few if any tourists do get a chance to see that other side. North Korea is a place you can visit and feel like you understand less about it after you leave. You go in with ten questions and leave with 100.  Even more so than other places, North Korea is an onion and a visit like mine barely peels back the first layer.

The post What It’s Really Like To Visit North Korea appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

So, you want to go to North Korea? I don’t blame you. It’s a truly unique place and going there is an experience you’ll never forget. Going to North Korea is far easier than you’d think, and below I’ll outline how to go there. In a subsequent post, I’ll explain what you can expect when visiting North Korea. What the people are like, what the restrictions are, what the guides are like, etc.

I went to North Korea in June 2016 with Koryo Tours and base my answers on my experience and what I learned while I was there.

1. Decide if going is right for you

There are distinct differences in visiting North Korea compared to other countries, differences that may mean you should steer clear of visiting. If you are a journalist, you should not try to sneak in as a tourist. If you plan on preaching any kind of religion, pick almost any other country to visit. Apart from those two important requirements, another is that freedom of movement is not allowed. You will be on a guided tour whether you go as an individual or a group, so if not being able to walk down the street by yourself really bothers you then you probably shouldn’t go. On the other hand, if you go with curiosity and an open mind, there are few places on earth as interesting as North Korea.

2. Independent or group tour?

While you can move about freely in most countries as a tourist, in North Korea you will be accompanied by North Korean guides. There is no such thing as independent travel there. However, you can go on an individual tour. Tour companies generally provide a list of places to go and attractions to see along with how many days you want to stay, and a customized individual tour can be done. Otherwise, a few tour companies organize group tours throughout the year at affordable prices.

3. When should I go?

North Korea has drastic differences in temperature from summer to winter. Summer can be hot and wet while winter can be bitterly cold. Take this into consideration as you decide when to go. The Pyongyang Marathon attracts many foreign tourists, but at various times of the year you can time visits to coincide with national holidays like Liberation Day or National Day.

4. What to see and do?

North Korea is a world leader in monuments, and there is no shortage of them to see. There are museums about the war as well as other aspects of history. You can take a helicopter ride over Pyongyang, buy books with unique takes on history or philosophy, visit beaches and see the mountainous peninsula’s tallest peak, and experience a society completely different from your own. Of course, the demilitarized zone is a unique experience, and no visit to North Korea would be complete without a visit. Some tour companies run specialized tours based around a particular interest like architecture, aviation, and film (The Pyongyang International Film Festival). There is far more to see and do than you’d think!

5. Do I need a visa and will the be placed in my passport?

Yes, you need a visa. Your tour agency will get it for you in Beijing. The visa comes in the form of a little booklet, so no, there will be no evidence of your visit to North Korea in your passport.

6. Where would I stay?

Most international visitors stay in the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It’s located on an island in the Taedong River. While the hotel won’t win any awards, it is more than adequate for a short stay. Generators ensure a stable supply of electricity, breakfast in the morning caters to both Western and Asian tastes, and you can make international phone calls. The beds were comfortable and international channels are available on the TV.

7. Can I share a room with a member of the opposite sex? Same sex? 

Yes.

8. At home I am a leader in my faith, or I regularly preach my faith. Can I still go?

Yes. Just keep your religious opinions to yourself and do not proselytize.

9. How do I decide which tour company to go with?

I did my homework by writing most of the tour agencies that cater to Western visitors. All were responsive by email and full of useful information. In my case, though I am not a journalist and this article is not journalism, two of the companies flat out told me they wouldn’t take me. One even said that they were sure my visa wouldn’t be approved. I chose to go with the company that has been running these tours the longest, and who I perceived to be the most professional.

10. Can I go if I’m a South Korean citizen?

You can’t visit North Korea on a South Korean passport. Unless you are a dual citizen and visit on your other passport, you can’t visit.

The post 10 Things To Consider If You Want To Travel To North Korea appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

On one hand, I was happy to have had the opportunity to visit and learn about this unique place in the world. On the other hand, I arrived with 10 questions and left with 10,000.

On my last day, we met in the hotel lobby and our North Korean guides gave us back our passports and visas. They took them on the first day of the tour. While this was unsettling for some, they do it for good reason. They take everything to the Chinese Embassy and confirm with them that all of us will be allowed back into China. If someone lacks a visa or there is some other issue, it can be fixed sooner rather than later. If you can’t get into China on the way back, you certainly aren’t allowed back into North Korea and you may end up like this guy!

As our bus headed to the airport, another guy on my tour recounted a unique situation that he had just witnessed. On the tour there was a trainee for the British tour company I went with. He was training to become a full-fledged guide. This was his first training trip. He really liked the North Korean guide he worked with and said “I’ll get in touch with you next time I’m here.” But then both he and the North Korean guide paused for a second. The North Korean guide knew that getting in touch would be impossible, but the trainee slowly worked through the obstacles involved in getting in touch with someone in another country and realized it was impossible to be in touch!

Ways to stay in touch

1. Email
   1. Not an option. Internet and email access are limited to a very privileged few.
2. Phone
   1. In North Korea there are two parallel cell phone networks. Foreigners can get a sim card at the airport and call each other within North Korea as well as call any country on earth for an exorbitant per-minute fee. The only people on earth you can’t call with a North Korean sim card are North Koreans on the domestic network. And those on the domestic network can’t receive calls from abroad either.
3. Mail
   1. This isn’t an option either.

These kinds of realizations make you realize you are in a parallel universe, unlike anywhere else on earth.

I also envisioned my experience leaving via Pyongyang airport would be similarly unlike anywhere else I’ve been. Customs officials can look through all your pictures to make sure you haven’t broken any rules, among other things.

I checked in, tagged my bag, got my boarding pass, and headed to the security check. It is here that they would give me a hard time. However, no questions were asked at all. They didn’t look at my camera or phone. I was through and done in less than a minute. Nice!

Boarding Pass To Leave North Korea

The Pyongyang Airport is new and modern, though it is quite small. There was a coffee shop, a restaurant, a lounge, a pharmacy, some bathrooms, etc. There was also a CD/DVD shop named “CD” that sold what had become normal at that point – North Korean music, propaganda videos, and North Korean movies.

Probably The Least Luxurious Business Class Lounge In The World?

A CD/DVD Shop In The Pyongyang Airport

Before I left I read many blog entries of people’s experiences visiting North Korea. Many took the train back to China. Americans aren’t allowed to take the train to China for whatever reason. It seemed like the customs officials on the train are much more thorough than what I experienced at the airport, but maybe I was just lucky. Either way, almost universally, people felt relieved to be back in China – noting the irony of feeling free in the relatively unfree country of China. I’m not going to lie. I felt the same way.

Upon landing in Beijing, something our British guide noted on our way to the airport came true. The Chinese have a sense of humor, apparently. The gate for Air Koryo, North Korea’s airline, is right next to South Korea’s national airline Korean Air. An interesting arrangement for two countries perpetually on the brink of war.

Air Koryo And Korean Air Side-By-Side In Beijing

I titled this article “Goodbye North Korea.” In reality, I do hope to return again someday, but to a unified Korea.

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In 2006 I visited South Korea and visited the DMZ from their side. On the South Korean side, things are much more serious and ominous. If I remember correctly, photography wasn’t allowed for the most part. You can see the formal separation between the two countries, and journey underground to see the tunnels North Korea dug into the south as well. South Korea has built a train station on the DMZ that it hopes will connect to Pyongyang in the future.

DMZ From South Korea

DMZ From South Korea

DMZ From South Korea

North Korea

In North Korea, the DMZ is a much more relaxed affair. There is a small museum that explains how the armistice was signed, where it was signed, and there are saved relics from that day in 1953.

Contrary to popular belief, the demilitarized zone does not fully run across the 38th parallel. From what I understand, the 38th parallel served as the initial border between North and South Korea in the post-WW2 era as the US and Soviet Union figured out how to divide the spoils from Japan’s loss. The 38th parallel was chosen by junior military officers by looking at a National Geographic map. Today’s DMZ kind of follows along the 38th parallel, but not exactly as you can see below.

Korean DMZ Map. Image from Wikipedia

I don’t have any pictures of them, but both sides have flagpoles. Each side kept one-upping the other with taller and taller flagpoles until North Korea built the world’s tallest flagpole. The flagpole is 160m/525ft tall and the flag weighs 270kg/595lbs! Today the flagpole is the 4th largest in the world.

At the DMZ you can see the blue buildings where negotiations take place between the two countries. The bulk of North Korea’s massive, 4th-largest military, is stationed near the DMZ though we saw very few soldiers at the DMZ itself. And on the South Korean side we saw no soldiers.

Unfortunately, the day we went there we could not go inside the UN buildings. It is in those buildings you can see tables with the line passing through them, and get a picture with the soldiers. I got a picture with our North Korean military guide though, and his grip on my hand was, by far, the hardest anyone has ever squeezed my hand. He was very nice and I hope in the future more Americans can shake the hands of North Korean soldiers under better circumstances.

Off in the distance you can see the Kaesong Industrial Zone. This cooperation between the two countries saw South Korean companies set up shop able to utilize very inexpensive labor from the north. I read that they were paying an average wage of $75/month, later increased to $160 per month – significantly less than the minimum wage in South Korea or China. Of course, all of those wages probably went to the North Korean government with the workers benefiting very little directly. That said, pretty much all of North Korea works like this and North Korean’s businesses around the world (usually restaurants) operate in a similar fashion.

Sadly, this unique project came to an end over political and military issues. At its peak, 123 companies employing over 53,000 North Koreans (and 800 South Koreans) worked in the industrial zone. Upon closure, these 123 companies wrote down losses of nearly $1bn and North Korea lost a significant source of foreign currency.

Farming In The DMZ

DMZ Map

Military Escort Explaining Things

Military Escort Explaining Things

Hall Where The Armistice Was Signed

Where The Armistice Was Signed

Armistice Relics

Armistice Relics

Armistice Relics

DMZ – Blue Buildings Are UN Buildings For Negotiations

DMZ – Blue Buildings Are UN Buildings For Negotiations

DMZ – Blue Buildings Are UN Buildings For Negotiations

The Actual DMZ Line

Making US-North Korea Peace With This North Korean Soldier

Kaesong Industrial Zone

The post The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) From The North Korean Side appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

However, based on what I learned there, this is how I perceive the North Korean mindset. Korea was kicked around for decades before the Korean War. The Japanese occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War 2 in 1945. After World War 2 ended, dividing the Korean Peninsula between the Soviet-backed communists and US-backed capitalists was playing out in a similar fashion in Europe with the Iron Curtain. The winners were fighting over the spoils.

Fearing the Soviets would want the whole peninsula, two young American military officers were charged with dividing the country. They used a National Geographic map of Korea and saw that the 38th parallel seemed to divide Korea neatly in half. More importantly, it placed the capital, Seoul, on the American side. The Soviets accepted this proposal and the country was divided. From 1945 to 1950, a council of four countries oversaw Korea: China, USSR, USA, and UK. Koreans wanted independence immediately, however. Because the Cold War inhibited meaningful progress on the administration of Korea, the UN called for elections in the north and south. Koreans weren’t happy because this basically solidified the division of the country. While all of this is happening, Kim Il Sung, who trained with Soviet troops toward the tail end of World War 2, rapidly ascended to lead the north. In 1948 he was declared prime minister of the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

Short-sighted US and USSR politicians never could have imagined the pain, anger, and frustration the Korean people experienced from being divided after more than a millennium of being unified. Both sides wanted to unify the country, and still do want to unify the country, but under different political structures. The Korean War raged from 1950 to 1953 when a ceasefire was signed. Technically, the war is still active. The demilitarized zone was created and very little progress has been made since then to unite the countries. And, as you can imagine, the countries are significantly more different today than they were in 1953.

With this basic history in mind, you can begin to see the story fed to North Koreans. Kim Il Sung was a successful guerrilla fighter against the Japanese occupation, which gave him legitimacy as he rose up the ranks. The Japanese were particularly brutal to the Koreans, and it’s easy to see how a population rallied behind a leader who helped restore their honor and dignity from those who savagely took their honor and dignity away.

After the standing up to and “defeating” the Japanese imperialists (Japan was an empire, but in North Korea the Japanese of yesteryear are often referred to as Japanese Imperialists), then came the battle to reunite Korea (the Korean War). Although, objectively, no progress was made, this war is spun as a victory in the North. Kim Il Sung took on the “American Imperialists” and “defeated” them, guaranteeing freedom and dignity for the north. He is a celebrated freedom fighter, political leader, military leader, and the founder of the country.

The cult of personality took time to develop, but after the ceasefire Kim Il Sung was able to create the Juche paradise he envisioned. North Korea generally had a better standard of living than the south until the late 70s or early 80s. The collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed North Korea’s economy just as South Korea attained more stability and technical know-how.

With all of this in mind, maybe it’s clearer how North Koreans can be so fond of and arguably worship Kim Il Sung. He fought against the dehumanizing Japanese occupation, consolidated power around him during the turbulent post-WW2 period, attempted to unify the country, and “defeated” the US in the Korean war. He is their leader and he has kept them safe despite the constant threat of the US’s huge military presence in South Korea.

A nation born out of fear, chaos, and war has a different psyche. The US gained independence this way, but the principles it was founded on, in theory, kept checks and balances such that one person never became too powerful. There wasn’t a pervasive threat of further war or annihilation from a neighboring country either. North Korea’s position has always been precarious though, and the Kim family has kept citizens in the dark about the happenings of the world beyond their borders. When you control the news and the information people receive, you can further legitimize and glorify yourself. Part of the love and respect North Koreans have for Kim Il Sung is justified given his war hero past fighting the Japanese. But much of it was invented after the fact during North Korea’s halcyon days. The glorious leader saved us from the imperialists, created this great country we live in, and provided stability for the first time in living memory… It may sound strange to us but the North Koreans fervently believe this because they have no other choice.

The post Getting A Glimpse Of The North Korean Mindset appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

For example, when I lived in the Middle East (UAE & Qatar) there were images and monuments of the king everywhere. Many countries, I guess most countries in reality, have statues of former leaders. Many countries have war monuments. Many countries are masters of propaganda and others, like Venezuela and North Korea, are more explicit. For example, the people wear a pin over their heart. The pin has an image of Kim Il Sung (the country’s founder), or Kim Il Sung with Kim Jong Il (The founder’s son and the second president), or Kim Jong Un (The founder’s grandson and current president). Wearing it is required unless you have a service job where you might get dirty (like a waiter or construction worker).

As you can imagine, the media is nothing but propaganda. Below is a picture of two covers of the weekly English-language newspaper to give you a taste of the propaganda.

Newspaper Propaganda

I included a picture of a billboard for fun. I only saw two the whole time I was there. Those two billboards were the only two advertisements I saw the whole time I was there – kind of refreshing! Apparently, advertising is becoming more common.

Street Propaganda

Street Propaganda

Street Propaganda

Street Propaganda

Street Propaganda

Street Propaganda

War Memorials

War Museum Monuments

War Museum Monuments

War Museum Monuments

War Museum Monuments

War Museum Monuments

Monument Next To The Leaders

Pyongyang Metro “Art”

Statue Of Kim Il Sung In A Pyongyang Metro Station

Propaganda In The Pyongyang Metro

Propaganda In The Pyongyang Metro

Propaganda In The Pyongyang Metro

Sports Statues

Sports Statues

Sports Statues

Sports Statues

Monuments

Reunification Monument

Kim Il Sung And Kim Jong Il Statues

Juche Tower

Juche Tower

Monument To Party Founding

Arc de Triomphe

Newspapers

North Korean Newspaper

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Books

Faces

Leaders’ Faces Everywhere

Leaders’ Faces Everywhere

Pin Of The Leaders

Billboard

A Billboard

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In many ways, Pyongyang is similar to any other city in the world. There is a metro system, pretty good public transportation in general, car traffic, traffic lights, restaurants, parks, sports facilities, etc. But as is often the case in North Korea, there’s more to the story.

Traffic

I’ve been to dozens of capital cities on earth and Pyongyang has a fraction of the automobile traffic of even the least densely populated capital city you can think of. Cars driven by North Koreans are generally produced by the North Korean Automotive Industry. There are foreign cars on the road, but they were usually driven by diplomats or aid agencies. When we drove from Pyongyang to Kaesong to visit the demilitarized zone, we saw only a handful of vehicles on the highway during the two hour drive. Pretty crazy.

Pyongyang Traffic Lady

Despite the lack of traffic, a staple in Pyongyang city life is the traffic lady. Said to be among the most desirable single females in town because they are chosen for their beauty and visibility, these ladies (though I did see some men as well) stand in a circle in the middle of intersections and direct traffic. While this job is generally obsolete thanks to Cleveland’s own Garrett Morgan’s invention of the traffic light nearly 100 years ago, North Korea suffers from severe shortages of electricity. When the electricity goes out, these traffic ladies spring into action. Even when the traffic lights are working, they orchestrate a theatrical show. They constantly move their heads back and forth to look at the traffic in a choreographed manner, leaving simpletons like me mesmerized that someone could put on a show like that day in and day out for years. Keep in mind that the temperatures in Pyongyang can reach bitter lows in the winter, like -20C/-4F.

Here’s a video showing a bit of that rhythmic traffic watching as well as a changing of the guard!

And here’s a North Korean blockbuster on this topic…

North Korean Traffic Lady Movie

Pyongyang Metro

The Pyongyang Metro has two lines and we got to ride through several stations. The stations are nicely decorated, though with images of propaganda and party imagery. The trains were donated by the former West Germany (yes, West Germany, not East Germany as you might expect) and North Korea is slowly producing its own, modernized trains. We saw one of the new trains but didn’t get a chance to ride in one. It is one of the deepest metro systems in the world at an average depth of 110m/360ft. They double as bomb shelters and due to their depth they maintain a stable 18C/64F temperature all year.

Turnstiles Upon Entry

The Network Map

The Train

Riding The Pyongyang Metro

Propaganda Imagery

Propaganda Imagery

Propaganda Imagery

Propaganda Imagery

Propaganda Imagery

A Statue Of Kim Il Sung

Inside A Station

Inside A Station

Inside A Station

Inside A Station

Newspapers To Read While Waiting For The Train

Ascending The Never-ending Escalator

Trams

The metro carries around 300,000-700,000 riders per day. I think equally popular are the trams in Pyongyang. They also have predetermined routes and run by an attachment that connects to overhead electricity cables. From what I understand, a ride costs about 5 Won. At the market exchange rate of 8000 Won per US Dollar, that would mean $1 nets you 1600 rides – two rides per day every day for more than two years. The North Korean economy is more complicated than that, but in general public transportation is quite affordable.

A Tram

A Tram

Inside A Tram

Riding A Tram In Pyongyang, North Korea

Monuments

North Korea is awesome at making statues and monuments. Really. So much so that some countries ask North Korea to build statues for them via this group.

Arc de Triumph

This monument is 10m/33ft taller than its inspiration in Paris. It was built in honor of Korean resistance to the Japanese from 1925 to 1945. Only the arc in Mexico City is taller than this one. This Arc de Triumph is made of 25,500 granite blocks, one for each of the days Kim Il Sung had lived up to that point when he inaugurated this monument on his 70th birthday in 1982.

Arc de Triumph

Reunification Monument

This monument, created in 2001, commemorates reunification talks initiated by Kim Il Sung. The monument is in southern Pyongyang on the Reunification Highway, which heads south to the Demilitarized Zone and will hopefully link Pyongyang and Seoul in a unified Korea. Each angel represents a half of Korea coming together.

Reunification Monument

Juche Tower

Juche is the name of the ideology Kim Il Sung created. It is purposely vague and has come to mean self-reliance. I read about Juche before going and found it hard to understand. When I got there and asked my British guide about it, he said it is inherently hard to understand because it is so vague. The ideas are graspable but the practicality is lacking.

Anyway, as above, this was built in honor of Kim Il Sung’s 70th birthday in 1982 and is also composed of 25,500 blocks.

Juche Tower

Juche Tower

From the top you get great views of the city as you can see below.

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Pyongyang From The Top Of Juche Tower

Monument To Party Founding

The Soviet’s had the hammer and sickle, and North Korea extended this one further to include a calligraphy brush. The hammer symbolizes the workers, the sickle symbolizes the farmers, and the calligraphy brush symbolizes the intellectuals. The bottom of the monument says “Long live the Workers’ Party of Korea, the organizer and guide of all victories of the Korean people!” This monument was completed in 1995 to commemorate 50 years of the Workers Party of Korea. It is 50 meters tall for the same reason.

Monument To Party Founding

Grand Monument

This is the most important monument in all of North Korea. On the left is Kim Il Sung and on the right is Kim Jong Il. When built originally in 1972 only Kim Il Sung appeared. After the death of Kim Jong Il, in 2011 he was added and the statue of Kim Il Sung was given a makeover.

Visiting these statues is a big deal for North Koreans. They generally wear their finest clothes if they visit and often lay flowers in front of the statues. Lines form and people bow out of respect in unison. There are monitors there making sure there is no horseplay near the monuments. We were specifically told to make sure that any photographs of the statues contain the entirety of both statues. If people come to Pyongyang from out of town, they generally stop by these statues to pay their respects.

At The Grand Monument

A Group Of Korean Women At The Grand Monument

Victorious War Museum / Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum

This museum with two over the top names commemorates the war with the US. Outside the museum are statues as well as the wreckage of downed planes and helicopters. Inside the enormous museum is an interesting view of the Battle of Daejon. You sit on a bench and the walls are painted with scenes of war. Then the lights dim and the center starts slowly rotating in a circle. As the platform you sit on rotates, the painting comes to life via lighting, LEDs, and integrated videos. It was impressive.

In general, North Koreans didn’t use Anti-American language or anything like that. Even at this museum, they weren’t Anti-American per se, but they always referred to the US as “US Imperialists” or “American Imperialists.” To be fair, they did the same for the Japanese.

The Museum

Monuments

Monuments

US Military Equipment

US Military Equipment

US Military Equipment

The great prize on site is the USS Pueblo. North Korea captured this US ship in 1968. Somehow it entered North Korean waters and was captured. This happened on January 23, 1968 and the sailors weren’t released until December 23, 1968. The USS Pueblo is the only still-commissioned US ship being held captive.

You can go inside the ship and see the bullet holes and fighting that took place. There is a heavy propaganda video that you watch on board as well.

USS Pueblo

USS Pueblo

Bullet Holes Onboard

High Tech

Surrender Of The Crew

Kim Il Sung Square

Kim Il Sung Square is the largest square in the country. If you’ve seen military parades in North Korea, it took place here. See below for an example.

Pretty impressive, right? Well, check out the pictures below. All those dots are where someone should stand in a parade and the numbers help keep everything organized. These marks and numbers are painted onto the ground year-round.

Kim Il Sung Square Parade Markings

Kim Il Sung Square Parade Markings

The most impressive structure in Kim Il Sung Square is the Grand People’s Study House. I’ll talk about that next. Otherwise, a couple other pictures.

Kim Il Sung Square

Kim Il Sung Square

Kim Il Sung Square

Here are some views of Kim Il Sung Square from the Grand People’s Study House.

Kim Il Sung Square From The Grand People’s Study House

Kim Il Sung Square From The Grand People’s Study House

Kim Il Sung Square From The Grand People’s Study House

Kim Il Sung Square From The Grand People’s Study House

Grand People’s Study House

The Grand People’s Study House is basically the national library of North Korea. Guess what… it was built to commemorate Kim Il Sung’s 70th birthday. Sound familiar yet?!

There is 100,000 square meters of space (1.1m square feet). Much of it is occupied by books, but there are also classrooms. We visited a classroom during an English lesson, for example.

There is also an area that has foreign books. I’m almost certain that these are kept off limits. That’s now how it was portrayed, but the books are kept separate from the Korean books. When we approached the desk with our North Korean guides, they said there are English and German speakers on the tour. A minute or so later, a tub full of English and German books came shooting down a track. One of the books was a Harry Potter book.

The Entrance Of The Grand People’s Study House

Picture As Soon As You Walk In

Books

Foreign Language Books

Foreign Language Books

Foreign Language Books

Foreign Language Books

English Class

English Class

One of the things they really focused on, proudly, was how one of the leaders (Kim Jong Il I think) decreed that those who are there studying shouldn’t struggle to read. So they made all desks adjustable in terms of height as well as angle.

Adjustable Desk

Sports

Sports are big in North Korea. As everyone knows by now, Kim Jong Un is a big fan of Basketball. If you’re curious to see a documentary about Dennis Rodman’s trip to Pyongyang, there is one on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Public Basketball Court

Rundrago 1st of May Stadium is the biggest stadium in the world. It seats 150,000 people! I don’t know if it’s true, but my British guide said that the North Koreans were angered that South Korea was awarded the 1988 Summer Olympics. So, to spite the south they built the world’s biggest stadium in the north.

The stadium isn’t used for much. Its main use is for the annual Arirang Festival where gymnasts and artists put on huge show. Huge doesn’t do it justice. These performances have over 100,000 participants and these events are recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest performance in the world.

We also visited some random sporting outlets like shooting ranges and bowling alleys.

Bowling Alley

Small Bowling Alley In My Hotel

Kids Playing Soccer

Playing Volleyball

Kim Il Sung Stadium

Ping Pong And Squash

Rungrado 1st of May Stadium

Shooting Range

Shooting Range

Shooting Range

Shooting Range

Shooting Range

Sports Statues

Sports Statues

Sports Statues

Mirae Scientists Street

As the monument to party founding showed, intellectual pursuits are held in high esteem in North Korea. As you might imagine, the nuclear ambitions and achievements of North Korea’s scientists are held in high esteem.

Pyongyang’s newest and nicest street, by far, is built to house these esteemed scientists and engineers. Apparently the whole street was built in about a year, which is remarkable given how tall the buildings are. For nicer pictures and images of Kim Jong Un taking a tour, click here.

Mirae Scientists Street

Mirae Scientists Street

Mirae Scientists Street

Mirae Scientists Street

Mirae Scientists Street

Mirae Scientists Street

Science And Technology Center

This science center was built in the shape of an atom. I’m sure you can guess what that is in honor of. The museum is built around a rocket that carried North Korea’s one and only satellite into space. The center is part museum in honor of North Korea’s scientific achievements, part science center with fun activities for kids, and part adult education with computers hooked up to the North Korean intranet. Yes, intranet. North Koreans do not have access to the internet that you and I are used to. Instead, they have a carefully curated small network of government-approved (and created, probably) webpages as well as educational resources.

There was a shop in the basement selling souvenirs like postcards and books. But there were also some electronics for sale in a country where they are completely unneeded. For example, HP printer ink was for sale, a 10/100 Ethernet switch, and most confusing of all a wifi router. Most North Koreans don’t have a computer at home, let alone non-existent internet service.

The Building’s Shape

The Rocket

Classroom

Kids Area

Kids Area

Kids Area

Kids Using The Intranet

Kids Using The Intranet

Learn About The Periodic Table By Shooting Elements

Kim Jong Un Sat Here As Signified By The Red Sign

Wifi Router For Sale In A Country Without Internet

HP Ink For Sale

Flowers

Yes, this part is a bit weird. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il both have flowers named after them. Strangely, it was an Indonesian who named the flower after Kim Il Sung and a Japanese botanist who named the flower after Kim Jong Il.

We got to see these flowers in a greenhouse of sorts. It was a display inside a building kept a humid enough temperature for the flowers to thrive. Kimilsungia is a hybrid orchid and Kimjongilia is in the begonia family.

The Flower Room

Kimilsungia

Kimjongilia

Kimjongilia

Food

Sadly, North Korea is infamous for the famine that may have killed between 240,000 and 3.5 million of its citizens in the 1990s. Numerous factors went into this disaster, chief among them the collapse of the Soviet Union – a key source of aid. Today things are better, but still not perfect.

On our trip we had access to good, hygienic food. I don’t think anyone got sick while we were there. We had classics like Pyongyang noodles (called cold noodles locally), kimchi, bibimbap, Korean barbecue, etc. At one lunch we were even treated to some Karaoke as you can see below.

Korean Food

Korean Food

Korean Food

Korean Food

Korean Food

Mystery Meat Burger On The Air Koryo Airplane

Mangyongdae Children’s Palace

I don’t really know what to say about this place. It was just weird.

Pyongyang has several after school places for kids to go. These places occupy their time and teach them something new. We got a chance to walk around and see practices taking place, and then an hour-long performance the kids put on. I think we all couldn’t help but wonder if the kids are there because they want to be or because they have to be. I don’t know how to describe it, but it almost seemed too professional for kids. Of course there were mistakes and small errors here and there, but overall it seemed too rehearsed. I think that’s where the doubt came in because kids in these kind sof performances shouldn’t be this synchronized. The smiles of the kids practicing just didn’t feel genuine, for example. Maybe I’m projecting though. I’ll never know. You can search for Mangyongdae Children’s Palace on Youtube and you’ll find many videos of these performances. Below are two short clips I recorded when I was there.

Practicing

Practicing

Performance

Performance

Performance

Performance

Ryugyong Hotel

This infamous hotel, where construction started in 1987 and stopped in 1992, towers over the city. At a height of 330m/1080ft and 105 floors, it’s the tallest building in North Korea. The goal was to finish it by the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989. Had it been completed, it would have been the tallest hotel in the world until Dubai’s Rose Tower was completed in 2009.

After the Soviet Union collapsed and North Korea fell into economic ruin, the building’s frame was erected but there were no windows or interior furnishings. Construction briefly resumed in 2008 and the exterior was completed in 2011. No progress on the interior has been made, however. It’s a cool-looking building, though I suppose when there were no windows and it stood as a bare concrete structure for years it must have been quite an eyesore.

Ryugyong Hotel

Ryugyong Hotel

Ryugyong Hotel

Ryugyong Hotel

Yanggakdo International Hotel (Where I Stayed)

The hotel I stayed in was the second-tallest building in North Korea. It is on an island on the Taedong River. There are many amenities in the hotel, like a bowling alley, massage facilities, several restaurants including a revolving one on the top floor, a swimming pool, a billiards room, a casino, and a barber shop.

The rooms have everything you’d want in a hotel room, but it felt dated. Still, no complaints here at all. On The Happy Nomad Tour I stayed at all kinds of places, and this hotel was way above average!

In the lobby there was a media center where you could send letters or postcards to loved ones. But it’s the 21st century so you could also make phone calls or send emails as well. This is North Korea though, so it’s not so easy. A phone call cost around $6/minute to call the U.S. I opted to send an email to calm my mom’s nerves at home and let her know that everything was going well. There was no logging into Gmail or something like that. Rather, you typed an email in Microsoft Outlook Express and the email is sent from the hotel’s email account. You cannot get replies. It cost $3 to send an email

This hotel is also where Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, committed his crime. He is said to have gone onto a floor of the hotel he wasn’t supposed to go to (presumably the 5th floor since the elevator doesn’t give this floor as an option and there are numerous rumors about what is on this floor) and stole a propaganda poster. What made it even worse was the presence of one of the leaders on the poster – and the poster tore. Ripping a poster with a leader on it is a huge offense there. We were even instructed not to fold a newspaper or magazine that had a picture of the leader on the front page because it would be seen as offensive to North Koreans.

One bright spot about my stay was that the hotel had a few international channels on the TV. While I don’t watch much TV in everyday life, my Cleveland Cavaliers were making a run at the NBA Championship and I really wanted to follow along. There were two channels in English – Al Jazeera English and another channel that played movies. Ironically, the movie channel was playing the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot when I flipped to this channel. This was my only connection to the outside world while I was there, and obviously these outside channels are not available to the North Koreans who stay in the hotel. Only my group occupied my floor, the 35th floor. Our guides stayed in the hotel as well, though on a different floor. We were not monitored while in the hotel, but we were not allowed to leave the hotel grounds on our own. We had to be with our North Korean guides at all times.

NBA Finals

NBA Finals

Yanggakdo International Hotel

Yanggakdo International Hotel

Yanggakdo International Hotel

Yanggakdo International Hotel

The End

This was a long post but it’s hard to distill all the things Pyongyang had to offer. I’ll go into more depth in subsequent posts about my experiences in North Korea.

The post A Journey Through Pyongyang, North Korea appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

A side note here, North Korea is probably the world leader in monuments. Seriously. Some smaller countries actually have North Korea build their monuments for them since North Korea is so good at it. I don’t know if it is just legend or if it’s for real, especially in a pre-computerized era, but pretty much all of the numerous monuments I visited had some numerical significance beneath the surface. For example, this Arc de Triomphe was built with 25,500 blocks of granite. Why 25,500 blocks? Each block was meant to symbolize a day in Kim Il Sung’s life up to his 70th birthday (70*365=25,500), the day he inaugurated the monument! Impressive.

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is set in the center of a huge roundabout next to Triumph Return Square. The square has a propaganda poster (don’t they all!) and a “fun fair” (small amusement park).

Propaganda Poster

With The Propaganda Poster

As we took pictures and roamed around the square, kids wearing soccer uniforms started pouring in. They struck up a game in the square. We had some interaction with them. The interaction wasn’t verbal, of course, but was through sports. I can’t play soccer at all, but some of the Germans on my tour kicked the ball around a bit with them.

Kids Playing Soccer

Though I had been to 84 countries before visiting North Korea, I really didn’t know what to expect. At all. I kind of expected the population to be downtrodden and dreary. What was there to be optimistic about? The older people have survived famine and the younger people probably don’t have much control over their own destiny. Yet what did I see? I saw smiles, happy kids running around playing soccer. And every adult I saw was wearing formal or business casual clothing. The adults were not open to interact the way the kids were. Perhaps that’s due to their education and the general idea of the foreigner being the enemy, but it was nice to see the kids open to interaction.

I guess I was just happy to find signs of happiness within an hour of arriving. There may be a lot of pain behind those smiles and not all may be what it appears to be, but at least there were smiles and at least kids were playing soccer and being kids. I looked forward to learning much more about the strange place I found myself in!

The post First Impressions Of North Korea appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

Pyongyang Airport

If you read other people’s account of entering North Korea, the process by which you enter the country is similar to that of other countries. On the other hand, once you pass through immigration the customs procedure can be quite different.

After you get off the plane you go straight to immigration. There were some forms you had to fill out on the plane. My tour company gave us a booklet full of useful information about North Korea. Some of the pages were dedicated to explaining how to fill out these forms. For example, you had to declare on a customs how much foreign currency you are bringing in and what devices (laptops, cameras, phones) you are bringing in. We were assured that they are not picky and that there shouldn’t be a problem.

Immigration

At immigration we were told that the immigration officials may ask us very basic information that they can clearly see from the forms like what your name is or what the name is of the city you live in. They are not challenging you, but rather want to hear how it’s pronounced so they can transcribe it in the Korean alphabet. I was asked to say my name and I think maybe my street name. The immigration officer was very nice. He asked what my profession is and I said “student.” He replied “oh, that’s the best job!”

Like Israel, North Korea doesn’t stamp your passport. Instead, they stamp the small booklet the embassy in Beijing issues your visa in. If you’re wondering, there is no North Korean embassy in the US and the tour company arranges all the visas in advance at their embassy in Beijing. You can see the visa below. You know how I said they aren’t picky above? As you’ll see below, my passport picture is just a selfie I took with my phone. That is quite a contrast to other countries that have very strict sizing and background color requirements.

North Korean Tourist Visa

North Korean Entry Stamp

Customs

How To Fill Out North Korean Customs Forms

Immigration was the easy part. Customs is where some travelers have a bad experience. In many countries, China for example, you have to pass your luggage through a x-ray conveyor belt in customs. I don’t know exactly what they are looking for. When I lived in the Middle East, I remember one of my colleagues getting in trouble for having more alcohol than is allowed in his bag. As I waited in line to pass my bag through the machine, a soldier asked us to hand over our phones. In preparation for going to North Korea I encrypted my phone and added a pin lock screen. I have nothing to hide on my phone, but still. He took the phones and then gave them back to us after we passed our checked bags through the x-ray machine. He didn’t take the case off and I’m sure he didn’t get into my phone. So, I have no idea what that part was for.

There was a cursory inspection of our hand luggage. In my hand luggage I had a small pamphlet holder thing that the tour company provided. Inside was that booklet I mentioned above. The soldier asked me to give him my camera and that booklet. He said to follow him. I think attention was paid to the booklet because of the revolutionary image on the cover.

Pamphlet Holder Thing

North Korea Booklet

As I attempted to follow the soldier carrying my camera and the booklet, another soldier demanded I present to her my boarding pass. The boarding pass had the sticker that would match to my bag. This is common in many countries. I always assumed it was to reduce theft, but that wouldn’t be a problem in North Korea. Anyway, I couldn’t find my boarding pass. It must have fallen somewhere. So she finally gave up and let me pass. By now I couldn’t find where the guy with my camera went. There was a series of x-ray machines and I kept walking passed them until I got to the last x-ray machine. There I found a table full of electronics, including my camera. I pointed to my camera and the booklet and the guy handed them to me. They didn’t ask any questions or give me a hard time.

And with that I was through to the other side and officially in North Korea. It was relatively painless. While the entry process was more or less like any other country, the fear of knowing that they can go through all of your stuff makes it quite different. They have a ban on pornography, just as numerous countries do, as well as anti-North Korean books or articles. One guy on my tour had his computer inspected. The soldiers opened up an episode of the cartoon Tom & Jerry and watched it. I guess it was a spot check. If you have The Interview on your computer, you obviously won’t be allowed to bring your computer into the country. They’ll hold on to it for you at the airport and you’ll get it back when you leave. Your best bet is to make sure the computer is clean before you bring it in.

Again, different from other countries, but not a big deal.

Welcome To Pyongyang

The post Arriving At Pyongyang Airport And Undergoing An Entry Process Unlike Any Other appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

It’s a tough question.

The argument against visiting a place like North Korea would say that by going I am supporting the regime with the money I spend on the trip. While I can’t argue with this, I would argue that the amount of money my trip contributed to the regime is minimal. My tour cost about 1500 Euros after my student discount. That included my visa (50 Euros), the Beijing-Pyongyang round-trip flight, all meals, hotels, transportation, two North Korean guides, the bus driver, etc. And the British-owned tour company is making some profit despite having one of their British guides with us at all times as well. So I don’t see a ton of profit margin in there for the regime to be profiting off of me. No doubt they are to a minor extent, but not very much. Add to that the fact that only about 5000 non-Chinese tourists visit North Korea on an annual basis and you can see how minimal the impact tourism has on the country and its economy. Though tours vary widely and the profit margin on private tours is probably higher, even if 500 Euros from every non-Chinese tourist went into Kim Jong Un’s pocket, that only adds up to 2.5 million Euros. Hardly a fortune based on an unrealistically generous estimate.

North Korea is a known abuser of human rights. The day I write this, as a matter of fact, the US initiated sanctions against the regime and its leaders for this reason. I obviously do not condone reeducation camps or labor camps or the lack of freedom there. It’s abhorrent.

This wise Canadian I was on tour with presented us with two semi-similar examples with opposite advice. The Dalai Lama has long advocated for foreigners to visit Tibet to see what the Chinese have done (and are doing) to his homeland. On the other hand, Aung San Suu Kyi advised the outside world to boycott and not visit her homeland Myanmar while the military dictatorship was in power. Both of these leaders have Nobel Peace Prizes, yet each offered different advice. I suppose the Tibet problem is different from the Myanmar problem so they can’t be compared side-by-side, but still. This is a complicated issue.

I prefer to think that people to people connection under any context is powerful and makes the world a smaller place. People to people connection transcends government issues, increases compassion, and reduces the human impulse to categorize foes as “others” when in reality there are no others. We’re all one people.

In the end, there is no right or wrong answer here and I’m sure opinions vary widely.

The post Is It Ethical To Visit A Place Like North Korea? appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

On the day of departure, I checked in at the Beijing Airport for my flight on North Korea’s national airline: Air Koryo. We were told the day before not to pack lithium-based batteries in our check-in luggage. They should be carried in your carry-on bag.

I had three extra camera batteries that I put in my backpack, but for some reason I forgot to move one of my two power banks. If you are unfamiliar, a power bank is a big battery that you can use to charge devices. Since I was going to a country infamous for insufficient electricity, having a some extra power saved up to charge my phone and camera seemed like a good idea. Below is what one of these power banks looks like.

Power Bank

I put my bag on the belt and the check-in agent advanced it to the x-ray machine directly behind him. They asked me if I had a battery in my bag and of course I remembered immediately that my power bank was in there. They pulled the bag off the belt and I walked behind the check-in agent to take the battery out of my bag. There was a German guy also going on my tour who had to hunt for a battery in his bag at the same time.

I knew exactly where the battery was despite the severe jet lag induced mental fog I was experiencing. I took the power bank out and closed my suitcase. I handed the power bank to the security woman overseeing this operation and then waited as she disappeared for five minutes. When she came back she said “ok, put your bag back on the belt.” I put it on the belt and it passed inspection this time.

Satisfied, I started walking toward the gate as the rest of my North Korea group checked in. After a couple minutes of walking I realized that she never gave me back my power bank! So I hustled back to the check in counter. The guy running our tour asked what was wrong. He saw that I had to take out my power bank earlier and I told him that I never got it back. He snapped into action on my behalf to, with some attitude, demand that the security woman give me back my power bank. He presumed she may have tried to steal it.

She looked puzzled and said I never gave it to her. He then said to go pull up the surveillance footage. I doubted that this would be a possibility and it was already becoming more of a scene and incident than it was worth. He said to hang tight, that it wasn’t right for them to be stealing things from passengers. I agreed with him, but I also didn’t peg this woman as a thief.

Over the course of the next half hour, she cycled back through x-ray images to find my bag and get an idea of how big the power bank was. She looked all over the place in the security area behind the check in desk. She also x-rayed my backpack in case I had it in there and just forgot. Given how messed up I was from jet lag, I don’t blame her for doing that but of course it wasn’t in my backpack.

Then when she realized it had vanished, she kept on apologizing profusely. I didn’t want things to get this far anyway, so I was happy to just chalk it up as a “crap happens” loss and I didn’t think it would negatively impact my trip at all. Though this missing power bank was quite large (I could fully charge my phone 3 times on a single charge), I still had a smaller one with about half the storage capacity. I figured that would be enough.

Well, as I convinced her to just let it go and that it wasn’t a big deal, she followed me and said she would give me money to replace it. I didn’t want to take her money, of course. She pushed this idea a few times and I told her to forget about it. It’s not a big deal.

She walked with me to the security line. She said she’d be right back. I waited for my turn to go through security. While I was in line she came back holding a power bank. Mine was black and this one was white. She said she took it from a friend and she wanted me to have it. She’d buy her friend a new one. This was an acceptable resolution to my problem, of course, but I felt really bad that she went through all this trouble and in the end it may not have even been her fault somehow.

The Power Bank I Was Given

When I told the tour guide that she was trying to offer me money he said she was trying to save face and it might be rude if I don’t accept something to resolve the problem. So I accepted this new power bank and the situation was resolved.

She stayed with me as I went through security. I thought this was odd, but it was because batteries have to be screened separately there. So we screened my batteries separately in the x-ray machine. As the batteries went through the machine she waved goodbye. This power bank that she gave me was bigger than mine. The physical size was slightly bigger, but the capacity was three times bigger! This power bank was flagged by the security people for some reason. They asked me to go to a special office. The security person (not the security woman at the center of this story, but someone else) walked the power bank over to this office. The person in the office made a phone call in Chinese and read some numbers from the label of the power bank. It took a minute, but she gave me the OK. While I was waiting, a woman was brought there and her purse had what looked like brass knuckles as the part you grip to hold the purse straps. I guess anything that could be considered dangerous passed through this office.

That’s when it hit me. What if there is a problem with this thing? I just got it and I broke a cardinal rule of traveling – don’t accept anything from other people while you’re at the airport. It used to be standard for check-in agents to ask if you’re carrying something for someone else in your luggage, for example. Well, I was kind of doing that.

As I walked to the gate, the terror set in. What if there is something else inside this power bank? I plugged in my phone and it did, indeed, charge my phone. But still. It’s huge. What if there is something else inside? What if this is part of a setup and there is half a gram of cocaine or something inside this thing? That would be grounds for arrest in any country’s airport. I considered throwing it away in Beijing, but that may look even more suspicious on the CCTV cameras. If I was being had, this was a perfect setup!

Then again, it’s too perfect. I was walking away and later came back to get my power bank. She never pushed it onto me from the beginning. And she seemed quite nice. So I went with my gut and kept it. I realized that the paranoia I was feeling was a result of my destination and not the events that had taken place. I also vowed never again to get into such a situation.

As I’ve written this and you didn’t see my name all over the news, clearly I didn’t get arrested Everything turned out fine. I ended up flying there just fine.

At The Gate, Ready To Go

As I replayed the check-in scenario over in my head several times after the fact, I really don’t know what happened to my power bank. The only plausible scenario I can come with is that while I searched for my power bank in my suitcase, I put my backpack on top of a stack of airport security trays (those trays you put your computer and other things in when you go through security). I don’t know why they were at the check-in area. It’s possible I put the power bank in the tray as well. At some point my backpack was moved from the original stack of trays to the stack exactly adjacent. I don’t know why. If the power bank wasn’t moved with it, maybe someone took the tray and later realized there was something extra in their tray. Or maybe whoever moved my backpack had sticky fingers and took it? Again, this is pure speculation and I’ll never know what happened. My tiredness and the fact that I wasn’t paying attention is ultimately what got me into this situation in the first place, which disappointed me since I consider myself a travel veteran. Lesson learned: pay more attention, don’t accept “gifts” from strangers at an airport even if they are a security guard unless you want to develop an ulcer, and don’t pack lithium batteries in checked baggage.

The post Is This A Setup So I Get Arrested In North Korea? appeared first on Happiness Plunge.

As might be expected, my optimal destinations are not typical. I had no interest in visiting Paris or the beach. I wanted to visit somewhere new and somewhere I couldn’t go during The Happy Nomad Tour. Somewhere crazy. Somewhere adventurous and off the beaten trail to discharge all the energy I had built up.

My first thought was to go to North Korea. I also thought about Iran or “The Stans” (Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). All year I also considered going to Argentina and Uruguay since I have never been to either place and I figured I might be able to use my frequent flier miles to go there. Plus I can feel my hard-won Spanish proficiency fading from lack of practice.

As I considered the alternatives amidst a heavy workload, some options emerged more favorably than others. Tours to the Stans were too long at about 3 weeks in length, not to mention expensive. I don’t like group tours, but sometimes it’s the only way to visit a place. Turkmenistan is like that from what I understand. So is Iran for Americans, which is why I ultimately decided against going there. I am hoping that the improved relations between the US and Iran will mean that we can travel there and get a 30-day visa at the airport or at a land border the way citizens of dozens of countries can do. The alternative to a group tour to Iran right now is a private tour, but that would require a Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved guide and it would be very expensive.

From the start, I really wanted to go to North Korea though. I knew a guy who went there a few years ago and from him I knew it was possible. When I expressed surprise that he went there he said it was actually very easy. As I started looking into traveling there, the news was full of negative stories about North Korea. They held the first Party Congress in several decades and there was speculation that after failed missile tests they might detonate a new nuclear bomb ahead of the party congress. There was also the sentencing of this American student to 15 years of hard labor.

There were many places I’ve gone where I had preconceived notions that dissipated as soon as I got there and saw things for myself. North Korea was no different, and I knew this would be the case. Nevertheless, I was concerned about being arrested for arbitrary reasons or having trouble getting a visa. It took some time to find a tour company willing to take me.

In the end, I found a tour company willing to take me. They also happen to be the leaders in taking foreigners to North Korea and in pushing the boundaries for what is possible for foreigners to experience there. Again, going to North Korea means you have to join a group tour or pay tons more for a private tour. I found a group tour that worked with my dates and that had availability of affordable plane tickets. The tour departs and returns to Beijing and I found a great price for a ticket to Beijing with Finnair.

Finnair allows for a free stopover, which I planned to take advantage of. One of my good friends from India was planning to be in Helsinki for a conference by chance the week after my tour to North Korea. The timing was perfect! I could stopover and see her, and also take advantage of something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – visit Russia. You can take a ferry from Helsinki to St. Petersburg and be granted a 72-hour visa upon arrival. Getting a normal visa for Russia is a bit of a pain and is expensive. This is a bit of a loophole. Similarly, China has a 72-hour visa free scheme for Beijing and Shanghai, which I could take advantage of to avoid paying $140 for a visa and the expense of having to go there (the Houston consulate doesn’t process visas by mail).

It took lots of effort to figure out what I wanted to do and then figure out if I could do it with my meager budget. In the end, everything worked out but of course there is much more of the story to come!

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