My Visit To North Korea

Hi everyone. Thanks for checking out my very first Steemit post. I have been to almost 60 countries and have taken a lot of photos along the way. I plan on using Steemit to share my best and favorite travel photos from around the globe. Since I'm new to this, I welcome and thoughts, feedback or suggestions as to how to improve the quality of my posts.
Cheers,
-Ben

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite photos from my 2011 visit to the DPRK.

We left on a Koryo Tours https://koryogroup.com/ trip from Beijing. It was a 'group visa' so they didn't stamp our passports. Randomly, Matt Harding from WhereTheHellIsMatt http://www.wheretheheckismatt.com/ was on our trip as well, trying to get North Koreans to dance with him.

Arriving at the airport we saw loads of broken planes which were being scrapped for parts.

We stayed at the Yanggakdo Hotel, on an island in the middle of a river. They had a bowling alley, pool, casino, restaurants, a golf course - everything so that we wouldn't have to leave the island. This is the same hotel that Otto Warmbier stayed at. We took photos on the mysterious Floor 5 from where they surveil us. Dark hallways, low ceilings and loads of propaganda painted on the walls. Look but don't touch.

On our first full day we visited the Arch of Triumph. It's like the Arc de Triomphe but slightly bigger. And not in French.

We then visited the Kumsusan Memorial Palace to bow to the pickled corpse of Kim Il Sung before heading to The Cemetery of The Martyrs.

Everything was carefully staged for our benefit. We had 3 meals a day, 5 types of meat at every meal. They wanted us to come back and tell everyone "North Korea is a wonderful land where everyone is free and no one is starving. We were told when we could take photos and when we couldn't. Here are a few "forbidden"photos I snuck from the bus.

We were explicitly instructed not to take photos of workers or working conditions. Oops...

Little kids rollerblading in front of us in an otherwise empty square. Note the soldiers in the background.

How does everyone know where to stand when they have the huge parades and rallies? Easy - spray painted dots in grid formation.
We got to see the USS Pueblo, the captured American spy ship. I had way too much fun here.

The famed Pyongyang Subway

We got to go up the Juche Tower and see an aerial view of Pyongyang. The city was empty.

Before we went to the DMZ, they took us to The Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. Here we learned how "every man, woman and child in Korea banded together to form glorious guerilla units to defeat the imperialist aggressors with no help from anyone whatsoever." When I asked about 2.5 million Chinese troops crossing the Yalu River I was informed that "other countries did send volunteers to help the Korean people's cause."

The road to the DMZ was lined with concrete blocks and barriers. Anti-tank "decorations" said our government handler.

Once at the DMZ we were able to wander around and wave to the Americans.

Afterwards, we visited the School Children's Palace, a performing arts school for little kids. It was pretty eerie seeing them all move in perfect choreography with huge forced smiles on their faces.

Our trip finished with a celebration of Kim Jong Il's birthday - ostensibly the purpose of the trip. After going to bow to and lay flowers at the foot of the 100 foot tall bronze statue of Kim Il Sung, we saw an ice skating performance, mass dancing and the Kimjongilia Flower Festival. Millions of the same red Begonia flower. But they're NOT. They're KIMJONGILIAs. Get it right!

And finally, some mass dancing for you.

I hope you enjoyed this quick trip around North Korea.