Dates preface 26-08-2005 27-08-2005 28-08-2005 29-08-2005 30-08-2005 31-08-2005 01-09-2005 02-09-2005 03-09-2005 back home 4 Dutchies Manyongdae and Pyongyang We have breakfast in restaurant No 1 with buttered toast and rice with cucumber. The buffet serves Korean as well as western food. Traditionally Koreans eat rice with meat and vegetables three times a day, but because that's rather time consuming in the morning it seems they increasingly have a western style breakfast. At 9 we go to the lobby, where the guides are waiting for us. We drive to Manyongdae to see Kim II Sung's birthplace. In 1952, at the age of 13, Kim left his parental home to battle for the freedom of Korea that had been occupied by the Japanese since 1910. Twenty years later, in 1945, he victoriously returned home, where only his grand parents still lived. Kim's parents, brothers and sisters all had fallen in battle. Because the house was old and the roof was leaking the floor was wet, and his grandfather wanted Kim to stay with the neighbours. But Kim Il Sung said he'd lived the life of a warrior for 20 years and if he could sleep in the woods he certainly could sleep on a wet floor. Nowadays the little house, renovated and well maintained, is being visited by many people, tourists, but mainly groups of Koreans. Before us, a group of workers lay flowers at the monument, after us a group of soldiers is being led past the site at a much higher pace than we are. Mr O shows us around and tells a lot about the history of this house, and we get plenty of chance to take pictures. The kitchen has a cool feature: in these houses the kitchen was a bit lower than the rest of the house, so the heat of the kitchen fire could be used to warm the floors of the living room. The great leader is of humble decent. We see the dented cooking pot that Kim Il Sung's grandmother could buy for a small amount of money, because it was not good. However, the food she made in it tasted the same off course. Next to the house is the well the family got their water from. We get a bucket of water up and put some water in wooden bowls that are available for this goal. The water tastes good, nice and fresh. Our other guide, Mr Kim, laughs and aks to Sasja if he wants to become "a great man". It seems that's what happens when you drink this water. Kim Il Sung's home Living room with portraits Shed and cooking pots Nice fresh water from the well at Manyongdae Nearby is a souvenir tent. According to our information up front, North Korea should be a country where one cannot really buy many souvenirs, apart from books by or about the great leaders. That's a bit too negative: there's a lot for sale here, like paintings, embroidery, chopsticks and even silver jewelry. I buy a bracelet, because I think jewelry are the best souvenirs. Every time you wear something you carry the memories of that trip with you all day. I'm getting quite an international collection. Kim Il Sung's parental home is situated in a nice park and we walk up a nearby hill, to the place where he used to sit as a young boy when he was studying. From his spot on a big stone he had a great view over the nearby city, which unfortunately is a bit hazy today. A mosaic shows how he used to sit there, contemplating the occupation of his country. A bit further is a pagoda on the hill top, crowded with soldiers and young girls. Today is a holiday, the day of the youth, so young Koreans all go (in groups) to important places like this one. As we're taking pictures of the view from the pagoda Mr O asks if I'd like to have my picture taken with some Korean girls. Well sure, that would be cool, but only if they like that. Mr O directly arranges three girls to pose with me and tells Sasja to take a picture. I ask again if the girls really want this, but Mr O says they do and so we all pose, amused but also a little embarrassed. At least, I do. Young Kim thinking With Korean beauties Nice hazy view Mr O has more surprises up his sleeve. When we drive through the city he calls out to the driver, who makes a U-turn and enters the gate of a factory terrain. Mr O noticed we like art (we photograph our heads of at every monument and mosaic) and spontaneously decided to visit the Mansudae Art Studio. Here the statues, billboards and mosaics are produced that we see everywhere in the city. Unfortunately it's sunday, the only day off in Korea, where people work and go to school from mondays till saturday, and it's also a holiday, so the studio is closed. Too bad, but we'll go there later. We drive to a metro station, walk in without a ticket and admire the mosaics that decorate the walls. Vigilant workers and cheerful farmers cover the walls of the subway station in bright colors. An enormous mosaic shows how Kim Il Sung visits a production plant and talks about business with the workers. It's like the Moscow subway, but much more colorful. To our joy we're allowed to take all the pictures we want here. We behave ourselves and we only take pictures of the art, not of the people. Mr O is walking relaxed circles along the platform and just lets us do our thing. When we tell him we want to photograph the images at the stairs at the other end, he stays at the platform. The further away from him we get, the more Koreans start staring at us, and looking around to see who's our guide. It's clear that a westerner on the loose wouldn't come very far. In retrospective we think this might have been a little test of our trustworthiness. The Pyongyang subway has two lines that intersect in the middle. We're at Puhung station, the first station of the Chollima line. And to my great joy we get to ride one stop on the subway to the next station, Yongwang. That's where the real big mosaics are, we learn. Both walls of the station are covered in huge mosaics, depicting Pyongyang as seen from the river. The platform is the river so to speak, from which you view the eastern and western parts of the capital, that's abundantly covered in cherry blossoms. The subway trains look a lot like the Berlin subway, with the difference that each car has a small portrait of father and sun Kim on the wall. As we're on the escalator out of the station a passing Korean shouts "Nice to meet you!" Puhung station Happy farmers On the spot guidance Blooming magnolia Mount Paektu Yongwang station The van awaits us at the metro exit and we go to Mansu Hill. Apparently we're expected, because there's a flower salesman with exactly one bunch of flowers, that we buy for later. First we look around at the fountain park, with lots of fountains in all types and sizes and also a nice statue of dancing ladies, carved out of white stone. Then it's time to pay respect to the president. On Mansu Hill stands the Great Monument, a twenty meters high bronze statue of Kim Il sung, sides by to groups of statues consisting of a hundred figures each. Kim's stretched out right arm shows the people the direction, like Lenin and Stalin used to do in the Soviet Union. In the background we see a 70 meters wide mosaic of mount Paektu, Korea's holy mountain, where Kim Jong Il is said to be born. We're supposed to lay flowers and make a bow for Kim Il Sung's statue, so we do that. It's not being presented as an obligation, but we've heard from several sources that it would be quite offending to not pay respect to the great leader. And after all, we're guests here. Considering this, Sasja brought a decent shirt today (well, it's a checkered Ecko blouse, but still quite decent) and he puts it on over his t-shirt. Our guide Mr Kim asks Sasja if he's cold of if it's a sign of respect. The answer is not hard to guess, because Pyongyang is covered in a moist warmth today that makes every piece of clothing feels like on too many. Sasja answers he wants to look decent, something Mr O directly approves of: decent is good. Just as we're trying to get into the solemn mood, Mr O tells Sasja to take a picture when I lay the flowers. Uh, ok. I walk to the base of the statue and slowly lay the flowers at Kim's feet. It doesn't seem appropriate to pose here with a wide grin. When I'm done the three of us make a bow for the leader's statue. Then we can take pictures of the group statues on the sides. They depict the wars and reconstruction of the (North) Korea in more than life size, very realistic looking statues with lots of expression on their faces. Farming tools and fire arms a recognizable in details. We lay flowers and make a bow at the Grand Monument The statues at the sides We walk down the hill. On a pillar we see a statue of a winged horse, carrying a worker and a female farmer on it's back. The horse is Chollima, a mythical horse, that's a model for the Korean speed and dedication in rebuilding their country after it was heavily damaged in the Korean war. On the side of the road are three bill boards with political posters. Where it's the commercial companies that shout at us from every street corner to buy Puma or Nike, here only the government uses this medium to address the people. Mosaics remember the historic events that KIM IL SUNG and KJI were involved in, big painted billboards encourage the people with political slogans. When we get to the top of the hill again we take pictures of Kim Il Sung's statue. Before coming here we read the leader should always be portrayed as a whole and in a respectful manner. Photographing other statues or buildings we often like to tilt our cameras to an angle, or only take a picture of a small detail, but here we follow the unwritten rules and picture Kim as a whole and upright. The Chollima statue Billboards in the street It's time for lunch. Today we're treated to Korean fondue. We have our own little room at the restaurant with the five of us and every one gets a fondue pan with bouillon and a wide variety of food to cook in it. We also get chopsticks and a spoon. Korean chopsticks are made of metal and they're thinner than the wooden or plastic sticks we know from Chinese restaurants. We have to get used to them. A popular Korean side dish is kim chi. It's made from fermented cabbage, abundantly spiced with red peppers. Sasja likes it, but I'm never very good with hot food, so I just take a few pieces followed by a glass of water. Kim chi is usually made of cabbage, but sometimes also from other vegetables and in the Korean diet it's an important source of vitamin C during winter. According to our guides the taste of the kim chi tells a lot about the quality of the cook or house wife. According to our guide Mr Kim kim chi is a good antidote against SARS, which (therefore) does not occur in NK. I immediately believe him, this virus should be smarter than staying around all these peppers! I like the green bean pancakes better. They also seem to be good against hangovers. Quite practical, because when it comes to drinks, there's usually water, beer and Korean vodka and liquor. To my joy we also get served rice tea later on, and I'm the main consumer of it. Lunch is extensive and relaxed and we get a chance to talk to our guides about other things than monuments. Koryo tours gave us a little sheet with some Korean words on it, like hello. Please, thank you, etc. but they are not so easy to learn. "Hello in Korean, for example, is "anjonghasimnika", and that requires a little practice. Mr Kim jokes that by the end of the week we should know all those words because we'll get an exam. "Sure" Sasja responds, "and if we fail we're not allowed to leave the country?" "Exactly" laughs Mr Kim. If we fail the exam, he adds, we have to go to university to study. But: we have to pay for it ourselves! That's off course a very funny remark in a socialist country. I visit the bathroom and find an Asian squat toilet with no lock on the door and an empty water basin. But no problem: in the room near the sinks there's a tiled basin filled with water and a plastic saucepan floating in it. Apparently this is the regular way to flush a toilet. Monument for the Korean Workers Party After lunch we go to the monument for the founding of the workers party. Is was built in 1995, for the party's 50th anniversary. It consists of a round ring, decorated with revolutionary scenes in bronze, from which the 3 symbols of the party rise up to the air: the hammer, the sickle and the pencil (paintbrush), symbolizing the workers, the farmers and the intellectuals. Like all communist monuments it's a gigantic structure, impressing by it's size alone. The monument is aligned with the Grand Monument of Kim Il Sung, quite a distance away, on the other side of the Teadong river. If it weren't for the haze, we could have seen him from here. When we walk back to the van, we notive a lady with a smal table with souvenirs suddelny has materialized at the base of the monument. Really, she wasn't there a moment ago! We head to the Tower of the Juche Idea, which we saw yesterday from the other side of the river. The 170 meters high tower was built on the occasion of KIM IL SUNG's 70's birthday, and off course is full of symbolism. The tower has a decoration of 35 flowers on one side and 35 on the other so together you get 70. On the big square surrounding the tower are groups of statues in the well known communist social realistic style, that depict the warriors of the revolution and the heroes of the people. To bad for us, we cannot go up, because the elevator is in maintenance. We can only see the hallway now, decorated with memorials stones from all over the world. All kinds of groups who study the Juche Idea have donated a congratulations stone. As we're, slightly disappointed, standing in front of the door and elderly woman comes up to us, says something and walks on. She welcomes you to North Korea, Mr O translates. Now, isn't that sweet? Tower of the Juche Idea We get into the van again and drive out of the city over a 3 lanes wide highway without any lines marking the lanes. In the middle there's a berm with shrubberies and on the other side another lane like this. The roads here are, according to good communist custom, very wide and very empty. There are very few cars and often we're the only one. There are a lot of people on the road: they move by foot or bike along the highway. And because they're not very used to motorized traffic they often ride their bikes in the middle of the road or will try to cross with their hand carts right in front of the speeding van. Our driver all the time has to warn people he's coming. He honks the horn very often as well in a preventive way as when some one really is in our way. This way we travel, blaring our horn loudly and with high speed, through Pyongyang and its surroundings. It's warm in the car and it gets difficult for us to keep our eyes open on the highway. We doze off every now and then and wake up when we go though one of the many holes in the road. Our guides are sleepy too. From time to time I peek in the rear view mirror to check if our driver is still awake, but he's the only one who stays awake and alert all the time, in the mean while steering us over the wide lanes of empty asphalt. We visit the tomb of king Tongmyong, one of the rulers of the Koguryo empire that includes parts of Korea and China. There are many tombs here, who are placed on the cultural heritage list of Unesco due to their old wall paintings. The original statues of warriors, horses and tigers that are supposed to stand around such a tomb were destroyed in the Korean war, but have been rebuilt in 1998. They've been erected from white stone, which gives this historic site a remarkably fresh and modern look. A local guide shows us around at the tombs. She's wearing a black and white version of the traditional dress. Hm, is this a mixture between a traditional gown and the communist black and white clothes? We think she bleaches her face, it seems to be lighter that the rest of her skin, something we've seen in China too. To us it's a mystery why Asian women want to be so light skinned. In China they wear umbrella's against the sun, here you see many women holding up a book or newspaper to protect their faces from the sun. We observe a series of colorful paintings depicting the beginning of the Korean empire. And take a look at the more than live size white statues of warriors and their horses in fort of king Tongmyong's tomb. Under the trees next to the tomb a few young artists are drawing and painting the environment. The local guide seems to be not so pleased that we don't want to buy any of their art and she's about to walk back when Mr O points out we haven't seen everything yet. The king's tomb is closed, but one of the smaller tombs behind it has been opened for the public, so we can see two such a tomb looks from the inside. We walk a short distance through a beautiful fairy tale forest with those picturesque Asian pine trees with wonderfully winding stems and we get to the tomb that looks a lot like a hobbit house from the outside: a round hill covered in nice green grass and a little door in the middle. King Tongmyong's tomb with warriors and horse Open for visitors The guide is a bit odd. Several times she walks very close next to me or behind me and holds me by the upper arm, when I do not see any need to do so. It makes me feel a little uneasy, but I pretend to think it's completely normal. Next we visit a Buddhist temple. This one also has been rebuilt recently and it looks freshly painted. The main building has 3 Buddha statues of which the middle one is the biggest Buddha of NK. But as is usual in communist countries, religion is off course not very wide spread. To thank her for the tour we give the local guide a small jar of Nivea (not the whitening version off course!). When doing this I try do say "kamsahamnida" as clearly as possible, the Korean word for "thank you". It's probably sounds lousy, but the meaning seems to be clear anyway. Buddhist temple Buddha statues Nice decorations Bouncing up and down on the Korean roads we head back to Pyongyang, sometimes bouncing up and getting loose from our seats when we hit a real deep hole. Mr Kim looks over his shoulder to see if we're ok and we grin back joyfully. Along the way we stop at a statue that's been built over the road like a kind of arch. This is the reunification monument. It consists of two stone ladies who symbolize North Korea and South Korea holding up a unified Korea in their hands. Inside we see a video telling about the separation of the two Korea's and their efforts to become one country again. Unfortunately the video is in Korean, so Mr O has to translate the text for us. The last English version has been sold to a tourist once. The story of the Korean division reminds us a lot of the history of Germany. After the second world war the Russians held North Korea and the Americans SK. Because the two super powers didn't trust each other the country was split in two parts, the northern becoming communist an the southern capitalist. Off course it was the Korean people who got presented the bill for this. The Reunification Monument over the road and the commemorative stones in the hallway At the end of the afternoon the van drops us of at the ice rink. It' a nice round building with an interesting architecture, suggesting skates. A cool looking building. Mr O said something about an evening soiree and something with dancing, but we do not know what to expect. He's constantly looking at his watch to see when "they" will start. To kill some time we sit on the edge of a dry pond, surrounded by white statues of sportsmen in action. In the pond people sit in the shade of the brim and play cards and chess. Along the side we see a group of parked bicycles. The people who rode them have put their bags on the ground, next to the bikes, but they themselves are nowhere in sight. A pile of bags is just sitting on the street with no one around. For us, living in Amsterdam, this is completely unthinkable! Than Mr O suddenly announces that "they" are beginning now and we hurry behind him towards a crowd of people who gathered on the nearby square in front of the Pyongyang gymnasium. On the stairs of the building a band is performing, their music broadcasted by a van with big speakers on it's roof. The audience are sitting in orderly rows on the ground. The band mainly consists of decently clad girls, who play their guitars energetically and sings song we cannot understand. After a few songs the band disappears and it's time to dance. Well known Korean music is played and the youth, because after all today is the Day of the Youth, are dancing in big groups, doing steps every body knows. Sitting on the border of a flower bed we observe the joyful scene. Boys are dancing with girls, some of them looking very cheerful, but others pretend to be uninterested as people do on that age. Some girls therefore dance with a girlfriend so they have an enthusiastic dancing partner. Some girls wear the school black and white, but most of them wear traditional Korean dresses in very bright colors. Red and neon pink are definitely favorite, but also light blue, bright yellow, neon green and bright orange are swirling around in the crowd. Near us a girl dances in the strange combination of a red traditional dress and a beige base ball cap. Mr O suggests that Sasja and I join the party but we don't feel like being the stupid tourists who in a semi funny way try to participate in local customs we do not know, so we just play audience and take some pictures. Then suddenly a Korean guy appears right in front of me and asks me to dance, so now I have to go along. We join a circle of dancers and try to do the same steps as they do and to pretend I do not feel embarrassed at all. The dance are not very complicated, but unfortunately I'm very bad at remembering steps and movements and the first dance involves walking to the left and to the right. Whenever my dancing partner goes left I have to go right and vice versa. When I go in the same direction as he does I interrupt the whole circle and bump into people until they send me in the right direction. The Koreans think it's rather funny and push me the right way. And just when my palms are all sweaty from concentration, embarrassment and the warm weather in general we have to grab both hands of our dancing partners. Argh! My dancing partner thinks we're doing well. I'm starting to get the hang of the steps and he indicates up front which way I have to walk to stay in the circle. But after 3 dances I feel the moment is there to say thank you and goodbye (which he probably doesn't understand) and with a polite bow I excuse myself, pointing at Sasja and Mr O. After that we head for the van where Mr Kim is surprised we're already done dancing. Listening to the band Let's dance! We're glad we have dinner at the hotel, just with the two of us so we can discuss today's impressions. Later that evening the phone in our room rings, but when I pick up the receiver the other side hangs up. Somebody checking to see if we're there, maybe?