My wife and I went to North and South Korea in the summer of 2008.
We were back home the night of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in China and were able to watch them on T.V.
We went to the Olympics in Greece, but that is another story that I will share with you sometime in the future.
My wife and I initially wanted to go to most if not all of the communist countries to experience the differences between those countries and ours.
We both hope that the regimes that run these countries will eventually learn the lesson that history has shown us over and over again. Communism is a failure as an ideology and it destroys countries and the lives of people.
We have seen some of these countries collapse, thank goodness.
We have now traveled to most of Europe, including what was Eastern Europe.
We have been to the Baltic region, Great Britain, most of South America, the Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, and many of the Caribbean Islands, including Cuba.
We have had the good fortune to have traveled to Turkey, Morocco, and parts of Central and South Africa.
We have visited India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bangladesh, and most of Asia, including Mongolia, China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and now, North and South Korea.
We are by no means wealthy. Traveling and learning about other people is just simply, important to us. Needles to say, North Korea has been in the news of late. It was not difficult to go there as a tourist at the time we went, in 2008.
When the regime needs more cash, one of the things that they often do, is to open up the country to tourism.
The country puts on the giant Arirang Festival periodically and it is worth experiencing. The North Koreans have the largest stadium in the world and the government brings in children and adults to do a huge gymnastic performance. You can see it on the internet at the DPRK web site, or just google it.
DPRK is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It took two years to get thirteen people together who wanted to go to both North and South Korea.
The tour was VERY controlled, obviously. But it was interesting to experience what the North Koreans were willing to share with us.
It is a very poor country.
Most citizens don’t even have bicycles. There is no traffic on the streets as the leaders and some of their underlings are the only people with cars. The mass transit system there is old and limited.
We did see the subway system which is very small in size. It is also a used as a giant and very deep bomb shelter.
The lights went out while we were down there, for a few moments. It was the deepest and the darkest dark that I have ever experienced. Once, was plenty for that little adventure, thank you very much.
There are a few good books available about North Korea mentioned here.
One we purchased is “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.”
I purchased some books in North Korea as well. They were mostly just propaganda, sadly, but quite humorous to someone who has access to information from around the world via papers and television.
One was called “My Escape from South Korea.”
Their newspaper looked like the Weekly Reader from my grade school days of the sixties and contained stories of the fantastic feats of their fearless leader.
The people seemed interested in us and perhaps even, friendly. I speak no Korean and we were warned not to speak to anyone, so looks may be a little deceiving.
We had minders with us on the bus at all times and everywhere that we went. The minders had minders as well. It was something else.
You MUST follow their rules when you are in North Korea.
The guides make that VERY clear.
There are no signs for retail businesses. The only signs one will see are large propaganda billboards which I will post pictures of soon.
Do you remember the Pueblo?
If you do, you are probably near my age. That was one of the day trips that we went on and it was interesting, to say the least, to visit that ship which was captured after venturing into what North Korea consider North Korean waters.
We also saw the current leaders grandfather lying in state like Stalin in a glass coffin. Leader under glass. Quite exciting, I must say.
I will follow this up very soon with some stories as I just did with our trip to Africa, and more photos of that trip.
This interesting building below, was started many years ago by the Russians, but never finished. The elevator shaft was out of plumb and could never be used. It is covered with this green plastic netting to make people believe that it is still under construction. It isn’t.
The painting below is a water color representation by your’s truly of a Korean actress’s face that I saw in a magazine here at home.
Don’t forget to listen to “Sunrise, Sunset,” my book of ten short stories on Audible.
The stories about or Oct. 2023 trip to Jordan and Egypt are now on Facebook at R.C. Hand. It was our third attempt to see the pyramids of Egypt. We had been stopped twice before.
Who knew that our timing would be so perfect this time.
There are now several videos of me doing guest spots on podcasts on many topics. Come and take a look here on my website and on Facebook at R.C. Hand.
