'Over on landside, I was immediately approached by Ms Pak and Mr Cho. They were going to be my shadows for the next three days.'
It’s said that no great story ever started with someone eating a salad. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but it does sound something like the late Anthony Bourdain would have said while eating fermented shark or feral pigeon. But, my adventure begins with kimchi. And as much of a salad as it may be, I can assure you that I was going to experience the forbidden fruit of travel.
The rules were strict. Stricter than any other place I had visited. Rule # 1: Do not, under any circumstance, disrespect the supreme leader. Rule # 2: For our own safety, we were not allowed to leave the hotel unaccompanied. Rule # 3: Only take photos of what your guides allow. The list goes on but it was clear. I was to be a model citizen and only see the North Korea they wanted me to see.
Or what? I thought to myself… I felt as if I was starring in the North Korean version of Bill Murray’sOnce everyone cleared customs, we were divided into smaller groups. Our group of 20 boarded a bus and soon we embarked on our way to the hotel. Cities often invest a lot to clean-up the area around their airports. You never get a second chance to make a first impression as they say.
With North Korea being a communist country, I was surprised by how eager they were to show off their capitalistic side. As soon as we arrived at the DMZ we visited a souvenir shop. North Korean stamps and propaganda posters were just some of the items on sale. Panmunjom is famous for its ginseng and the shop even had ginseng flavoured cigarettes, with the sales people claiming that they were ‘good’ for cancer.The following day was dedicated to a Pyongyang city tour.
I remembered to have a light breakfast and after a good stretching session we were off to Kim Il-sung stadium, the starting point of the marathon. We all lined up in military form outside and waited for the opening ceremony to begin. At 8am sharp we, the runners, were led into the arena and what we encountered was beyond belief. At least 40,000 enthusiastic spectators had taken their places in the stands and were putting on a synchronised show of a lifetime to welcome us to their country.
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