North Korea - Getting there

Aug. 16, 2011
Take two. I'm sitting in the SFO airport terminal on the day I should have been arriving in Beijing and joining the delegation. I have been delayed two days because of a mix-up about my visa for China. I spent all day yesterday in San Francisco trying to get the Chinese Visa so that I could fly out tonight. Fortunately, though I will arrive two days late I will still be in time to join the group and travel to North Korea. As I sit here, the unknown that awaits me in the upcoming nine days has settled like a rock in the bottom of my stomach; half anxiety for what lies ahead and half excitement. North of that rock, my heart is aching as I leave my bride behind. I held her hand the entire car ride to the airport, savoring the last moments I could be near her for over a week. I love her so much! I miss her already as though I had been gone for years... I think I will be a different person after this experience. For as much as I've read and researched about North Korea, I feel that I am very naive about what I am about to do. For all my studying, I think this trip, this experience, will give me an entirely new education.

Aug. 18, 2011
Today I have traveled almost non-stop. Emergent travel I call it; always traveling and never arriving. I flew from SFO to Manilla and after a confusing wait in the airport for 5 hours I flew to Beijing. I was blessed to be able to sleep a bit on both flights. Once in Beijing, de-planing was very quick, but figuring out where to go from there proved challenging. I needed to somehow call the group I was to join to find out where I could meet them and how to get there. I didn't know how much money to change and what I should even change it in to. I felt very, very lost in a foreign country and no one seemed to be able to speak English. Finally, I found someone who could help me, tender mercy! Then, after communicating with the group I hopped a taxi and road for nearly an hour to a temple. Another tender mercy was that the cab driver didn't try to scam me as I had been warned was a frequent occurrence. At the temple I again tried to call the group to out exactly where they were, but no one would loan me a phone. I felt stranded. After about 15 minutes a bus showed up and after about a 28-30 hour trip, I was finally with the group. they had come there for a lunch, so I had lunch with them, lamb. I met several members of the group and quickly became accepted as a Korean expert. Since lunch, I spent most of my time trying to figure out the agenda without much success. We wandered around the city a bit, spending most of our time in traffic on the bus and maybe 30 minutes just walking up and down on street before going to dinner. Dinner consisted mostly of a variety of dumplings. Then we hopped back on the bus and drove to the train station. Apparently we are taking a sleeper train to the China-North Korean border where we will spend time tomorrow before flying to Pyongyang. Most of the people in the group seem to be more of the world traveler type rather than pure interest in Korea. I have had a few good conversations about North Korea as well as Korean language stuff. The people I find stimulating I can count on one hand though. I wish there was someway I could contact Emily and let her know that I'm alright. I wish I could share this with her - it would be so much more enjoyable with her here.

Aug. 19, 2011
We spent the entire night on the sleeper train, I was uncomfortable and woke up frequently through the night but the lack of sleep didn't really affect me throughout the day. We got off the train at about 7:30am and had a quick breakfast before getting on a bus and riding for more than 3 hours until we reached Dandong, a city on the Yalu river. We spent the day in Dandong, getting our appetites wet for actually going into North Korea tomorrow. We rode a small motorboat on the Yalu river right up to about 20-25 feet from the North Korean shore.  

There were guards with guns practically lining the coast line. There is an island in the middle of the river owned by the DPRK. As we drove by they were loading up a group of people in a raft-type boat to go to the island where there is a communal farm. We got close enough that I could see their faces. The faces of men chiseled with the determination of a person in search of the worker's paradise. A scowl stern enough to part the water where we floated. I put my hand in the water; water that is symbolic of the iron wall between North Korea and the world. We had dinner and then Kareoke with officials from Pyongyang who got us permission to even travel to North Korea in the first place. I couldn't help but observe their every move. They are real people, with real feelings and desires. I also got to call Emily today! I love her so much! The major takeaway from today is that in spite of a rough exterior, North Koreans are the same people I grew to love in the South. I am unceasingly amazed that across a very small river (one even I could swim across) there are men with guns keeping unwanted people out and many, many others in. Another thing that astounds me is that on the Chinese side of the river it is purely a tourist-town. People are taking advantage of the situation and scamming unsuspecting visitors with fake North Korean souvenirs. It disgusts me that people could try to make business out of a situation like this.