Tight minge Posted March 6, 2016 Share Posted March 6, 2016 This fact will blow your minds as well. They genuinely got in touch about 3 months ago and asked if they could play Scotland in a friendly football match in pyongyang in June. Tickets would have been easy the stadium holds 150k folk! A friend of mine went to North Korea and got the same spiel about setting up a game. Seems quite a common occurrence. He actually went as far to look into it and the political stance was that the UK government won't sanction any team to play in North Korea. The best he could muster was his local amateur team, but the representatives in North Korea would still bill it as an International and said they would be playing NK internationalists and there would be 150k at the event. Obviously it never happened and the general thought was that it could actually happen, but you wouldn't be very popular with the U.K. Government. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgecutter Posted March 6, 2016 Share Posted March 6, 2016 Dreadful idea. The North Koreans would tell the world we lost 15-0 and our FIFA ranking would plummet even further. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthernLights Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 http://www.earthnutshell.com/stopping-all-stations-the-pyongyang-metro/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hampden Diehard Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Superb stuff - thanks. I went to the DMZ a couple of years ago and part of this particular tour was going into one of the huts that is used for negotiations between the two countries. It straddles the border and you can walk into the North Korean half of the hut. There is a South Korean soldier guarding the door out of the hut at the North Korean side. We were told that he's there as there have been occasions when someone has been kidnapped by NK soldiers coming into the hut. Not sure whether that was a loada mince but it was told with a straight face. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 North Korea fascinates me, the fact that a country like this exists right now is mind blowing. I'd love to visit it but don't think I have the bollocks to ever do it. There are a few decent documentaries on YouTube relating to the country, escapists, the regime etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cardinal Richelieu Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 It's probably one of the safest holidays you can go on - unless you start doing something silly like pissing on a statue of the "Dear Leader". I'd love to go too. Only thing putting me off is that the money you pay for the privilege provides much-needed foreign currency to prop up the crazy regime. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 It's probably one of the safest holidays you can go on - unless you start doing something silly like pissing on a statue of the "Dear Leader". I'd love to go too. Only thing putting me off is that the money you pay for the privilege provides much-needed foreign currency to prop up the crazy regime. It's about the only country I wouldn't dream of going to, it could just take an off hand remark by Cameron slagging off the Dear Leader and you could be off to a Labour Camp for 5 years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendan Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 I worked in North Korea for about a year around the turn of the century, and I was able to freely go around Pyongyang, though for other areas I needed to be with a guide/minder. One of the funny things about reading tourist blogs is that they sometimes think everything - absolutely everything - is choreographed just for them. It isn't. It's also implausible that they devote huge resources and scarce skills to listening to and translating inane foreigner chat. Of course, if foreigners make a planned trip to the 'Children's Palace' or somewhere like that it will all be arranged in advance, but if you are just passing somewhere in a bus or arriving on a train, it is just normal life you see. And yes, normal life there is a bit weird. I think some of these ideas come from the fact that they did actually attempt stuff like that back in the days of Kim Il Sung and the Cold War. That last photo of the first set looks totally normal, and at least some of the people in it are not North Koreans. A couple of the subway stations are stunning - those are the two they take tourists to. Most of the rest, including the one at Kim Il Sung Square, are very ordinary. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 (edited) I worked in North Korea for about a year around the turn of the century, and I was able to freely go around Pyongyang, though for other areas I needed to be with a guide/minder. One of the funny things about reading tourist blogs is that they sometimes think everything - absolutely everything - is choreographed just for them. It isn't. It's also implausible that they devote huge resources and scarce skills to listening to and translating inane foreigner chat. Of course, if foreigners make a planned trip to the 'Children's Palace' or somewhere like that it will all be arranged in advance, but if you are just passing somewhere in a bus or arriving on a train, it is just normal life you see. And yes, normal life there is a bit weird. I think some of these ideas come from the fact that they did actually attempt stuff like that back in the days of Kim Il Sung and the Cold War. That last photo of the first set looks totally normal, and at least some of the people in it are not North Koreans. A couple of the subway stations are stunning - those are the two they take tourists to. Most of the rest, including the one at Kim Il Sung Square, are very ordinary. Did you enjoy living there? Any pics? It's a surreal place but, although I'm big into conspiracies and the like, we only know what we are told. Life in NK could be a lot different from what we see. Edited May 7, 2016 by Central 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendan Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 It was interesting, though I can't say it was always enjoyable. It was before the days of smartphones or decent mass market digital cameras, but I have some scans of regular photos. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamthebam Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 P&B seems to have been hacked by Koreans! I for one welcome our new overlords from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. All Hail the Great Leader! Hiya P&B, Hiya Comrades! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamthebam Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 Pyongyang! (that's the sound of a sniper's bullet narrowly missing Mozza...) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjc Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 On 25/04/2016 at 20:33, Central said: North Korea fascinates me, the fact that a country like this exists right now is mind blowing. I'd love to visit it but don't think I have the bollocks to ever do it. There are a few decent documentaries on YouTube relating to the country, escapists, the regime etc. Wait til you read about this place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTimeLurker Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 (edited) On 2016/05/07 at 13:47, bendan said: It was interesting, though I can't say it was always enjoyable. It was before the days of smartphones or decent mass market digital cameras, but I have some scans of regular photos. Looks like the guy immediately behind the Dear Leader in this photograph is the uncle of Kim Jong-un that got executed. If that's a photo that was never online before, maybe the Korean hacking earlier on was no coincidence? If so, I hope they have fun translating this in Pyongyang and figuring out what it means. 8마일의 버퍼는 김 왕조에서 똥 놀아나. Edited July 26, 2016 by LongTimeLurker 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyerTon Posted August 3, 2016 Share Posted August 3, 2016 North Korea fires ballistic missile into Japanese waters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36961395 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullerene Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 As requested, this is the old thread with interesting pictures of North Korea. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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