Inside North Korea VR | ABC News #360Video

[Music] you're now checked in to the young dough International Hotel in Pyongyang the capital city of North Korea as you can see the accommodations are modest the walls are bare with a little retro feel and the furniture and decor you arrive to a clean and neat room as you would in any other hotel and it's kept that way your entire stay cleanliness we've noticed is important to the city which you can see outside the window behind you on the television there a nationalistic propaganda film plays on state TV North Korea is a country with no freedom of expression freedom of speech and certainly no freedom of the press which means we are not allowed to walk out of the yanggakdo unaccompanied that remind with a camera anything not on the itinerary requested by our team was considered but on this trip none were accommodated so why invite us in the first place to cover their main event of the year 70th anniversary celebration of North Korea's Workers Party in Kim il-sung square what do you think of our president so let's get out of this room and see Pyongyang seeing Pyongyang means seeing it via a pre-approved guided tour we are always accompanied by government escorts who asked us not to film them but they often ended up in the shot as they've listened in on what we said and made sure we stuck to the schedule take note of those two men in suits standing side by side as I walk past them they were our guides and you'll spot them throughout this trip so hey it's it's Bob Woodruff right here if you just take a look and turn around over to this direction you can see this is one of the most popular tourist spots and all of the town of Pyongyang this is where general kim il-song the leader the founder of this country of North Korea was born you can see this is where three generations lived his grandfather his father and his mother of course and he was actually born right on the other side which I'll show you in a second but you see some of these rooms where they make their clothes they made their tobacco and they love to smoke is what we were told and if you look over this others pictures of these families right against the wall you see his grandfather his his family above him Kim Milton kim moosung they also told me that Kim Jong Il which is chemo song son and even Kim jong-un you know of course is the as the current leader of this country he's been here as well so we're gonna go to the top of the hill where you can see this beautiful beautiful spot but to see what it looks like here are down below well because of our strict schedule we didn't make it to the top of the hill our handlers decided to move us to a Pyong yang metro station here you can see the hustle and bustle of Pyongyang as you look around notice the women some dressed in more western style fashion even high heels a very presence of traffic weaving past those cable cars even taxis all this is actually new modern for North Korea though through our eyes it seems ordinary if not dated let's go down below construction of the Metro started in 1965 and was completed in 1972 here in Hope station you can see a mural of Kim Jong Il check out the colorful chandeliers all around the station and once again notice how clean the subway is no gamma land platforms the litter or trash thousands of North Koreans reportedly ride the Metro each day it is one of the deepest metros in the world at 360 feet below the surface it doubles as a bomb shelter like the London Underground it costs about $1 for one-way ticket since we weren't allowed to see all the sights on our own our minders took us to this local tourist attraction it's called folklore Park it's full of miniature versions of Pyongyang's landmarks here you can see North Korea's replica the arch of Triomphe and in the distance you see those snow-capped mountains there a smaller version of paektu Mountain the sacred place in Korean folklore with the late Kim Jong Il was born here visitors can take in all the historical sights and even play dress-up some even come here to get married like this come and it's here and keema sum Square where Kim jong-un showcases his military muscle thousands of goose-stepping soldiers marching in formation saluting their leader even from above [Music] they're up on the balcony of Pyongyang's grand people's study house a young leader of this mysterious country Kim jong-un reading his people enthusiastically who in turn a Raptors in there applause and cheers everywhere you look and this is the moment every military analyst waits for just feet away from where we're standing it looked like Hollywood props but this is Kim jong-un provocatively parading his ballistics arsenal before an international audience it is here with the intelligence community looks for clues studying every angle and the progress of North Korea's nuclear weapons program [Music] and as the parade comes to a close North Korean citizens women clad in traditional Korean dress men in suits waved plastic flowers cheer and unison for the young leader whose face adorns the float behind them but when you strip away the pageantry the floats the calms North Korea watchers have been predicting this country's collapse for decades now arguing that all of this cult of personality all of this closing off from the outside world cannot be sustained as each successive modern era requires participation in a global economy in order to survive many wonder how much longer will this last [Applause] you

Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: North Korea (Country), Kim Jong-un (Politician), Kim Jong-il (Politician), dprk, Bob Woodruff (Award Winner), vr, Virtual Reality (Media Genre), #360video, 360 video, News (TV Genre)

Id: HnEACysvsI8

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2015