NORTH KOREA as a Tourist - Pyongyang Day One

welcome to North Korea on North Korea the breaking news diplomatic talks between the u.s. and North Korea already standstill okay I'm standing in China and this is North Korea there's a bridge just over there called the friendship bridge and we're just about to cross it and go into the country I am just about to get on the train it's a young yang in North Korea I just received my tourist card this is gonna be my visa and passport for the next few days I actually have to hand over my passport and I get that back when I leave and this serves as my ID in North Korea got a whole crew here does everyone we're going with and I'm just gonna show you everything that's going on starting from now ready so the first part we're going to be on a standing train to the border early it's just about 10 minutes and then we jump off and then change but I think we get back on the same train but we'll find that in a minute the board is going to be interesting I don't know how much I can film of it because it's a border but I'll go try and give you an update okay we're through the Chinese side and now we're waiting in this little bit to get on the train and then go to the North Korean side [Music] the sick guys this is the train taking us in to North Korea so this bit is just 10 minutes on the train and we're just standing I've just found out that when we get to the other side of the river which is where the natural border is between China and North Korea it's probably going to take about an hour and 45 to get through immigration like I said I don't know how much I can film but I think is going to be very interesting to see there's anyone train that goes in and out of North Korea each day across the bridge that connects it which is what we're getting now apparently there's also another six highway bridge that connects from China and China bill but that's not open yet they're waiting for a highway to be built on the other side they just keep filling you with knowledge because this is a really interesting also apparently there's 120,000 North Koreans living here in Danville and 350,000 North Koreans living in Shenyang another city because of the family ties and their ability to live in China which is something I didn't know anyway enough facts for now we're gonna get rain yeah so this is pretty much for the next ten minutes okay I'm gonna do a few voiceovers like this throughout the series because I wasn't really sure what be allowed to say and this way I can say exactly what I was feeling so this was our real first impressions of North Korea as we were entering going across this Friendship Bridge and we weren't really sure what we could say and some of us acquired we weren't sure what to expect from the border now when we did get there it's quite easy but all of our bags were emptied in this room and they checked for books and cameras and smartphones as it was it took about an hour and a half and then we we just learned straight through it's an hour and a half later and the customs guys just went through all of our bags we had to say if we had mobile phones laptops or iPads and they ticked off next to our name and then they also inspected for what kind of books we had in the back because certain books aren't allowed in to North Korea we're now boarding the train and then I think we have about five hours until we get to Pyongyang okay so this is the international carriage we have most foreign tourists go on and we are getting the domestic which is coming in right now all right next up okay first up we were given a meal by our tour guide and by the way you need a tour to go into North Korea you can't do it independently I did it with young pioneers tours the links in the description below for the first few hours all we were doing is just staring out into the countryside to try and make sense of it here's so much about North Korea in the news and we just wanted to try and see it with our own eyes and try and figure out what what these people's lives are like try and have some sort of insight into a daily routine for people that we may never interact with okay so we've been going for about ten minutes and we're just looking out the window and seeing everything we can this is a real opportunity to see the real countryside over North Korea most interesting is most of the people that notice that we're foreigners here are just staring straight back so we going past it is staring at each other then divide that we can become go there I can't go walk around that we kiss each other yeah like you see these sorts of you find yourself second-guessing yourself like I see something and I'm like well is that building actually man one of the things that was really noticeable was the lack of cars and buses on the road most people were just on bicycles are walking I mean this was one of the only cars we saw in five hours we just been told there are North Korean beers on this train I imagine they're quite similar to normal find out we came to fun bit [Music] right this is I hope it's not fair in there right here we go then first sip of milk cream Wow but in North Korea there's North Korean surgery it's gonna know I've gotta be honest this was a weird juxtaposition and the contrast wasn't lost on us we were sat in a train carriage with extreme privilege being able to drink beers in North Korea and then travel afterwards but most of these people that we were going past will probably never leave their region and the whole landscape for five hours was just as barren as this until we reach Pyongyang and this is the capital and you can see the whole scenery and everything changed just about six hours later and we have arrived to Pyongyang we're in the capital of North Korea right now which is fairly surreal and it's been surreal the whole time getting here but there's a lot more to see [Music] right so we even being checks for our passports now while we're handing them over not just from a complete tourist point of view I can't get over being in Pyongyang right now the most secluded like unlikely places to visit in the world which we just come out the train station in the center of Pyongyang in North Korea is the first time to come to Korea for everyone yeah okay so we had two North Korean guides for the whole time we were there as well as an international guide and we got to have a little bit of a city tour by a bus just seeing some of the sights the first thing I noticed that this was a very clean well looked after city and it could easily have been any city that was previously in the Soviet Union if you didn't know the background information about North Korea so I will say if you're going there as a tourist then make sure to do your research beforehand and learn about everything learn everything you can before because you're going to be presented with very one-sided view once you're inside the country ask as many questions as you want you're free to ask questions completely there's no restrictions on what you can ask but just have a bit of background knowledge here we went for dinner and actually it was very very good dinner we were quite happy with it it was clearly a tourist restaurant and not anything many North Koreans would be there now we got a little bit of a night tour around the city which was great because we got to walk out for out half an hour and see some of the local streets of this newly built area and that was it for the night we got a little bit the drive back on the way to the hotel where we rested up because the bulk of the exploring was going to be the next day we've made it to the hotel and we're about crashed tonight because tomorrow is the full day of exploring today was mostly a transit day of getting here being on that train from the border into the center of Pyongyang and then we got to explore a little bit I would say it's been fairly painless it was quite easy to get all the way here with the visa even that took a while and then the train journey it was easy and then walking around the food and everything that was pretty straightforward and now we're here in quite a nice hotel I'm gonna get some rest because we're up early tomorrow morning to have a full look around so if you want to see that and then check back for the next video but for now I'll just say thank you for watching and this is my life [Music]

Channel: TheLifeOfJord

Views: 3,003,395

Keywords: thelifeofjord, the life of jord, jordan simons, travel vlog, north korea, kim jong un, north korea tourist, young pioneer tours, pyongyang day one, pyongyang, north korea first impressions, north korea travel, pyongyang travel, north korea vs south korea, north korea documentary, north korea pyongyang, train to north korea, north korea 2019, north korea travel vlog, north korea vlog

Id: UnQmEYouTS0

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019