Much ink has already been spilled on the rapid development of East Asia today, with China and India's emergence in particular being discussed ad nauseam. Still, if we can bear to tear our eyes away from the admittedly fascinating skyline of Shanghai and New Delhi, we may realize that there is much that remains the same. China, the "Middle Kingdom" of antiquity, is today the centre of the world's attention again.

Look eastwards , and we have the "Hermit Kingdom", or DPR Korea. For those unfamiliar with the history of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea was known as the Hermit Kingdom hundreds of years before the Korean Peninsula was cruelly divided, but today the name is eerily fitting for the reclusive regime.

In his masterpiece "A Passage to India" E.M. Forster famously wrote that "life never gives you what you want at the moment you want it", a statement I can personally attest to. In October 2005 I had a one week holiday trip to plan, courtesy of the China's National Day "golden week" celebrations. To cut a long story short, my original plan was to travel around North China in general, and Mongolia in particular, but due to certain unforeseen circumstances (of which the details are now far too hazy as well as irrelevant for me to attempt to recount) that didn't quite materialize in the end . Instead, I decided to travel to a very different place --- North Korea. At the risk of sounding trite, i t honestly turned out to be the most brilliant experience I could have ever hoped for.