When we touched down at Pyongyang International Airport and alighted from the plane we were greeted by the sight of a mammoth painting of the Eternal President Kim Il Song looking upon us with a stately air of benevolence. The airport security was predictably severe, but never violent or even impolite. We were introduced to our North Korean tour guides (expertly trained in Mandarin) and whisked away to Haebaesong Hotel, one of the very few hotels in the city. All hotels in Pyongyang are state-controlled and solely meant for foreigners. After a satisfactory dinner at the hotel restaurant we were told in no uncertain terms by the tour guides that we must retire to our rooms for the night and must not attempt to leave the hotel for any reason because it would not be in our welfare to do so. However, my friends and I decided that exploring Pyongyang by ourselves away from the supervision of the tour guides was just too great an opportunity to pass on.

We managed to sneak out from the hotel despite our tour guides standing guard at the hotel lobby. Our short free-and-easy walk around the city centre brought us remarkable sights of random groups of people dancing together, thousands of workers marching down the streets in a rehearsal for the upcoming Party 60th anniversary celebrations, soldiers bellowing army tunes as they march neatly down the road (possible only because there are so few cars), smartly-attired female traffic policewomen directing traffic (in a fashion that is remarkably similar to a robotic dance) because there are no working traffic lights in Pyongyang, inter alia.