Sinuiju: a city bordering China

The next day we left for the town of Sinuiju at 10am, only 3 of us from the group and some very annoying guys from another group joined us. The train journey itself was nice and was a sleeper but we were so tired that we did not see much of it, just slept most of the way. The tour was very fatiguing as we were up most days at 6am and in bed by 1am!

We met our local guides on the train and travelled with them, they were very nice and friendly and helpful. Its a shame we spend only 24 hours with them! When we arrived, we arrived a place called Dongrim, we went to the hotel which was nice and new with much better rooms than the one in Pyongyang. We then went to a frozen waterfall, however as I was exhausted I was able to skip going all the way to the top and chill in my room for bit, much needed!!

Hotel in Dongrim

On the evening I had a massage and went to bed as I wasn't in the mood for socialising with the rest of the group as they were annoying.

The next morning we woke up early and proceeded to the town of Sinuiju, this was the only time where really saw some poverty, for the majority of this journey there were people sweeping dust of the roads, there must have been hundreds. It was a very bumpy road!!!

On arrival in Sinuiju we were treated to a soap factory! We now know how they make soap, exiting times! After this we proceeded to see the mosaic images of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Suk (the mother). There was a wedding happening outside the statues! Afterwards we saw the square where the statues of the leaders are in smaller scale to the ones in Pyongyang. We visited a park close by, it was very faded and not so 'green'. We had a tour of a museum with a local guide, to be honest by this point I wasn't paying attention, as I was tired and hungry. The food wasn't for me in NK! It wasn't awful but it wasn't for me. I usually hate McDonald's unless I'm drunk but I was so looking forward to my McDonalds!

The highlight for sure was the children's performance, we got to see the local kids playing instruments and singing, they were amazing, just like 25 year olds, highly skilled, some scenes were even a little disturbing for example when the kids dressed as soldiers and were shooting each other (presumably pretending to be Americans). The overall performance was well over one hour, highly choreographed and skilled. Top entertainment!

Before leaving the DPRK, we got to stand on the DPRK side of the border and look into china which is quite rare for tourists, it was quite funny as the next day we did the opposite form China but there is more to see from North Korea. People were paying apx 7 euros to go to a half bridge in China and look into the DPRK, There is not really anything to see in the DPRK from china, very few buildings and nothing from Sinuiju city centre.

Our Local Guide

On leaving the DPRK it was very strange as we did not want to leave but we did want to. Clearing immigration was really easy, we had to declare all computers, electronics and memory cards, but nothing was searched. Then we boarded the bus and proceeded to china!