Travel Guides

When in North Korea, foreign visitors will often be asked to pay homage to the Great Leader President Kim Il Sung. This will usually be done at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.Visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace to pay homage to Kim Il Sung is quite an experience. Entry is through a long passageway which has the longest travelator that I have seen in my life. I was advised by my guides that it was installed at the initiative of the Great Leader General Kim Jung Il so that visitors would not get tired when walking to the palace. “The great leader is always thinking of the comfort of his people”, one of my guides said. At the end of the passageway, visitors have to step on a slowly-moving conveyor belt that takes them through an x-ray machine which is like a giant version of the machines that x-ray baggage at airports (heavens know how many millirems of radiation I received) and then through a room where powerful jets of air are directed on your body (maybe that’s to blow off any germs that have been killed by the x-rays). If you are a female visitor, I recommend you do not bother getting your hair done before the visit, because there won’t be anything left of your hairdo when you emerge from the blower room.