On to Pyongyang |
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The plane touched down a couple of hours later at Pyongyang International Airport. A giant picture of Kim Il-sung looked down over the barren tarmac as we made our way down the steps of the plane and into waiting Air Koryo buses for the 30 second trip to the terminal. Once at the terminal, even before clearing immigration, I met Mr. Baek, the man who was to be our main tour guide. He divided us into language groups first, the Japanese from our tour into one group, the two Chinese into another, the two Germans got put into our six-man English speaking group. After Mr. Baek's brief introduction and greeting it was time to fill out forms and, for those of us living in the South, start worrying about what exactly the North was going to stamp into our passports. A North Korean stamp, interesting rarity though it may be, would hardly prove endearing when we flew back to Seoul - with a little bad luck it could even get us deported. After filling out the forms I walked up to the little wooden box housing the immigration agent and nervously handed over my passport. Mr. Baek stood next to me, ready to smooth over any problems. The agent gave my passport and the forms a brief once-over, stamped a piece of paper and . . . that was it. I've had more trouble getting through toll booths than getting through North Korean immigration. Plus the North is courteous enough to follow the time-worn pariah path of stamping a piece of paper and then stapling the paper into the passport. The paper to be removed a few days later when you depart. Everyone else then began working their way through immigration. Apparently the whole tour was on one giant group visa and everyone had to go through together in one line. While the others were getting stamped in I went over to the forlorn looking little luggage carrier to grab my bag. Even some of the little hick towns I'd flown into in the South had bigger airports than this! Clean and well-organized it was, a haven of international commerce it wasn't. As I was waiting for the others Mr. Baek came up and told me I was in charge of helping him fill out the 'forbidden items' customs paperwork. I had tried showing off my Korean when we first met and, after the shock wore off, I guess Mr. Baek thought he'd put me to work. Having never been a lackey of the communist oppressors before I decided to help him round everyone up for questioning. We finally got everyone in the English speaking group together (the guides constantly hurrying us, while we paid them little attention, was to become a major theme of the trip) and Mr. Baek ran down the list of problematic items (books, cameras, magazines, newspapers, etc.) while I translated. Anytime you had one of the items you held up your hand so he could take a look and write it down. After a few minutes though, and still only part way down the list, Mr. Baek apparently decided he had seen enough and marched us over to customs. |