We arrived at North Korea by a sleeper train.

Annyeonghaseyo ! This is Atsushi.
Annyeonghaseyo is hello in Korean.

This report is about our North Korea tour of 3 nights 4 days.
This is a long report, so please read when you have a time!

At the very first day of tour, we met a Chinese tour guide who can speak Japanese and went to Dan Dong station.
(Dan Dong is located at the border between China and North Korea)

It's a brand new.

I had to go through immigration to cross over the boarder line.
I said goodbye to the Chinese tour guide here.

I passed the immigration and moved to the platform.

The platform loos modernized, but the trains were old-fashioned.

The destination was displayed in Chinese 

and Hangeul as the train goes across the border.

The passenger was waiting for the door's opening.

Most people wore badges.
It is strange that it is a sleeper train, though it is not a night train.

Because there was not enough space , 

we had to bend down when you sit on a bed.

It was three-tier beds, and many luggages were put in the empty bed.

The North Korean carried various goods into their country from China.

Look at this tiny bed.

It's too small for the giant Ken, 187cm tall. hahaha

It was 15 minutes late behind schedule and left Dan Dong.
At this point, we were not accompanied by any tour guide.

We were going to meet a tour guide at Pyongyang terminal, so we were totally free now!

We decided to take advantage of this opportunity!!

I captured on the film the moment we entered North Korea.

＜Subtitles translation＞

①We took a sleeper train from Dan Dong to Pyongyang.

②All of passenger had a lot of luggage for sell those goods in North Korea.
(They bought it in China)

③Why was the construction of this bridge suspended?

④because U.S.A. bombed the bridge during Korean War.

This video must be very valuable!
Sinuiju is a town of the border of North Korea side.

We arrived there at around 10:00 and undertook immigration check.
However, we didn't go to the immigration gate.

A lot of people wearing military suits got into the train and started examining everyone.

We handed in immigration cards, the form of super-flu countermeasure, passports and Visas.

They didn't stamped on the spot.

Instead, they collected all the passports of passengers and disappeared to somewhere.

This is the VISA I received from the travel agency before the immigration.

Then, security check was conducted.
They opened every single bag and inspect'em very carefully.

Took about 5 min per person.

We left Sinuiju at 13:15 because they checked all passengers in three-car train...

Give me a break.! We stuck at the station more than three hours.
Now I understand why they have so many beds in the train.

Anyway, my passport was returned with NO stamps on it.
A separated green VISA was given instead.

The stamp was on the backside.

The fact that the stamp wasn't set to my passport indicates that it has four days blank on it.

It might be happened that the entrance day is indicated one or two days delayed from the departure day because of time lag.

But, I've never heard of three days behind.

There are more than 100 stamps placed on my passport.
It's so tough to find the four days blank.

But Ken had just updated his passport just before this journey began.
So it's almost brand new passport, whose blank is so outstanding.

At last, we passed the immigration and stepped onto North Korean soil!

The train is made up from more than 10 units.

The scenery from the train is very nostalgic.

This was the only time we're allowed to walk around freely while we were in North Korea.

So, we talked to anyone in this train.

At first, I was afraid of doing this.

My first priority was to find a person who speak English.

(The guy in the film was the one.)

Then, surprisingly, we met a North Korean who can speak Japanese!!

The two guys were grim-looking but they were very friendly.
They even introduced us to another group having a party.

Sorry. I can't put the photo that I took with everyone. 

North Korean treated Heineken to unemployed Japanese drifters.
Fact is stranger than fiction.

I will report our North Korean journey in another day.

It's getting dark after a while.

At last, we arrived at Pyongyang Station at 19:30.
It took about 9 hours from Dan Dong Station.

It was already dark.

Two tour guides (43 and 39 guys) were waiting for us.
Their first words are "How brave you guys are. Do you realize the international situation?"

"Of course, we do." we answered.

Then we headed for a hotel and had dinner there.
We went straight to the bed.

Thank your reading this quite long diary.

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