wrote:
On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:25:56 +0100
Recliner wrote:
The Pyongyang Metro uses ex-West Berlin U-Bahn stock dating from
around 1960. It looked clean and in good nick when I travelled on it
in 2013:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/reclin...57633424928749

I'm impressed you got away with taking those pictures without getting hauled
off for interrogation. Very ornate stations tho I don't think it'll ever be
on my to-visit list frankly.

Yes, those three stations are very ornate; others we passed through were
more utilitarian, like most things in North Korea. With a couple of
exceptions, photography wasn't restricted in the areas tourists can visit.
The bits they really don't want you to photograph aren't open to visit at
all.

One place where you can't take a camera in is the sacred waxworks, the
Kumsusan Palace of the Sun:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/reclin...7633470265514/

The other is the international gifts museum, showing off the often bizarre
and tasteless gifts received by the Kim dynasty over the years:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/reclin...7634297202747/

The guide was perplexed how few gifts were from the UK. They were mainly
from British admirers of the Juche ideology (people like our friend Hils),
and I had to explain to him that the British and DPRK governments didn't
get on. There were whole rooms in the huge, multi-level underground bunker
full of gaudy gifts from some third world countries.

In both places, you were free to take as many exterior pics as you wanted.
Curiously, we were far more restricted in what we could visit, see and
photograph on the southern side of the DMZ; the northern side was far more
relaxed:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/reclin...7633469222908/