pgraczer

Rent a car. Public transport is patchy, and you get to stop at all the out-of-the-way places that way.

Lived on Tokyo for two years working as an english teacher. Happiest time of my life.

Fondly remember getting ripped off by the driver, guide everyone else we encountered. fantastic. got very drunk after our climb on some kind of Beijing specialty liquor.

Went to DPRK in Sept 2004. Visited Pyongyang and Kaesong. Hard to describe what it was really like – you have to see for yourselves. Won’t forget the underground Chinese casino at the Yanggakdo Hotel (next to the ‘golden shower’ sauna) – we played blackjack on the first night in Pyongyang and I won $50 US!!

Capital is great fun, really cheap and has a real frontier feel. All rather surreal but relatively safe and lots to see and do. While there I met a journalist and did an interview on Mongolian Radio, went to the nightclub and danced to Kylie, and made friends with a discharged soldier and a projectionist! Madness…

Bring lots of really small denomination Euro notes. These are accepted more readily than dollars, but are hard to change in the DPRK.