Inside North Korea – The Strangest Country on Earth
let's go i'm back in Pyongyang the capital of the world's most secretive country this is where all the military parades are pride themselves on being self-reliant are they self-reliant but this time I'm leaving the city to see what life is really like outside of the capital after years of isolation what I found out was surreal and it all builds up to the one question can I finish the Pyongyang Marathon before the official time cut off where the am I we're in the middle of nowhere let's find out welcome to day two Pyongyang North Korea as you can see we have a city view from my balcony and you can just take in the sights and the sounds we're on the outskirts of the city so we're kind of in the industrial area you can see the factories and the the very big large city of Pyongyang i don't feel good golden letters means idea the man is the master of everything and decides everything it just She reminds me of like Jumanji welcome to Jumanji it's like a side quest welcome to This is Tower this is the most iconic place in Pyongyang 170 m tall i think we're going to go to the top and it's going to be amazing views and Zush is inscribed on the front it's the main um ideology of DPRK um mainly on self-reliance and how they yeah became a socialist communist state from being self-reliant so they they pride themselves on being self-reliant are they self-reliant i don't know maybe we can't answer that question right now but oh you met Alvo on the I love this but like this you could have done without but like it's nice it's nice no no I like it it's cool right you like my dream came true i'm going to get a North Korean tracksuit a sports tracksuit we've come to a nice little department store to get the tracksuit let's find out how much it is how much $80 all right deal large okay good so we pay in uh you can pay in dollars or RMBB in uh DPRK and it's very interesting you pay before you get the goods we've paid now we take the receipt back to get our items this is uh this was my one okay thank you i do not believe it i found the internet so we don't have any any Wi-Fi any data here okay let's go on the North Korean internet wow let's check my emails oh we have an email from Mr marshall Kim Jong-un i don't know why but it's just always interesting yeah exactly what is this look at this it's actually the internet intern Internet Explorer do you have a email from the Marshall do you have any books by Lily Phillips maybe i'm not sure okay this we can see the electronic or electron edition and the extra What's your favorite book favorite book oh oh of course uh our country's book ah okay nice they have my autobiography which is pretty cool you have Spanish oh you know this one of course it's Germany man really do you like this one yeah is it old song or a little bit old song i I have no idea it's very interesting it's like when we're off camera they're very open and they'll say what they really think and what like movies they really like and what they really think but as soon as you point the camera or show any camera they just go into like NPC mode and they'll just like answer "Oh we love the we love the Korean Nationalist Party music we love the Korean books." It's like a script that they've learned in front of a choir as you can see we are at a Taekwondo demonstration taekwondo is like the number one or one of the most popular sports in DPRK you have to do it mandatory in school and there's like nine different levels so let's have a little go see if we can get involved male and female watching yeah that was seriously impressive i was worried someone was going to get hurt but we're all safe and sound why not go on boy oh you're so strong mate you did it we are going for North Korea's most famous food which is called nang monga oh oh it smells a bit funky oh wow is this someone's birthday the good news is it can only get better oh they're doing a performance all right we got some fried meat and an egg it's pretty cold noodles what's the sauce sorry guys Arie doesn't know how to eat yet we have driven about an hour out of Pyongyang it was cool to see some of the sites we saw some villages and lots of farmland and we've arrived at some green houses that's all we've been told i guess this is to show us their subsistence farming and how they're able to produce all of the food for DPRK within this area or within the country obviously I know what the comments are going to be saying i can already feel the comments oh you know they're only showing you this to prove a point that they can they can get food they don't need any help but actually everyone's everyone's starving let's not judge let's go inside with an open mind 250 grand wow this is the first time I've ever seen vertical farming this is actually incredible absolutely insane although this is not many times where I see farming in general so this there's multiple green houses and this is huge this is a huge complex and apparently this is able to help their supply issues and they said that the the three big green houses which are owned by the state sorry the complexes not the green houses the three big complexes are able to uh give food for the whole of the country that's what they said and this um complex was also built on a former airfield which also I guess goes to show their move towards more modern sustainable practices not in the natural state the natural state uh the the the wrong one uh the the ones at the top the vegetables at the top cannot get the enough sunlight right so that's why they are spreading light does it spin around yeah no no no no it says like this it's just emitting light emitting light so that they can grow they can get light from that light okay I've never seen this before it's very modern well I guess you You can say what you want you can say they don't have enough food you can say they do have enough food but what is very interesting is that they have 25 million people and they're able to sounds like they're able to mostly uh use their own farming to produce the food for 25 million people which is still very impressive even if they are maybe they're having problems you you don't know i don't know you don't know we don't know but what we do know is that this is very impressive and it also the main thing for me is that it makes you very grateful for being able to have things imported you know everything is imported in the UK a lot of things are imported but we take that for granted so that is that is a nice little positive that you can take out of this lovely experience there's also lots of lots and lots and lots of propaganda around we got like let's fight for patriotism long live communism fight for your country things like this lots of sayings everywhere you walk obviously I can't read it but I can get it translated very good awesome wow i am in North Korea and I'm going to get a haircut let's see what it's like haircut yes please hello oh wow this is sick these are the different haircuts we can get so there there's not much variation but I'm going to ask for something special maybe the receding hairline maybe the This isn't very nice so all right well to be honest they all look the same to me i think that's the one that's the one i like this he's just a happy guy um do you speak any English english english no no uh can you show him the picture sure can I get haircut like uh Kim Jong-un kim Jong-un haircut yes haircut okay okay your name is Kim Jang Song nice to meet you this is the haircut I'm getting guys marshall kim Jong-un marshall well guys I did not expect to be getting a haircut in DPRK but you know when your boy needs a cut your boy needs a cut doesn't matter where it is in the world how many years have you been cutting hair what happened with that situation did everyone do it to the floor yeah you got poster out the box hs 3 years okay it's either three years or three haircuts so one of the two all right oh wow it's like I'm getting my head chopped off this feels nice face down this one just so the hairdressers is actually located within the hotel so that's how convenient is there's not many places in the world where you can get a haircut in your hotel what do we think boys chances of me getting a good haircut you're going to look great mate this guy looks like a surgeon i reckon he's going to perform a good surgery on your hair all right my hair is in your hands Mr kim oh that's short all right but to be fair I think I think this guy has been waiting his whole life to do a Kim Jong-un haircut cuz he's just he's stuck with like 15 variations and he's just been waiting for this day that looks pretty good though less less less forest less less okay oh yeah okay we got some communist some communist propaganda in the background playing got the Soviet flag we also forgot to ask how much it is i completely forgot $8 $8 okay all right that's pretty good please can I also have a head massage yeah yeah it's possible okay just a little refresher of the haircut that I'm supposed to be getting this one not this one this one and we can also watch some amazing pictures of Mr xi Jinping and Comrade uh Kim Jong-un as I'm getting a haircut but he's doing a he's doing a great job he's a man of few words but he's just he's just concentrating hard he's locked in right now he's supremely locked in oh [ __ ] i think things basically things are just taking a turn for a a very interesting turn and I think we are going full skin here i think we are not done oh this is this is panic panic is slow this is panic panic is slowly setting in but I'm not going to stop it because this is going to be interesting full skin yeah yeah right is it full skin coming yeah full skin okay all right we're doing this together buddy let's do it no no go for it yaps capsida bit more whoa have you done this before oh he doesn't understand what I'm saying actually no that's a bad question to ask us is this your first time oh whoa we're not done yet he's looking at his instruction manual like "What do I do next with the foreigner?" It's like It's like a It's like a nice Indian massage wow wow feels feels interesting getting that ear wax buddy probably the most unique head massage I've ever had in my life for sure and I've had a few i kind of want one of those nice oh he's just showing off like every skill he has every trick in the book it's like in the manual yeah yeah yeah i feel like this guy was one of the guys in the taekwond do today oh this feels good why do you say that this feels really good is that the new Dyson i don't think he will accept my tip i don't know if I'm allowed to give a tip but I'm going to give one cuz you know [ __ ] [ __ ] it it looks good it's good you like it youtube oh thank you okay i give uh for you okay thank you i think my friend Guys we are at the stadium it's early it's cold and I'm ready to run a marathon this is going to be big this is going to be 50,000 people unfortunately I won't finish in the stadium because they're closing it uh they're closing the stadium early for the closing ceremony but I'm still going to finish this marathon in under four hours 30 hopefully if I don't get under 4 hour 30 I get a do not finish these Koreans are very strict uh and we've got lots of money on it but anyway I'm going to try and enjoy the experience first time being able to roam around the streets of uh DPRK Pyongyang without any uh without any guides without any security watching me so this will be a very unique experience something that they haven't been able to do for 5 years okay it's just a few few seconds away we're going to have an opening ceremony 15 minutes and then it's going to be a bit manic um before we start what the [ __ ] guys this is insane the stadium's full they're all waving they're going to be here for 4 hours this is absolutely insane the other Korean runners here as well apparently they're super super quick so I'm not going to be even trying to keep up with them they look super young as well this is an official marathon so there is uh professional runners there's Ethiopian runners Moroccan runners so this is professional so I won't be anywhere near them but they'll probably laugh me there he is let's go oh my god just so chaotic i have no idea what's going on let's go boys come on come on let's go let's go they're so small they're going to run so fast they're going to be gone that's all oh my god all right here we go here we go good pace to start off with i just need to get logged in now just like 1.5 km in i'm going to get the talking out the way because there'll be parts later where I won't be able to talk so it's good it's quiet it's nice weather all the Koreans are smiling and waving heading to work first time in uh DPRK where I'm completely unattended i could go run off into those apartment blocks could go speak to anyone no one's watching it's very nice to have freedom for once on this trip anyway let's go back on with it this is the largest seated stadium in the world i don't know how many seats look it up i'm busy right now can you not tell oh it tastes like six kilometers down now we're going through look at this this feels like I'm in Dubai these skyscrapers are like Dubai this is the most famous square i think it's called the Kimmel some square and uh this is where all the military parades are we got Zu Tower over there we're getting a proper tour you don't get this on the 5k or the 10k it's actually so nice like they're so distracting because like they just keep smiling and waving and uh it's really making me forget about the 30 km that I've got to do it's a lot of grandmas waving i'm angry i'm thinking about everyone who told me I couldn't do it when someone says I can't do something that makes me angry when they don't know me they don't know me they underestimate me these might fail me this will never fail me there's certain parts of the course where you can see I'm pretty sure they're like military or secret service in clothes cuz they always wear a specific type of suit very very nice suit compared to everyone else and they're just blocking certain roads i don't blame them of course there's certain roads that you probably don't want people to go down the first 20k is the training for the 20 second 20k so one quarter of the way done and I feel great i might have another little pickme up [ __ ] i've got nine of these so there's no bins i'm going to be the first person in Yongang to litter how can you not feel like a pro athlete when they're cheering you on where the am my right now we have left Pyongyang we're in the middle of nowhere there's a river on that side football stadium on that side the random people with bikes everyone's got bikes no cars of course we're in North Korea right we are Well I don't know how long we're done 12 13 feeling good feeling good hello i'm not going to take water the uh professional runners are now crossing us so it's basically just we go up and then we come back so they are very far ahead i don't know how far ahead 5 km ahead probably maybe yeah probably i'm not going to get any water any marathon runners watching this are probably shouting at their TV saying "Take some bloody water." But I don't want to piss i really don't want to piss it's going to slow me down so these guys are the professional DPRK runners they are 10 km ahead of me 156 uh 21 22 km over halfway feeling good feeling very good legs starting to hurt a little bit that's very normal we're about to engage David Gogggins mode for anyone who doesn't know David Gogggins Road David Gogggins Road is where I play motivational David Gogggins YouTube clips I've downloaded and that my friend is how you run a marathon in under 4 hour 30 at this rate I'm going to do it in under 4 hours but the uh past the 25k mark is unknown territory for me so they don't know me son get it 18 they don't know me son get it 19 come on big son yeah 20 you got the Lord 21 yeah get it again come on we want to see it good 22 who's going to carry in the Lord that's you buddy 23 come on 24 one more david one more gary the boats you're going to do it you're going to do it you're going to do it you did it yeah 27k 27k We're good we're Gucci we're flying unknown territory now is that this pain feels good and I'm going to love it when I do this when I finish this pain is the elixir to success back in the city now oh [ __ ] I'm going the wrong way back in the city last push i'm feeling good i'm going to do this i'm a push i can probably sprint but I got nothing left finished 3:40 i thought I was going to finish 4:30 so I was an hour quicker than I expected to be i am so proud of myself i don't know how the I did that but we did it guys i really struggling to walk right now well done thank you so much thank you i'm a hybrid athlete hybrid athlete yeah what do I ask there we go guys we finished i haven't got my time yet but I think cuz I tracked down my phone 3:41ish oh wow my time in North Korea completely changed my perception of the country the people I met were genuinely warm and welcoming and for me that's what shapes how I feel about a place like I always say there's a big difference between a government and its people thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video
2025-04-16 01:31
