Coming out of North Korea...

I just came out of North Korea 5 days ago. It was a very special experience after hearing about the country for the first time in 1997 and having it in my heart ever since. It was a dream fulfilled and now a few days later it almost feels like a dream. Was I really there? Did I really see all the things I saw? Did it really happen? I feel privileged and honored to visit this country called a "hermit country" and "the closest place on Earth". This country with a population of about 24 million people that most of the world knows so little about, for sure. 

I was inside only 5 days, but when I came home I felt like I had been gone a month, with a journal full of notes and hundreds of pictures. And still, though I felt like every day was a week of experiences, I came out with so many questions, even more curious than before. There are so many layers, but also much simplicity. There is so much beauty, but also a darker side.

I´m not a great photographer, and with an old camera and often hurrying past scenes I still tried to capture some of the reality of the inside. I was inside, but still I felt like I was looking in, still I felt my pictures were only observing, not a face-to-face meeting, not a personal encounter, it was as if I was inside, but being a fly on the wall - silently observing for the first time. 

There will probably be more stories, more pictures. I just need some time to think about it, chew on it, swallow it, let it sink in...

At one of the open spaces in the middle of Pyongyang. Thousands of young students gathered... Koreans together in masses is not an uncommon sight in this place (click on pictures to enlarge).

Pyongyang in the middle of rush hour, a city of over 3 million citizens. The sidewalks were full of people and bicycles, the streets empty with a few cars easily guided by a female Korean "traffic officer".

Korean men in the countryside on their way to work, surrounded by a luscious green scenery.

As we´re driving by buss into the well known DMZ, the boarder between North and South we are approached by this poster, one of many, enlarged on a tall wall, showing the full country of North and South, not divided, and two happy children - together.