Back to Pyongyang

I’m in Beijing today, getting things in place for a return trip to North Korea. We’ve been invited back to continue discussions on the house building initiative there. I spent the morning getting my visa and Air Koryo tickets. I leave in tomorrow for Pyongyang and will be there until Saturday.

I’m soloing this time and getting the visa and tickets turned out to be an adventure. Last time we were with out mentor Han Park who knows the ropes. The first challenge was finding the North Korean Embassy. I checked with the concierge here at the hotel but English really is a foreign language here, and the address he came up with turned out to be for the South Korean embassy. Fortunately I had my phone and a number and the taxi driver was able to figure it out. They had cards for Air Koryo at the embassy, so we were able to find that without too much difficulty.

Everything is now arranged and I’ll be ont the 11:30 flight tomorrow for Pyongyang. I won’t be able to post to the blog while I’m there—no internet access—but will keep a daily record and put some thoughts down when I return.

This will be an important series of meetings. On the last trip we came to a general understanding on the project. This trip will begin to put some meat on the bones, talking about construction systems, materials, location, infrastructure and all the elements that will go into building a budget. One of the goals is to build houses that are highly efficient and innovative in terms of energy use. We could be on to something very interesting with this.

I’ll report back in a week.