Korea Trip - Dandong

On April 5th, we took the ferry from Incheon port in South Korea, to Dandong, a city in China that borders with North Korea.

...For some reason, the ferry struck me a typically Chinese.

It was really crowded. in fact this is a picture of one of the less crowded areas.
After rubbing shoulders with a couple of hundred Chinese people, we were let on board of the ferry, into our own private room.

Well, private common room, anyways. I positioned myself nearest the door, to get some fresh air from outside, but in the end, so many Chinese were smoking on the deck with the door open, about two meters from our cabin, that i ended up closing the door.

The cafeteria was no less crowded for supper, and all in all, it was a relatively event-less trip and we arrived the next morning in Dandong.

The feeling I had in Dandong, was of a mix of Urban and countryside. On one hand you had factories and coal-processing plants near the center of the town, but on the other, you had some very tall buildings, and downtown was definitely urban. in contrast to South Korea, though, it was definitely less modern and clean. Then again, I would be comparing Seoul, the capital of SK, with a random city in China.

Anyways, when we arrived, we met our energetic Chinese guide, and went to our hotel for a long-awaited shower, and proceeded to make the most of our last day in the free and democratic country that is China. We visited the War Museum in China, commemorating the Korean war (with slightly different versions of how things happened than the museum in SK)...

...Went on a boar ride on the river bordering china and North Korea (Thats the Friendship bridge)..

And had some fun at a great Chinese restaurant in town, complete with revolving tables (I need to get me one of those).

On the boat, I got a set of old North-Korean money (that is technically illegal for foreigners to possess in NK), and me and the guide managed to haggle down the price from 30$ to about 6$, and I got to use my special skills honed in years of role-playing games!

All in all it was a hectic day. After leaving some "compromising items" at the hotel (Basically, pictures we took in SK and pamphlets from some of the NGOs we had visited), we headed to the train station and into North Korea!