North Korea is like the urban legend of the Japanese soldier still fighting WWII out on some lonely island in the remote Pacific.  In his mind, it’s all still very real for him.  When he starts shooting at us, then it’s real for us, too.  At first I didn’t know if they were even going to let me in the country, something about journalists not allowed in on tourist visas.  That’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of journalism.  Them’s fightin’ words.  Obviously they’ve never read my work.  Finally I convinced them I was just a blogger, so apparently that’s okay, heh heh.  But the plot only thickens, of course, in direct proportion as the prices rise.  You can only enter the country on guided tours, and ‘guided’ here means just that…guides, and lots of them.  Tourists are not only NOT allowed to travel independently, but are rarely even allowed out of sight of the guides assigned to them, not hard when the assigned hotel is on an island, I guess.  I was pretty skeptical, frankly more interested in notching my 145^th country on my bedpost than in getting all cozy with the commies....

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