wonders
Tourist
Reged: 09/13/05
Posts: 36
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I created this set because I found this country lacks a lot. Not only placemarks. Particular points of interest are the capital city of P'yongyang and the border to South Korea. Besides this the country is plastered with anti-aircraft sites. Sometimes it is quiet evident what they protect and sometimes they look unfinished or abandoned/dismantled. And I am sure I did not find all and have mistakingly identified a site where it might be something else.
At P'yongyang you can see yourself that this propably the best protected city in the world, at least against air raids. Besides the many many anti-aircraft sites I placed a lot of site-seeing placemarks in P'yongyang. You may find that some interesting looking places have been left out. This is the case because either the place looks interesting but is of minor importance (restuarants and most indoor stadiums just for example) or I could not identify it (The shiny silver dome in down-town P'yongyang for example). I gave my very best to identify the important spots but I did not succed on everything. I took my reference data (maps, commented photographs) from a lot of sites on the internet and cross-verified many of them. If you think you provided some of this information yourself, let me thank you.
At the border I placed some current and historical placemarks. Searching the web for these in combination with the Korean War will for sure bring up some quiet interesting links into the history of this area.
Finaly there's folder "Other stuff" which contains more or less interesting observations. Mixed bag of military, fun and strange stuff all over the place.
It took me many many hours to complete this collection so don't complain too much  .
Enjoy
Additions, corrections and/or comments to wonders at mikane.org are welcome
Icons in red are anti-aircraft sites and have their labels turned off (opacity 0%), icons in green are site-seeing, icons in blue are border placemarks and finaly those in yellow are other stuff.
Update 02/08/06: This place mark set has been refered to in an article by Sonni Efron for LA Times. Sonni asked for an interview but I did not catch his message in time. You might find this interesting. Read his article here: LA Times article "Google-Earthing the Hermit Kingdom"
Edited by wonders (09/02/06 09:25 AM)
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iainn
Tourist
Reged: 09/16/05
Posts: 5
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Thanks very much for this. I've been looking for more info on North Korea.
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Elan_Remford
Tourist
Reged: 05/12/05
Posts: 73
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Yes, thank you. DPRK is no doubt one of the most fascinating places on Earth; and in combination with its secrecy, the most enigmatic as well.
It's nice to be able to explore all of these places, because I fear that their current political course may lead to a VERY unfortunate overlay titled "DPRK - The 'After" Photos".
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LoRezFlyer
Tourist
Reged: 11/02/05
Posts: 57
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Thanks from me, too. The DPRK is probably the weirdest place on earth, in many ways. The landscape seems dotted everywhere with military earthworks and emplacements. I shudder to think of that nation's people living for generations at sub-starvation levels to support all this. I haven't seen any aerial views that gave me such a chill since looking at Neverland Ranch.
Now, about the "Some underground facility." This looks to me like a weapons storage complex. I'm guessing it's full of SAMs, since the surrounding landscape there in this hi-rez area south of Pyongyang is jammed with SAM sites within stone's throws of one another. I wish the satellite had caught a SAM transport truck, but I guess they would not need to move them much unless the launch sites had been using them up.
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wonders
Tourist
Reged: 09/13/05
Posts: 36
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Quote:
Thanks from me, too. The DPRK is probably the weirdest place on earth, in many ways. The landscape seems dotted everywhere with military earthworks and emplacements. I shudder to think of that nation's people living for generations at sub-starvation levels to support all this. I haven't seen any aerial views that gave me such a chill since looking at Neverland Ranch.
I agree with you to some extend. This is a place with a beautyful landscape and a very interesting history. So, from this point of view, a place very well worth to visit. On the other hand, militarism all over the place all carried out on the back of the countries people which seem not to collapse under this burden. Again, there's something about that from a soziological point of view.
Which brings me to your comment about the "chill factor" of the Neverland Ranch. From my non-US point of view, this place does not give me a chill at all. Being careful about what I say, I'd say that there's no proof of this or this other. The jury found him not guilty and that's it to me. And, to return back to soziology, one might start to ask what a countries "conscious mind" is about, when things like this are being carried out the way they had been carried out and on the other hand let the leader of the country handle things, things like the New Orleans disaster, like he did. Oh ... I got carried away a bit Sorry 'bout that ...
Quote:
Now, about the "Some underground facility." This looks to me like a weapons storage complex. I'm guessing it's full of SAMs, since the surrounding landscape there in this hi-rez area south of Pyongyang is jammed with SAM sites within stone's throws of one another. I wish the satellite had caught a SAM transport truck, but I guess they would not need to move them much unless the launch sites had been using them up.
Yes, me too thinks that this is some storage thing. To small for fabrication perhaps. I would not wonder, if there are tunnels connecting this and other places.
Regarding hunting down a truck this is what me puzzled the most in this country. The streets are awefully empty. Look at Pyongyang and try to find something you would call "traffic".
I hope that the low-res strip between center and east Pyongyang gets filled someday. I would love to explore this space. Especialy the large monument on the hill as well as what seems to be an airport south of the river.
wonders
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caelestis
Tourist
Reged: 11/03/05
Posts: 10
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Thanks for a great set of placemarks. Very interesting collection.
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EgaoNoGenki
Tourist
Reged: 10/25/05
Posts: 6
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That "East Pyongyang Stadium" looks heavily disused, from the insufficient funding of infrastructure and many other things plaguing the country.
The location is 39º00'55 N, 125º47'14 E
Thus, one would hope that SAM batteries plus other defense batteries are found not to work if Korean War II is to ever take place. If they're not that well maintained, North Korea will go down as fast as Iraq did.
Edited by EgaoNoGenki (11/06/05 12:53 PM)
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Matt_AF
Tourist
Reged: 11/08/05
Posts: 4
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I have been trying to figure out what it says on the hill at lat=39.0019987928, lon=125.968391733. I copyed the image to photoshop and changed to grayscale and bumped up the contrast. http://www.songtanbar.com/nkorea/index.htm I posted it here. I can read the first syllable, but the other 3 syllables are hard to make out. If anybody can get it to look better then that, please let me know.
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wonders
Tourist
Reged: 09/13/05
Posts: 36
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I tried a bit phorensic image manipulation myself but the results are not better than yours.
Due to my lack of knowledge of what I am supposed to see (Korean letters) I am just fiddling around with contrast, levels, curves and such only to find out that I won't get close to something readable
My best attempt was to use a gradient overlay to isolate the writing from the surroundings so you might want to try that approach.
What does the first sylable say?
wonders
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Matt_AF
Tourist
Reged: 11/08/05
Posts: 4
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It could be the first syllable of a word made up of four syllables. If that is the case, I spent a long time sifting through my Korean dictionary looking for a 4 syllable word that started with 소. If your not fimiliar with korean, a word is broken down into syllables, and the syllables are made up of a group of letters, usually 2-5 letters per syllable. I can make out some of the other letters in the last three syllables but, if this is one word I could not find any word in my dictionary that matches. However, it could be a name, or it could be more than one word.
The first syllable by itself could have 3 meanings, ox/cattle, small, or stuffing. The second syllable is killing me because, the last letter in the group is ㄴ. But first 2 - 3 letters don't look like anything legal.
I asked 3 older Korean friends and they don't have a clue. I am in South Korea. So I guess if they couldn't figure it out, I definitely won't figure it out.
-Matt
Edited by Matt_AF (11/10/05 01:16 AM)
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