North Korea goes Club Med: Visit the Majon Bathing Resort

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Are you tired of the French Riviera? Bored with St. Barths? Well, if you’re looking for a new sand-filled destination, you aren’t stuck with the likes of Iraq. Make your next beach resort getaway Majon. Yes, that’s right: the Majon Bathing Resort in North Korea. Fortunately, you’ll be on the side of the DMZ that lobbed artillery shells yesterday, and if there’s a retaliation, you probably won’t be alive long enough to notice anyway.

Offered by the Korea International Travel Company, Majon is “The Resort in the Suburbs of Hamhung, an Industrial City,” according to the official brochure. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already packed my Speedo and sunscreen!

This summer destination has a “sandy beach [that] spreads over 1,200 m. The width is 50 m.” Sticklers for accuracy are probably getting excited already. And if your obsessive behavior stretches further, you’ll be happy to know, “You can enjoy sea-bathing in safety.” On the resort, you’ll find 4,000 trees and “41 kinds of beautiful flowers decorat[ing] the gardens.”

Is this really the same North Korea that routinely wishes the west to drown in a “sea of fire”? Majon sounds downright pleasant!The resort has 20 “lodgings” – three first class, six second class and 11 third class, ensuring that the proletariat can gain access, too (chuckle). And, they’re pimped out nicely:

Every lodgings has single and double rooms, drawing rooms, studies, a restaurant and bathrooms. Every room is equipped with an air conditioner, a fridge, a TV set, etc.

The insanity continues in the original brochure.

Unfortunately, it still isn’t easy to get to Majon, or any other place in North Korea. NK News reports:

Today, visitors to the DPRK must be accompanied by guides of the state run Korea International Travel Company (KITC), at all times. Trips must be planned weeks in advance, with detailed itineraries that oblige patrons to keep on the move as much as possible. Freedom of movement and personal time is highly limited, helping reduce the risk that overly inquisitive visitors might cause problems. Quite who the intended audience of the Majon Beach brochure is, or perhaps more accurately, was, is thus, unclear.

Perhaps the brochure is an appeal to those living in the past. NK News notes the “distinctly 1980s hue” and references to the “German Mark.” So, if you never got around to cashing in that dated currency, you still have a place to use it!

It’s national opt-out day. Will you participate?

by Grant Martin on

Early yesterday afternoon I passed through O’Hare airport on the far end of terminal 3, approached the security checkpoint and was selected for scanning with a backscatter detector. With a boarding pass in my back pocket I was also selected for a pat down. In this case, the TSA officer used the back of his hands to check my entire back side – and sent me on my way (without the computer that I forgot at the checkpoint) to gate K7.

The Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) was a simple security measure that day, but today, on the nation’s busiest travel day many will face it for the first time. And in protest, many are advocating a movement to opt-out of the scans.

In lieu, those who opt out will be subject to an intensive pat down, the results of which has been covered on the web ad nauseum.

More importantly, however, is the added time necessary for a pat down. AIT scans already take longer than a quick walk through a magnetometer, and opting out of one adds further time to the affair. Some critics of the movement are thus concerned that unsuspecting passengers will be held up at security and more flights will be missed.

Needless to say, if 95% of passengers choose not to be scanned by an AIT device this Wednesday it’ll surely send a strong message to the brass at the Department of Homeland Security. If a few trouble spots cause innocent passengers to miss flights though, I’m not so sure that it’s worth it.

Climbers set new speed record on El Capitan

by Kraig Becker on

Rock climbers Dean Potter and Sean Leary set a new speed record for climbing one of the most iconic and well known routes in the world, besting the old mark by mere seconds. The talented and adventurous duo made their record-breaking assault on The Nose, the most famous climbing route on El Capitan, a popular big climbing wall located in Yosemite National Park. The new record was set few weeks back, and the climbers have since returned in an attempt to cut their time even further.

Potter and Leary took just 2 hours, 36 minutes, and 45 seconds to complete the 2900-foot route, shaving 20 seconds off the previous record which was set back in 2008 by Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama. A week after setting the new record, Dean and Sean attempted to break their own record, but were stopped short due to wet conditions on the upper portions of El Cap.

To put that two and a half hour speed climb into perspective consider this. The Nose wasn’t fully climbed for the first time until 1958, when a team of mountaineers spent 45 days working the route. It wasn’t conquered in a single day until 1975, and now we have climber finishing it in a matter of a few hours. Impressive progress to say the least.

For his part, former record holder Florine says that he won’t abdicate his title easily. He has begun training for a return to Yosemite where he and a partner hope to try to reclaim the speed record for themselves. In the months ahead, rock climbing fans are likely to see quite a spirited competition, with some of the world’s best climbers battling it out head-to-head for the speed crown.

Bullets found on Southwest flight by CNN photographer going to cover Sarah Palin

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Let your kids kick the seats in front of them: it could save your life. If you’re the passenger being inconvenienced, it may behoove you to find a way to cope.

A kid who would otherwise be branded a royal pain found a loaded gun magazine … that should have been in the hands of a law enforcement official … on a Southwest Airlines flight. To make matters worse, the media was actually on the plane!

Here’s how it happened:

1. A kid was sitting on his mother’s lap during a flight from Burbank, California to Phoenix, Arizona
2. The plane landed, and the kid crawled across the seats in his row
3. His foot knocked an item to the floor – it was a loaded gun magazine
4. A flight attendant picked it up, but not before someone from a CNN crew, photographer Gregg Canes, saw it
5. The CNN passenger asked to take pictures of it, but the flight attendant would not let him
6. The gun magazine was turned over to the authorities

It’s that simple, folks … but it does get a lot more interesting.According to a statement by Southwest, “The item was immediately turned over to the crew working the flight who called in the local authorities to handle the investigation,” continuing, “The passengers who were remaining on that flight were rescreened and the plane was thoroughly inspected before returning to service.” They were ten allowed to get off the plane.

Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King told CNN that the officer who left the gun mag behind did follow the proper procedures to bring his gun on the plane. CNN adds:

“The full magazine was found in a back seat pocket,” a TSA official told CNN. “We believe it was left by a law enforcement officer on a flight that originated in San Jose and landed in Burbank. The officer was not an air marshal and we are trying to establish contact with the agent.”

Canes put it best: “It was actually almost funny, given the amount of scrutiny that we’ve been paying to the [Transportation Security Administration] and personal security. It seemed almost funny to see a magazine with bullets in it just sort of lying on the floor of a commercial jetliner.”

Need a bit of irony to round this out? Canes must have been in a gun state of mind; he was headed to Phoenix to cover a Sarah Palin book signing.

[photo by gcfairch via Flickr]

Photo of the Day (11.23.10)

by Stephen Greenwood on

The busiest week of travel in America is underway. In the coming days, millions of people will travel from point A to point C (undoubedtly with a long layover at point B) to be with their families and reconnect with friends.

Amidst a week typically remembered for hectic delays, bad weather, long security lines, & missed connections I thought that this stark, beautiful image was an appropriate contrast to the standard holiday madness. This is just one of a series of great airport & airplane images captured by photographer Katie Madeline at LAX.

The combination of a unique perspective, use of black & white, and the reflections on the body of the plane give it a very iconic feel – a fresh look at something I thought I’d seen so many times. If you’re out on the road, in the air, or everywhere in between – capture your best moments and share them with us! It could be our next Photo of the Day!