I got my bags back on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo. Amateur Traveler episode 361.

Today the Amateur Traveler travels to one of our most unusual destinations as we go to North Korea. Korea. Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Before we get

into this week's interview I do have three news stories for you. It must be

good to be Larry Ellison, the billionaire who bought his own Hawaiian Island, the island of Lenai, just recently bought his own airline to get there, Hawaii's Island Air.

In the UK an interesting development because objects on the street like street lamps may start telling you stories.

There's a project called Hello Lamppost project that is going to use the unique existing codes already on things like

Lampost and tie that into databases of information for travelers and so that you

would scan with your phone a particular unique ID and if there is a story you would pull up that

a particular unique ID and if there is a story about the neighborhood

then you would pull up that story on your mobile phone.

A Scottish visitor to New Zealand had an unusual experience when he claims that all his holiday savings were stolen by a parrot.

Apparently the parrot got into his camper van and stole hundreds of dollars.

For links to all three of those stories

check out the show notes at amateur traveler.com. I'd like to welcome to the show

Matt from England who's come to talk to us about North Korea.

Matt, welcome to the show.

Chris, thanks.

Now, you have a blog post that you did or a blog that you wrote about your trip to North Korea.

You understand that some people really

have no desire at all to go to North Korea. Why did you? Yeah that's a pretty good

question. I understand that North Korea is probably not

...