hey um I I'm off to the airport in uh about an hour and I just wanted to quickly rapid fire explain before I left where I'm going because it is one of the craziest places I will maybe potentially ever go to and I didn't want to say anything until my Visa got accepted it was accepted and now now I'm too late for it okay so let me rapid fire this a few months ago in August uh North Korea shocked the world when they announced that they're going to be opening their borders for the first time after 5 years of being completely shut off from the world and hearing this and being someone that's always wanted to see North Korea myself I announced on my Tik Tok that if I hit 1 million followers by the time they were supposed to open it in December I will go to North Korea and yes I haven't hit a million subscribers on YouTube yet but that's not really the point let's not focus on that and I mean come on let's be honest going to North Korea alone dangerous enough let alone being someone that covers not only just news geopolitical news but talks about Kim Jong-un himself all the time so I knew it was going to be a little bit of a extra risky one for me but I was a risk I was willing to take so I contacted a special tour agency and told them to sign me up ask them all the relevant questions and they said all right buddy we'll contact you when the borders are officially opened days passed I waited weeks passed I waited months ped I was tired of waiting but then a few days ago I see this one of the tour companies that takes people into North Korea they posted a December update saying due to recent developments AKA North Korean soldiers in Ukraine the broader scope of reopening North Korea's tourism as a whole will be pushed back to Spring 2025 Hearts crushed Souls destroyed New staddy Empire are crumbling now I'm not trying to freaking make a video titled sneaking into North Korea without a Visa because that surely will be my lost but at the same time the news daddy Empire does not leave its citizens play the trumpets Alex without food in their mouths and content in their bellies so we pivoted we applied for a new visa and in an hour we are going to their neighbors see you soon from a distance Kim jongon now let me start off by saying that China also a place that I've always wanted to go visit right because very few people from countries like America or here in the UK actually visit China and because of that it's it's a little bit of a mystery you know and also as well all the other places you know the things that connect the world and you get to see different countries all of those things Instagram Tik Tok YouTube uh Google all of them banned so it is very much like not part of the west but then Tik Tok came around and I started seeing videos like this and I was like first of all where the hell is that second of all when I found out holy [ __ ] that's China and it's incredible let's be honest so I said well if I can't go to North Korea let me go to North Korea's neighbors China and not just anywhere China Shong Shing China yes that is the city's name it is known as the cyberpunk capital a place where trains go through residential buildings roads that look like they've come straight up out of inception petrol stations on top of buildings one of the deepest Subways in the world stairs that literally go on forever and so much more and I mean seeing all of this stuff I was shocked that nor I or anyone else that I showed even knew what Shang Xing even was but when we applied for the Visa the hotel the flight I quickly found out the reason why no one hardly anyone actually goes out there for starters if you're a UK citizen you can't even apply for a Visa online we actually had to print out forms yes paper that still exists and go in person to apply and to make the matters worse they only had two of these Visa offices in the entire UK and the closest one to us 3 hours away in London so for the four of us getting on the train and going up there £600 just to apply and to make it even more annoying you had to book your flights and hotel before you apply for a Visa so all you have to go for all of those little fancy upgrades so they the refundable right the more expensive ones just in case your Visa gets rejected ejected whatever and honestly if if only you saw this Visa they asked for more information on this thing than my for a tourist visa than my 5y year visa for America Global Entry 5 years oh and it doesn't even stop there the problems get worse because when we're actually doing this interview to get our visa and she's going through all of the pages behind this thick glass window she sees the name news daddy which is the name of my company and she's like what is this what kind of company is this obviously news uh but and then on there like how can I explain to her um I'm not like I'm not this freaking BBC you know CNN I'm just a chill guy how do I explain that trying to go in sight seat so she gets up and she disappears for about 5 minutes and I'm stressing and I'm like oh no I cannot get rejected I've come too far just to come this far and then when she does come back she comes back with this form and it has all of these extra questions on top of like the the Bible that I just had to fill out and ask things like what is your purpose going to China what's your job title what's your company you know what is what does it do and are you going to engage in any Medi related activities while in China I promised I wouldn't okay because I'm not right I'm not going to go do some real hard news stuff I'm I'm there I mean social media Tik Tok and stuff I'm just there to have fun right but because my brother didn't get asked any of these questions I was kind of stressing right as you would be too anyway um still gets crazier I I don't know we actually had to then leave while they processed our visa and we had to leave our passports there for a full week while they went through it so if I did have to leave the country for any reason in that week I literally couldn't because China had our passports I mean just think about how crazy this is no wonder you can't be bothered to go through the process if you just want to you know oh wouldn't mind going to China this week no it's a it's it's tough a week later we then have to travel all the way back up to London but good news Against All Odds we were accepted I mean I guess it's anti-climatic you know about to go anyway we got accepted and I'm like skimming over all of the other really like tricky and annoying things like you know for flights if you wanted to allocate the right seats or book extra baggage you had to call them up you couldn't just do things online to speak to the hotel you couldn't just do things online you had to download WeChat figure all of that sign up into into an account and it's all like made and it's like kind of like sort of translated in English point is annoying tricky and like small things added together really annoying but okay look I know it is all going to be highly worth it because first of all uh check neighbors to Kim Jong-un that's step one we're going to go look for the Chinese police geese yeah you didn't know if that was a thing that's a thing we're going to be going to abandon train stations rich people's houses hotels seeing what $1,000 can buy you in their biggest mall that's underground going to the world's largest public restroom yeah they have that in Shang ching China it has over 1,000 toilets yeah but this is going to be Banger content and of course exploring all of the craziness to understand the type of play Shang Ching is during New Year's Eve as well we're going to spend we're going to go from 2024 to 2025 in China so I'll see you in China kichi is Con chiwa I don't know