okay I have been waiting all week to talk to you guys about this one because I don't know if you guys heard but late last month the first Western tourist stepped foot inside North Korea since they shut their borders over half a decade ago and this was a huge deal for me because remember I promised to you guys that once I hit a million subscribers on YouTube I too was going to go but when I was told that I could be part of the first group to go in over 5 years I said screw it I don't even care if we haven't hit a mill yet this would be too insane of an opportunity to miss out on especially because I was in this little exclusive group chat so exclusive in fact that it wasn't even made public but as you uh I guess can tell since I haven't been there long story short just literally hours before I had to kind of make my final decision and lock in I was told that if I went to North Korea my current US Visa would be cancelled and to get a new one it could take not just months but potentially up to a year maybe even more because once you got that North Korea stamp on your passport North Korea America doesn't really work together so ultimately I chose America so um but even though I couldn't personally be there yet we still found a way to get boots on the ground this is the German travel guy the the new foreign correspondent of the news daddy Empire and guys we have made it to North Korea no borders are too secure for the news daddy Empire but here's where things get crazy because Luca gets a whole bunch of Juicy information for us which we'll go through so I decide I make a Tik Tok video about it it gets over 10 million views and then didn't really think too much about it after that but then I get a message from Luca bro I think we just closed the North Korean borders Maybe Kim watched your video and he was like nope that's it and then he sends me a screenshot from this article that reads the development came after a German tourist he was the only German on there who visited rasan in late February told Western media he was surprised that tour guides did not try and hide the country's poverty oh no ah I can't even tell you how how much my heart was pounding when I was reading this so I go online to you know check it out see if it was true and yes it is North Korea has in fact shut their borders again but and hear me out on this one upon further research I truly don't believe that we or let me rephrase that at least I wasn't the reason I have other theories but before we get into that let me show you you know the kind of stuff that Luca saw because it's pretty it's pretty wild I'm not going to lie the North Koreans are very interested in us so we are being filmed with the camera which is amazing so maybe we end up on North Korean television imagine that would be cool so with all of that getting cracking oh jeez should we get out the whip while talking about North Korea is that like a one of those things you look back on and you're like oh I didn't think about that in the moment H Alex I'm going to give Alex two version let's put this all on Alex I'm sorry he's prob hating me right now I'm going to give you two versions Alex I'm going to give you the whip one and I'm not going to give you the whip one and Alex is is going to choose whether we use the whip in this video or not all right version one so make sure you subscribe so we actually hit a million and let's get so you have chosen death okay so let's run you through this uh because spoiler it gets so crazy um that one of the guys on the tour actually showed North Koreans brain Rock content that could be your first in history so let's start from the beginning first of all even five years later North Koreans are still like super tough on covid Luca said that they disinfected and desanitizing before he could even enter at customs and that roughly 80% of them still wear masks till this day even outside which I mean really makes you wonder since let's be honest they shut their borders down because of Co and no one actually knows the truth of it but how hard did Co hit them you know the whole world panicked but how did it go down in North Korea we may never know but these are like just little interesting breadcrumbs to be like huh interesting and actually this is a really important part to remember it comes back later oh another huge surprise um that he spoke about was all of the apps they now have for their phones those who have phones because remember for ages in North Korea if you wanted to download an app you would have to get it from the App Store and and the App Store is not an app it's an actual store it's a physical store you would literally have to go to this little shop and then ask them to download the approved apps on your phone that's how you would get it the App Store but considering how many apps she seems to have had on her phone yes this is all exclusive never seen before content I mean she's either made multiple trips to the app store or their app store is now virtual Luca said that they have things now like delivery apps and even their own version of popular Western games so the footage that they got was like this one looks like a North Korean pubg I guess oh and this one goes crazy there is a North Korean Clash of Clans just that alone existing in 2025 is bizarre enough they have GTA 6 yet I would apparently they've even found ways to send messages to each other through in-game chat systems because remember there no such thing as social media in North Korea which it's kind of like a hard thing to even wrap your head around what does this Society look like without social media now I mean for anyone under the age of like 20 I don't think it's even possible to think about that Luca also said that one of the guys on the tour even downloaded a bunch of like brain rot Tik toks before entering North Korea cuz remember no internet there and then he started showing it to the North Koreans and like this was like Subway Surfer at the B AI generated level brain rot the crazy and you know what's Wild they actually loved it I she laughed multiple times I on the point of there being no internet for tourists and arguably maybe even citizens Luca has been to 193 countries now and he said that North Korea was the only one where a single Wi-Fi network didn't pop up the entire time how weird would that be I've been in some wild places and there's been Wi-Fi North Korea not a single one what he did say and this actually I haven't said before at one point they were really close on that bus to the Chinese border and he got one bar of signal on his mobile data and he went live from North Korea on Instagram and like it was about like 10 seconds he said but you wonder has there ever been a live stream on Instagram from inside North Korea before because that might have been the first one another thing that he mentioned was the complete absence of advertisements think about that I mean it's kind of hard to wrap your head around as like a Westerner where every moment of Our Lives is spent getting bombarded with advertisements all and sorry this is completely off topic but I just feel like I need to vent has anyone else noticed that on Netflix now when you click the button pause there's even an ad now on the pause screen just how insane is that because you know for a fact that that that idea has come off the back of them probably sitting down brainstorming and then thinking huh what tiny space or what tiny fraction of moment in time do they have spare where we could sell ads to them I got it the poor screen the only moment of Our Lives where we where we've got nothing not anymore sorry that's completely off topic um let me digress sorry uh instead of McDonald's or you know KFC or Coke for example you wouldn't see any of that that but you see instead like political faces you know leaders or you know military slogans about you know what they'd be about so I guess you know saying that it could be worse I'd rather see a tasty refreshing Coke Zero than you know some dude's face all the time anyway sorry I got a bit out of hand uh but on their guided tour throughout parts of the city they were taken to a mall they were taken to a pharmacy but they were not allowed to see a super Market which kind of reminds you of the movie the interview you know like show us your supermarkets what are you hiding apparently Luca said that they were really trying to show them all of the places that they were proud of you know so they were very proud of their health sector after covid so they took them to the pharmacy maybe they're not so proud of the supermarket oh and interestingly at the mall they still sold fake Western Brands like Gucci and Polo and Nike which I thought that was bizarre because not only raises the question of like how aware are North Koreans of the outside world if they're selling that but then also how are they allowed to sell that because I thought that this was the country that like banned blue jeans because they were seen as like too evil American I don't even know if that's true to be honest but I've read it maybe it was just straight propaganda I don't know might be one of those things we may never know this is what their hotel room looked like and man Alex zoom in on that bedside lamp because I'm sorry why does your lamp need a giant sus looking clock I mean I'm not going to say that the room was bugged but if I was in there I wouldn't I wouldn't be speaking very freely and luuka also said that when he looked out of his hotel room window at night it was like completely Pitch Black it's dark you look outside like through your window and everything is dark Dam and this is despite the hotel being in Ron's City Center which kind of like match up and stays consistent with the satellite images that we can see from above where you look at the Korean Peninsula and you have the South all lit up and then the north Darkness pretty crazy he also said that poverty was visible and that yes it was surprising that the tour guides didn't really try and hide it or you know they weren't that touchy about it and he said like you would see people like driving ox and carriage I mean do you do you drive ox and carriage do you ride ox and Carriage Drive Ox and carriage ride Ox no cuz ride sounds like you're on the ox okay you drive we saw people driving ox and carriage whatever but also he mentioned that despite how poor it was the streets um were completely like clean they were like almost spotless which you wouldn't expect because almost every other poor country that you would go to one of like the Hallmarks is like the streets they don't have enough money to be able to fund cleaning all the streets but there you go also alcohol surprising is super popular there into the point where he said that when you would sit down at a restaurant they would literally serve you beer instead of table waterer and maybe that's just something that they do for you know tourists but that's pretty interesting but not as interesting as this because at one point they even took him to a school right and Luca managed to zoom in on what they were learning I I've got to read you this one portion read under the the title a great man I think it was there are many men recorded in human history Kim ILS was the greatest man ever and made brilliant achievements of everlasting value for Humanity ah I mean there's so many interesting points here I mean let's not even discuss the the level of greatness let's move right on to the fact that like why is it English you know there are like regular countries in Europe where it is kind of controversial for locals to speak English because do they want to keep their native language strong so I would have thought in North Korea it would be like the devil's tongue the devil's tongue oh and another crazy part they also got taken to um I don't know what You' call it like a show a play and you had all of these kids like singing and dancing and Performing doing all of these acrobats and things like that and then at one point you look at it and you you've got all these kids maybe they're like 6 years old and then behind them and you only clock this when you actually look at it but you got missiles and they're like bombing ships and it's like this is a wild contrast overall you know the news daddy correspondent Luca said that the whole trip kind of felt like like a bit of a school trip you know the teachers if you will only took you to the places that they wanted to take you they showed you what they wanted you to see they tell you where you have your like your little organized lunch Etc and while the things that they did do similar to a school trip you know they were fun you don't get to see the kind of real North Korea as if you know you were actually just walking around freely and we all that you know that's kind of the expected things when you're going there but one of the more unexpected things that he mentioned was there's this like mindbending contrast where you know despite the isolation the restrictions the propaganda despite all of that you can still be sat next to a North Korean that enjoys playing Clash of Clans and finds brain rot Tik Tok funny like I got to know humans I guess should always find a way to be kind of the same you know we share that that human trait no matter what but you know even though that sounds like a nice way to kind of end the video the story doesn't end there because as I mention not too long after Luca getting back they shut the borders again like damn and some of the media like Kyoto news which is apparently Japan's leading news agency is reporting that it's Luca's fault because apparently he told Western media that the tour guys didn't try and hide the poverty now firstly I like to take myself out of the blame of all of that because I don't think they would describe me as Western media you know if anything they would be like influencer which is still not accurate but that's probably what they would say and secondly I don't even know where they got that because North Korea themselves they didn't give a reason for why they shut down the Border they just shut it down because they can and also Luca did interviews with other actual like media Outlet so if we're going to blame anyone let's blame him I'm kidding all right no we we we actually we don't need to blame Luca because there's another speculation which probably makes the most sense apparently someone in the third group caught covid and as we mentioned in the beginning of the video they're really still strict on covid so if they're still trying to like disinfect everyone's belongings and still wearing masks everywhere then in the hierarchy of possibilities I would imagine the co one is higher up there than a Tik Tok you know I mean I doubt Kim scrolling through Tik Tok anyway at least I hope not but the truth is we don't know for sure either way though it's um goodbye again North Korea same time next decade well I mean that's kind of like the the most North Korea that we can get into without actually being there next time and I'm still open to it going to like Pyongyang the actual Capital at some point but now that I keep on making more more videos it becomes increasingly dangerous gosh but I'm still willing you know subscribe 1 million and um once I got my America Visa sorted and we're all good I'm still willing I mean it's on my bucketless whether I die or not it's I got to do it at some point But ultimately what do you guys think I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments as always I will see you for a full news Roundup on Monday or Tuesday depending on how crazy the world gets love you bye good luck with that one Alex woo and version two subscribe so we hit a million and let's get Kracken maybe the ass cheeks is so maybe ass cheeks too far so make sure you subscribe so we actually hit a million and let's get Wen