The microphone they were holding up to those stiffs wasn't even on, you can hear the film crew coughing and camera shutters clicking much more clearly than you can hear them.
From what I've read, tours of N. Korea are planned for you in advance by the government. I doubt the tourists had a choice. You can't just go "I want to see how people live by this pretty lake I saw on Google Maps. There must be a an amazing isolated fishing village there!" That kind of normal curiosity doesn't fly.
Jet Bin is likely referencing the sentiment of George Carlin. His bit on golf courses is easy to find, but if you're looking for validation of it, look at Tokyo on Google Earth. From 150 miles up, it looks like a grey splotch, as cities tend to look. Zoom in on any little green bits, and it's a golf course.
Also, Baleen is correct. The Vice Guide to North Korea, which is on here somewhere already, pretty much sums up North Korean tourism, being "you will see what we want you to see".
The "tourist hotel" is 47 stories tall, only one of which is inhabited at any time. It's situated on an island so the tourists can't escape. It's also heavily, heavily bugged.
I don't think the powers that be in North Korea realize that when you have big concrete monuments and nobody around them, it makes your country look like a derelict Soviet failure to the rest of the world.
Methinks he knows how to be allowed into leaving the glorious country of North Korea. Surely they don't have buildings in London the size of the ones in North Korea. North Korea also has the most amazing [deleted for five sentences]
ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS SUPERIOR NORTH KOREAN STATE BIRTHPLACE OF THE LIVING GOD KIM IL SUNG
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