last night: was very excited & curious to find self in n korea. wandered around among a lot of buildings atop huge hills, led to by vast gray sets of stairs. perfect & gorgeous constructivist-style pyongyang extending in all directions. then the thought, "but I warned Qingshan not to come to north korea, because what if he couldn't leave?" became concerned that I'd be mistaken for a spy. then met a deranged middle-aged american women holding a bundle of wild-colored balloons afoot some govt ministry building. can't remember what she said, but unsettling. first two things I saw when I woke up: (1) text message Qingshan had sent me in the night from china, which read "This truly is a huge, huge country with a long, long history"; (2) news reports of Obama's speech about nk rockets.