I had a rare opportunity to travel in North Korea over the course of two weeks. The information that we get of that country is, of course, politically charged; especially in Japan discourses of North Korea revolve around fear and the prospects of nuclear aggression. But rather than focusing on bilateral politics, I was interested in getting a sense of a place that felt remote and difficult to apprehend. The glimpse that I caught was an elusive one, populated with spaces that spoke of complexly layered histories. More than anything, I felt detached, continually en route to make sense of what was unfolding in front of me.