A student from the Pyongyang Children's palace. Many visitors shower them with pens, sweets and chocolates. Life! decided to give them our notebooks.
Day four in Pyongyang and I am wondering if I'll ever get an insight into what North Koreans are like.
Not that I don't try, but the people I meet don't seem to know how to react to foreigners.
A smile tends to get ignored on the streets unless it is to a child, who will smile or wave back. It doesn't help that almost nobody speaks English or Mandarin - not the waitress at the restaurant, the doorman at the hotel or the girl manning the convenience store counter.
Whatever information I've gleaned about life in the country has come from our tour guides.
They tell me that children go through 11 years of compulsory education, which is provided free.
Healthcare is free, as are essentials like rice and housing. Most men are married by 27 and women by 25.
If I am to use Mr Kim and Ms Pak as a gauge for the people, then the conclusion will be that they are good-humoured, fun-loving and fiercely nationalistic.
The two are sporting enough to sing Korean folk songs for us during our bus trips despite Mr Kim's warning that he's the worst singer in his tour agency KITC.
He also buys Wui Liang and me a light supper one day, treating us to the popular and tasty North Korean snack of dried fish with soy sauce.
One must-try meal is the Pansanggi. You'll be spoiled for choice with this traditional Korean meal, which has 13 dishes and was originally eaten only by royalty.
He readily jokes about how he's not married, and asks us to recommend him as a suitor to Ms Pak, who is also single. The two still live with their parents in high-rise apartments.
They picked up foreign languages in university, specialising in English and Mandarin respectively.
Both joined the 100-strong tour guide pool of KITC after they graduated.
They are also openly proud that their countrymen have stuck more strongly to their Korean roots - language, culture and food - instead of 'selling out' to the West like their South Korean counterparts.
Still, they constantly yearn for reunification with the South, a theme that recurs constantly in their conversations with tourists.
There is also genuine animosity for the Americans, whom they blame for breaking up the country and separating their people.
'We hate them,' Mr Kim states matter-of-factly when I bring up the topic one afternoon while we are waiting for the bus to move off.
The Korea as we know it today was more or less formed in the 10th century during the Goryeo dynasty, when a military leader named Wang Geon defeated the other warring factions to unify the country.
More than four centuries later, another military leader Yi Seong Gye overthrew the Goryeo leaders to establish Korea's longest and last dynasty Joseon, which lasted until 1910, when the country was annexed by Japan.
After Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, the Japanese, who had occupied Korea for 35 years, had to move out of the country. Custodianship was left jointly to the Soviet Union, the United States and China, while the Koreans were to regroup and have democratic elections.
Instead, Cold War tensions spilled over and both the Soviet Union and the US wanted its claim on the strategic position of the country. The country was divided in half along the 38th parallel, and each republic was proclaimed within weeks of each other in 1948.
War broke out between the two countries from 1950 to 1953, but after a stalemate, an armistice agreement was signed to create a 4km-wide demilitarised zone, or DMZ, which runs along the breadth of the country and has been in existence till today.
The emphasis that North Korea places on the military is not to be scoffed at. It is estimated that about 30 per cent of its gross domestic product goes to maintaining its armed forces, and becoming a soldier is seen as an honourable profession for any boy who graduates from school. But joining the military is not compulsory, says Mr Kim.
Tourists sit at the conference table inside the meeting room of the Military Armistice Commission in Panmunjon. Those in the foreground are in North Korean territory while the others are in South Korean territory.
We visit the DMZ today. It is a two-hour drive from Pyongyang down the six-lane Reunification Highway which North Koreans hope will one day allow them to drive straight to Seoul.
The South Korean capital isn't that far - just another 70km from the DMZ. But standing in the eye of the storm at the tense border, with the two countries' headquarters and soldiers facing each other, it might as well be a million miles away.
The DMZ is a popular tourist spot for both countries today.
More importantly for me, this trip allows me to raise a topic that I'd been meaning to discuss, but with little success.
It's the N-word: nuclear.
Two days ago, when the topic was mentioned briefly to Mr Kim, he retorted: 'Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. Is that all the outside world thinks of us?'
Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
The detonation of a nuclear device on its own soil just last October sparked off international condemnation and a round of talks that led to North Korea agreeing to shut down its reactor.
But ironically, it is a soldier - whom I would have thought had less licence to express his views - who engages us on this topic, after a tour member raises it at the North Korean border headquarters.
A young, good-looking lieutenant who acts as a guide around the DMZ for us, he readily admits to the testing of the nuclear device.
Speaking through Mr Kim, he adds earnestly in Korean: 'Look at what happened to Iraq. If the United States wants to invade us, it will. We need to protect our people. If you are weak, you'll fall over when someone pushes you. But if you are strong, you can stand your ground.'
It is no doubt a well-rehearsed speech, but he says it with enough sincerity to make all of us nod in agreement.
As luck would have it, we get our second chance to get close to another group of Koreans later in the day - the children from the Mangyongdae Children's Palace in Pyongyang. This is an extra-curricular activities centre where kids are taught to sing, play instruments and perform acrobatics. We watch the best ones strut their stuff in an hour-long performance.
But the most natural performance for me is off the stage, where hundreds of children have gathered to watch their seniors perform. Sitting in the seats behind us, they wave enthusiastically to our group as we shuffle out of the theatre. At this point, Wui Liang takes a picture of one of the boys and shows him his face on the camera's digital display.
He shakes his head, giggles and hides his face in a friend's chest, amused and embarrassed by his own image.
Free from inhibitions, these few minutes with the children allow us to see the most - and perhaps the only - spontaneous, free-spirited reaction I have witnessed on our trip.
USS Pueblo
And it incites our heartiest chuckles as well.
Spoils of cold war
In 1968, the Koreans captured the surveillance ship USS Pueblo, accusing it of entering North Korean waters to conduct espionage missions. Its crew admitted to the crimes after a year in custody - although they later maintained that they were forced to do so under duress - and were then allowed to return home to the United States via South Korea.
The ship remains docked on the banks of the Taedong River in Pyongyang and is now a tourist site.
Colonel Pak In Ho
One of the guides is Colonel Pak In Ho, 68, who was the lieutenant who led the troops to capture it. He recounts the tale to us while guiding us around the ship. We also watch a locally produced English-language VCD of the incident on board.
Hot and spicy
If you are out looking for restaurants in North Korea, you'd probably think there is none. Inability to read Korean aside, there doesn't seem to be any sign that points to an eatery. But once you get to the food, you will enjoy the tasty fare. Like South Korean food, you still have your hotpot, kimchi and barbecued meats - but the food is a little spicier and the alcohol stronger.
There is little evidence of street food. With the exception of a few ice cream vendors we chance upon - the strawberry flavour is wonderfully smooth and creamy, by the way - there is nothing for us to buy.
One must-try meal is the Pansanggi. You'll be spoilt for choice with this traditional Korean meal, which has 13 dishes and was originally eaten only by royalty.
Enigmatic people, but signs of more openness
Ice-cream vendor
It is not easy to put your finger on the pulse of North Korea. When you are shepherded around and told what you can do or where you can go, you keep wondering how 'real' things are. But as I???m getting ready to leave the country, Universal guide Karen Sin tells me that one thing is for sure - conditions in North Korea have improved a lot since she first arrived in 1994 to follow a tour.
She has been to the country four times - in 1994, 2000, last year and our present trip.
This is the first time she has seen signs of private enterprise on the street, she says, referring to the women we saw three days earlier selling ice cream outside the Kim Il Sung flower exhibition.
There were also the vendors offering to take pictures for families at scenic spots for 70 won.
And there are more street lights in Pyongyang now, she says. While they used to shut off on the dot at 8pm, they now stay lit until 10pm.
The Korean tour guides have also loosened up.
'They can let you wander around a bit, as long as you don???t disappear too far from their sight. In the past, they???d stop you the moment you step out of the hotel,' she says.
'I think the country is slowly opening up, but it is also up to us to connect with them, to teach and support what they are trying to do.'
With that in mind, I bid goodbye to our tour guide Mr Kim at the airport.
Heading up the plane, who do I meet but the same poker-faced stewardess I saw on my flight there.
I have been struggling with the Korean phrases that our guides have been trying to teach us during the trip, but I think I will give it a go as the stewardess points the way in.
'Gamsa hamnida,' I gingerly attempt, which is Korean for 'thank you'.
She pauses, turns her head and looks at me for a second.
