North Korean leader Kim Jong Un climbed Mount Paektu, the country’s highest mountain, to celebrate the anniversary of the day when his father, Kim Jong Il, received the second-highest military rank, Yonhap News reported.
21 February 2015, 09:53 GMT
Mount Paektu is the 2,750-meter (over 9,000 feet) volcanic mountain on the border with China. The peak also symbolizes Kim’s ancestry, as apparently Kim Jong Il was born in a village on the top of the mountain, which is now considered a sacred place for North Koreans.
Once at the top, Kim Jong Un met with Korean People’s Army pilots. He allegedly told the pilots that the climb to the mountain gave him more mental energy “than nuclear weapons.”
Kim previously climbed the mountain after mourning the death of his father, who died of a heart attack in December 2011.
