There are very few places where visitors are permitted to stay in Kaesong and you, like me, will most likely stay at the traditional Korean style Folk Custom Hotel, opened in 1989 and situated on the periphery of Kaesong old town. This is a good thing as long as you are aware that it is a traditional Korean hotel so you will sleep on a padded floor mat and eat sitting on the floor. Continue reading “Kaesong Folk Custom Hotel: ‘Traditional Korean Hotel’”
Not all children make it to the Students and Children’s Palace for its wide range of fun extra curriculum activities. Many, the non-elite, are forced engage in less fun extra curriculum activities (assuming they go to school at all). For city children this frequently appears to mean sweeping the streets and other public areas. While these children, tidying up around Kim Il-sung’s statue on Mount Janam seemed perfectly happy to engage with us and have their photos taken it wasn’t long until we were told by our guide to desist from taking photos of the kids (clearly from less well to do families) as we were frightening and upsetting them! Continue reading “Other Extra Curriculum Activity”
The most noticeable building in Kaesong and one we had a great view off from the Kwandok Pavilion on Mount Janam is the Kaesong Students and Children’s Palace, a smaller version of the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace in Pyongyang though here in a more traditional Korean architectural style. It opened in 1961. Continue reading “Kaesong Students and Children’s Palace”
Kaesong has a very long history and has the best preserved old town area in North Korea. While most of North Korea was razed to the ground by US bombing during the Korean War, Kaesong was spared by virtue of the fact that, until it was captured by the North Koreans, it had been on the South Korean side of the border – the 38th parallel north- as determined by Russia and the United States at the end of WWII. It is the only town that changed hands in the three year long war which cost the lives of nearly three million people. Continue reading “Kaesong Old Town”
Perched on the side of Mount Janam, about 100 metres walk from the large bronze statue of Kim Il-sung, is the Kwandok Pavilion. The original pavilion was constructed in 1780 for archery contests. It was destroyed in 1950 by US bombing in the early days of the Korean War. The existing structure is a 1954 reconstruction. Continue reading “Kwandok Pavilion”
Turning your back on the Great Leader is hard to do, but do it you must in this case.
The view down Tongil (Reunification) Street is the most photographed in Kaesong and one of the best recognised vistas in North Korea. Continue reading “Tongil Street”
No city in North Korea is complete without its bronze statue of the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, placed on the top of a hill for everybody to see. So naturally there is one here in Kaesong, on Mount Janam at the end of the grand boulevard that is Tongil Street. Kim Il-sung did not share the same modesty of his son who banned statues, etc of him being erected while he was alive. This statue of Kim Il-sung was erected in 1968. Continue reading “Kim Il-sung Watching from on High”
Approximately half our tour group spent the morning of our second day in North Korea running some part of the Pyongyang Marathon. The rest of us watched the start and finish of the run and two soccer matches in the Kim Il-sung Stadium. Continue reading “Enjoy your bus trip to Kaesong”
The primary reason for our visiting Kaesong was that it provided a suitable overnight stop for visiting Panmunjom and the Demilitarized Zone which is not (given road conditions, transport options and other restrictions) feasible as a day trip from Pyongyang. Having said that there are quite a few attractions in and around Kaesong worthy of time in themselves, though as you will see below, time was not on our side.
Personally I think this is one of the most beautiful buildings in North Korea.
Pyongyang’s first railway station was built in 1920 but was destroyed in the Korean War. While the current three story (plus basement) building, built in 1958, is classified as socialist style architecture it is far from the boxy 1950s Soviet type buildings more commonly built in Pyongyang after the Korean War. Continue reading “Pyongyang Railway Station”
The Rambling Wombat 