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’”
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”
The Rambling Wombat 