In my childhood I was a passionate stamp collector and still today I will often pick up some stamps as souvenirs when I travel, particularly when I visit what might be termed more obscure countries in the stamp collecting world. Continue reading “Korean Stamp Exhibition Hall – North Korean Stamps – Expect the Unexpected”
The Flowers Of The Leaders – Why Doesn’t Kim Jong-un Have One?
Should you visit North Korea it will not take you long to realise that anything of any importance is named after Kim Il-sung or more recently, since his death in 2011, Kim Jong-il. Very little, at this point is named after the current leader, Kim Jong-un.
It will thus come as no surprise that the most important flowers (trumping the national flower, the magnolia) in North Korea are the Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia. Yes indeed, that is what they are called – I kid you not.
Continue reading “The Flowers Of The Leaders – Why Doesn’t Kim Jong-un Have One?”
Pyongyang’s White Elephant
For a country that can build buildings in a day or two (for example, the Armistise Signing Hall in Panmunjom) the 330 metre high, 105 story Ryugyong Hotel ( Ryugyong – ‘capital of willows’– a former name for Pyongyang) is a major embarrassment to North Korea. In fact the unfinished hotel is, without doubt, North Korea’s number one embarrassment as, given its size and downtown Pyongyang location, it cannot be hidden or ignored (not even by our guides who could otherwise happily tell you, straight faced and without the blink of an eyelid that black was white). Continue reading “Pyongyang’s White Elephant”
The Rambling Wombat 