Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for July, 2013

North Korea – Kaesong Koryo Museum

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Kaesong, Korea, Map, Museum, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Travel, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/09| 4 Comments »

The Koryo Museum in Kaesong was without the shadow of a doubt the historical and cultural highlight of my trip to North Korea.
As I mentioned before, Koryo was a kingdom on the Korean peninsula from 918 to 1392; the modern term Korea derives from that name. With modern day Kaesong (then Songdo, later Gaegyeong) being the capital for most of its existence (919-1232 and 1270-1392), it’s not really a surprise that a museum about Koryo is located in Kaesong.
The current day Koryo Museum is located at the Songgyungwan Academy since 1987 and houses more than 1000 artifacts from the Koryo period – and of course the academy itself has a very long history that dates back… to the Koryo kingdom. It started as the Taemyon Palace in the early 11th century and later became first an imperial guesthouse and then the Bureau for Confucian Doctrines. In 1089 it started to house the highest educational institution of the kingdom (for the children of state officials), the Gukjagam. In the early 14th century it was renamed Songgyungwan Academy and burned to the ground during the Imjin War in 1592, when Japanese troops failed to conquer Korea. The Songgyungwan Academy was rebuilt in 1602, so going to the Koryo Museum is impressive for the fact alone that you usually don’t have the opportunity to visit museums in buildings more than 400 years old…
Except for the missing English labeling (compensated for by a local and one of our regular guides) the Koryo Museum totally lived up to international standards, not only exhibiting countless artifacts, but also presenting plenty of photos, models and recreated places like a tomb. I’ve been to quite a few museums in my lifetime and this was definitely one of the better ones!

Even better than the museum itself was the gift shop in front / outside of the museum. Gift shops in the DPRK are more or less the same, but this one was amazing! It offered a huge selection of stamps (to collect and for use to send postcards to all countries but South Korea), a decent selection of art, quite a few different T-shirts, local ginseng products as well as… propaganda postcards and mini-posters! Most gift shops only sell photo postcards, but this one had about 40 different painted propaganda motives – anti-American, anti-Japanese, pro-education, pro-industry, pro-reunification; about a dozen of them available as mini-posters, slightly larger than DINA4. Luckily Sarah told us ahead of time, so I bought all the postcards I’ve sent to family and friends there, plus a few spare ones; but not nearly enough.
I actually regret only one thing about my trip to North Korea – not buying more stuff at that gift shop!

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

North Korea – Korean Dog Meat Soup

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Food, Kaesong, Korea, Map, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/08| 15 Comments »

Dog meat soup was the most unusual dish I ate in North Korea – yes, dear canine lovers, soup with dog meat, locally known as boshintang or gaejangguk… But I guarantee you: nobody harmed your Chihuahua or Golden Retriever, so please get you blood pressure down again and don’t take it personal.
Eating dog meat (gaegogi) is one of the last few taboos in Western societies and honestly: I am a bit annoyed by it. I totally understand that a lot of people have a close, personal relationship with their dogs and nobody expects them to have their pets for dinner – but don’t look at people who eat dog meat as if they just butchered your first born child! Fact is: we eat smarter animals, we eat cuter animals, and we eat more endangered animals – leaving dogs out is animal racism! (Or rather “speciesm”? Hello, dear vegans, BTW… :))
Having said that let me tell you about my dog soup experience and why I won’t repeat it.

The second to last night of the *trip to North Korea* we spent in Kaesong. Dinner at the *Minsok Hotel* was good as always, but unlike the previous hotels this one offered dog meat soup as an additional optional course – for 5 Euros, which is a more than fair price by international standards (you can eat dog meat in most Asian countries, including Japan, prepared in all kinds of ways). Dog meat soup being a local delicacy and me not being an animal racist I gave it a try. My friends’ dogs always hated me and after them nibbling on my legs for 35 years I finally got the opportunity to get revenge and nibble on one of theirs… (Again, dogs eaten in Korea usually are Nureongi / Hwangu, specifically bred as livestock and not kept as pets!)
The soup came towards the end of the meal and in addition to dog meat had scallions, sesame seeds and some spices in it – a regular, rather thin grayish soup with some meat. On a small plate we received a spicy paste, most likely gochujang.
Before I even had the chance to try the soup its smell hit me – or rather its stench. Dog soup smells so bad! Basically like wet dog, I kid you not. Realizing that I’ve made a huge mistake I put the spicy paste into the soup and luckily the gochujang covered the smell and therefore most likely part of the taste, too – especially since the gochujang was quite hot in addition to smelling nicely. So in the end the soup tasted not nearly as bad as it smelled. The texture of the meat was a bit like chicken, the taste closer to beef. The broth was quite unspectacular and overall the taste was dominated by the gochujang; which was a good thing I might add, because I can only imagine what kind of taste adventure the soup must have been without the spicy paste! (There was another order of dog soup shared by two members of the group – their verdict was pretty much the same and they neither tasted the soup without the gochujang AFAIK.)

So will I ever order dog meat soup again? Highly unlikely, because I just didn’t like it – overall by far the worst dish I ate in North Korea. But I’ve heard that grilled dog tastes a lot better…

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

North Korea – Kaesong, Minsok Hotel

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Hotel / Ryokan, Kaesong, Korea, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Travel, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/06| 8 Comments »

The Minsok Hotel in Kaesong (a.k.a. the Folk Hotel) is the standard accommodation for foreign visitors to Korea’s ancient capital. It’s located in the old part of Kaesong, one of the few places in the DPRK not destroyed during the Korean War, since it was part of South Korea for the first part of the conflict and the allied forced had hoped to get it under control again (the other half of Kaesong was destroyed nonetheless). The Kaesong Folk Hotel was opened in 1989 and consists of about 20 hanok style courtyard houses along a small river – many date back to the Joson Dynasty (1392-1897) and offer their guests a traditional Korean experience, which means that people sleep on padded mats on the floor, heated by the traditional ondol system. By far the most beautiful of the three hotels I stayed at in North Korea (the other two being the *Yanggakdo Hotel* and the *Ryonggang Hot Spring House*), it was also the one where it was most evident that our freedom of movement was strictly limited. Although (or rather: because) the Minsok Hotel is located in a rather busy residential area, none of us was allowed to leave the premises. Years ago it was possible to go on a stroll when accompanied by the Korean guides, but that tiny little bit of freedom was taken away when an American tourist decided it was a good idea to sneak out alone at night…
In the morning we were allowed to step outside the hotel’s massive wooden gate to take a couple of photos of the street, but that was it. We tried everything to convince our guides to go on a walk with us, but they shut us down completely; politely, but firmly.

The most surreal moment of my stay in North Korea, way weirder than visiting the *Kumsusan Palace Of The Sun*, also happened at the Minsok Hotel: I was approaching the hotel’s gift shop, a small building near the gate, when I heard music from a big speaker on the ground. Western music. English text, written, produced and partly sung by a German. Imagine the trashiest europop possible, created in the 80s, stuff that still haunts you after more than 25 years and almost overshadowed a whole decade of legendary pop and rock songs. Only one band can come to mind, at least when you are from a German speaking or a Scandinavian country – Modern Talking! The song playing: Brother Louie. At first I thought it was Cheri, Cheri Lady since all Modern Talking songs kind of sound the same, but no, here I was… in Kaesong, North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, the most secluded country in the world, where you never hear a single western tune except for half a Beatles song at the *Grand People’s Study House* in Pyongyang – and I had to listen to Brother Louie by Modern Talking…

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

North Korea – The Way To Kaesong

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Kaesong, Map, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/04| 18 Comments »

Korea’s former capital Kaesong was the next major destination on my itinerary, but before reaching the DPRK’s last city with lots of historical buildings surviving the Korean War we had a busy yet unspectacular day; most of the locations visited during that time I will talk about in the other locations article at the end of the series. (I already mentioned the lamb BBQ in the *Food For Tourists* entry the other day.) Since there is no direct highway between Nampo and Kaesong we had to go back to Pyongyang via the Youth Hero Motorway and then take the Reunification Highway (a.k.a. Pyongyang-Kaesong Motorway) south, making a stop at the “tea shop” mentioned in the Vice documentary. Just in case you saw it – the (unspectacular) building is a very basic highway rest, not a tea shop. And the “tea shop girl” has company now as there were two sales stands outside of the building both times we stopped there, although I can’t say for sure if Pun-Yun-Chi a.k.a. the original “tea shop girl” (pitied by countless Youtube comments) is still working there; heck the place was so unspectacular I didn’t even take photos or a video… And unlike claimed in the generally quite outdated documentary they are not waiting for six or ten months for customers! Even during both of our short stops (about 15 minutes each on May 2nd and May 3rd) we saw other tourist groups and local cars stopping there. Sure, only a fraction of customers a highway rest in North America or Europe has – but nothing like the out of thin air assumption made by Shane Smith, who IMHO tended to interpret everything he saw and experienced in the most negative way anyway. While it’s always a bad thing to jump to conclusions based on observations (especially when travelling alone and wondering why you are always alone…), it gets a bitter taste when it’s done to sell a product; in this case his documentary. I feel sorry that he and his cameraman had a bad time, but I think it was at least partly their own fault. Anyway.
Although built ten years earlier than the road to Nampo, the Reunification Highway is in much better condition, probably due its strategic importance, which was made clear by several military checkpoints (none of which we were allowed to take photos of) and countless tank traps – huge concrete blocks at the side of the road, some disguised as monuments, that can collapse onto the motorway in case of a foreign invasion. (I’m sure most of the bridges were rigged, too.)

By the time we arrived in Kaesong it was almost dark. What really struck me was the fact that the city didn’t have many lights. Maybe one in five apartments were lit, the rest was dark. The only construction lit up like a Christmas tree – the statue of Kim Il-sung on top of Mount Janam… (Interestingly enough some buildings had what looked like solar panels on their balconies. Not many, but still… Who would have thought that?)
The statue actually was our first destination the next morning after a night at the Minsok Hotel, but to the disappointment of all foreign visitors (…) it was closed since some people were cleaning the square in front of it – so we had a look at the city from a nearby viewing point; beautiful! When we came back to the statue we still weren’t allowed to see it, so to everybody’s surprise we were asked to board the bus to head out to the Koryo Museum since it was still too early to hit our time slot at the DMZ. And so that’s what we did…

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

North Korea – Chongsan-ri Cooperative Farm

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Korea, Map, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Travel, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/02| 16 Comments »

The Chongsan-ri Cooperative Farm halfway between Nampo and Pyongyang was the second time that my fellow tourist group grew kind of impatient (the first time was at the rather boring Museum of Metro Construction, where taking photos was forbidden for no apparent reason). It’s the DPRK’s showcase farm and whenever you see tourist visit a “typical North Korean farm” with “typical North Korean farmers” you can bet that it’s this place; which is actually more than just a regular farm…

I think we all had a huge communication problem right from the start. When we drove up to the Chongsan Cooperative Farm it didn’t look much like a farm. We parked on a huge concrete parking lot in front of what looked like a museum, announcements in Korea coming croakily from age-worn speakers – we were waiting in the direct heat for a couple of minutes and nobody seemed to know what was going on. Instead of showing us some crops next we were lead up a gentle slope to… a statue of Kim Il-sung surrounded by farmers and their families. It turned out that the Dear Leader stayed at the farm for 15 days in 1960 and 84 times more afterwards, giving on-location advice and developing the “Chongsan-ri Spirit” (about leadership) in the farm’s honor; later being part of the Chollima Movement (promoting economic development) and the Juche Idea (promoting autarky). It also turned out that the building that looked like a museum actually was a museum, though I am not sure if that fact was made known on location – like I said, there was a huge communication problem…
From the monument we went back to the parking lot, past the museum and straight to some of the farm houses, where we were welcomed by a couple of playing kids and an elderly woman. Shoes off and in we went, taking photos that have been taken a thousand times before – of the woman with her grandson and twin kids on a couch, of the generously equipped kitchen, of the technical equipment on a decent level. On the one hand it was quite interesting, on the other it was completely pointless as this was an arranged photo session. Our hosts claimed it was a typical farmer’s house, but well, I guess it’s up to you whether you want to believe it or not. (BTW: I don’t think the house was much of an exaggeration since they didn’t put in a washing machine or a DVD player – and at least in Pyongyang DVD players must be quite common as, according to the latest rumors, the government has a serious problem with South Korean drama TV shows that seem to be quite popular among the North Korean population. DVDs and especially USB sticks make it possible to copy those shows to small and easy to hide storage devices.)
Afterwards we were able to have a look at a different (predetermined) house and then we waited for like 20 minutes at the parking lot to get the heck out of there – we didn’t see a single field or animal, although the farm is supposed to produce rice, corn and beans. We also didn’t have a look at the museum or some of the facilities at the farm, like the hospital, the cultural hall, the kindergarten or one of the schools on the premises. I really wonder what went wrong there, because it seems like the other group with the grumpy guides actually saw a lot more of the farm. Most of the information in this article I had to gather afterwards – and of course nobody mentioned the surface to air unit that was on the farm and just 200 meters away from the houses we visited…

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

North Korea – Nampo, West Sea Barrage

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Korea, Lighthouse, Map, Nampo, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/01| 2 Comments »

The West Sea Barrage is an eight kilometer long system of dams, three locks (capable of handling 2,000 to 50,000 ton ships) and 36 sluices near Nampo. It was built from 1981 to 1986 to close off the Taedong River from the Yellow Sea – the goal was to prevent seawater from entering the Taedong, causing floods. At the same time the Taedong’s water level was supposed to be raised under controlled conditions to improved ship traffic and to make it easier to irrigate fields along the river. Critics claim that the raised water levels destroyed farmland, contributing to the famine that struck North Korea from 1994 to 1998.
Considered a major technological accomplishment the West Sea Barrage is a standard stop for international tourists as well as foreign dignitaries – nevertheless photography was strictly limited until a couple of years ago, since the dam was considered strategically important (if you watched the Vice documentary, this is one of the many aspects where it is completely outdated). Even the former US president Jimmy Carter visited the West Sea Barrage during his stay in the DPRK in June 1994. (Interestingly enough Carter arrived by boat, not by car – I assume you can guess why…)

After a good night’s sleep at the *Ryonggang Hot Spring House* we drove to the West Sea Barrage, more specifically: P’i Do Island, which was included into the dam’s construction. There you can find a visitor center, which is also home to the P’i Do Lighthouse, the tallest and most powerful lighthouse in North Korea, its focal plane at 86 meters. The tower itself is 33 meters high and shaped like an anchor, so it’s also a nice looking monument.
Visits to the P’i Do Lighthouse usually start with the local guide showing you a video tape about the construction of the West Sea Barrage (which was actually quite interesting, despite the fact that it was what most people would consider “a cheesy propaganda video” – nevertheless I liked it quite a bit!), followed by a Q&A session about the dam. Then you go outside to take some photos and leave when your group guides tell you to… The underwhelming opening to a generally slow day.

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts