Index

Women in Business & Ministry of Finance workshops

Other touristy stuff

Pyongyang Airport

First thing I noticed on arrival at Pyongyang Airport was that the old terminal building had been torn down and construction was still in progress on its replacement.  Passenger arrivals & departures are now through an interim terminal building next to the old one.

  • Pyongyang Airport, 2013 above, and 2008 below.
  • Interim passenger terminal building. Based on Google Earth historical imagery, I think this was a renovation of an existing building rather than new construction.
  • Arrival Hall - Immigration, Baggage claim and customs. Got to say it's a much smaller-scale airport than Beijing.
  • Another spruced-up building on the north side of the demolished terminal. Not sure what this is for. VIP traffic ?
  • Tupolev 154

Pyongyang city scenes

  • Pyongyang Hotel. This hotel is popular with Korean Japanese.
    • Who can come to Pyongyang and *not* take a picture of the Ryugyong Hoytel ? The pyramid hotel is visible from as far away as the airport, 25km out of town, and from much of the countryside surrounding Pyongyang.
    • View from the Grand People's Study Hall. The round-shaped apartments are the Mansudae Apt Complex, reportedly built in 100 days to commemorate the 100th birthday of Kim Il sung. The apartment complex is also lit up in garish colours at night, which is noteworthy because when I was last here 5 years ago, there were basically no lights in Pyongyang at night.
    • The biggest difference between my last visit and now is that Pyongyang is lit up at night now (unfortunately with the really garish coloured LED lights favoured by second rung Chinese cities). Back in 2008, Pyongyang was pitch black at night, except for the Tower of Juche and Grand People's Study Hall.

    Pyongyang Informatics Centre

    • Lobby of the Pyongyang Informatics Centre
    • Every time I come to DPRK, I keep running into wedding parties. This one at the Informatics Centre even asked us to join the photo. Must be good luck to run into a foreigner on your wedding day.

    Tower of Juche (2008)

    We ran into this wedding party at the Tower of Juche back in my 2008 trip. One of the "brothers" is wearing the insignia of an Infantry Major in the Korean People's Army and was apparently just as curious about us as we were of them.
      • North Koreans are just as fascinated by foreigners as we are of them.

      Paying respects to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

          Spot the difference

          Photo on the left is from 2008, photo on the right is from 2013.
              Apart from having a new companion in his son, Kim Il Sung also changed his suit sometime around the beginning of this year. Kim Senior has gone from a Mao jacket to Western-style business suit.

              Karaoke for foreigners
                  Russian karaoke at the diplomatic club.

                  Russian Cemetery

                  We were brought here by the First Secretary of the British Embassy. The cemetery is well-tended though most of the graves are from the 1940s or earlier. There was a caretaker whose duties included reporting the arrival of any visitors (especially foreign ones ?) to his superiors.