By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is a Diary Entry from Sunday the 17th of June, 2018 After sleeping in a bit, I went down at about 11am to find Han Sol, my Korean-Canadian friend in the Foreign Student Dormitory who is completing his undergraduate degree at Kim Il Sung University. It was a Sunday and to break routine, we had decided to go outside somewhere that neither of us had been for lunch. I had heard of a restaurant that had kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi, so I got the name from friends so that I could tell the taxi driver to take us there. Taeposan Restaurant (대보산식당) it’s called. We went outside to hunt for a taxi. Being Sunday, a lot of people were outside relaxing. In our neighbourhood we saw two pet dogs. First a tiny puppy with a… [Read More]
Archives for June 2018
The North Korea-United States Summit Viewed from Pyongyang: Part 2
By Alek Sigley, postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University It’s been over a week since the historic Singapore summit between the leaders of North Korea and the United States of America. As a short follow-up to the last post I’d like to share some further thoughts and impressions in relation to the meeting that have come to me since publishing the previous post. On Thursday last week (the 14th of June) I came back to my room in the Kim Il Sung University Foreign Student Dormitory rather late after visiting a friend in the diplomatic compound. I had ridden my bicycle to East Pyongyang and back and on the way there, it rained heavily. I had a set of rain clothes but used the pants to cover my backpack which I placed in the bicycle’s basket, so I ended up soaked! After visiting my friend and attending to some… [Read More]
The North Korea-United States Summit Viewed from Pyongyang
By Alek Sigley, postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University This Tuesday all the world’s eyes were on Singapore as it became the venue for history’s first meeting between a leader of the DPRK and a sitting US president, namely, between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and President of the United States of America Donald Trump. As a foreign student at Kim Il Sung University, I could see that there was intense interest in the summit among Pyongyang locals, who followed the extensive domestic media coverage of events with keen interest. In the lead up to the summit some of the Korean students in the dormitory (tongsuksaeng) had asked me what the foreign media was saying about the summit. I had started receiving the text of media articles about the summit from friends on WhatsApp (I only have internet on my phone at the moment and can browse the… [Read More]
International Food Fair at the Russian Embassy and Seafood Dinner
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is a diary entry from Saturday May the 12th, 2018 There’s not a lot of events for foreigners to attend in Pyongyang, so when the foreign community does get together to organise its own activities there’s active participation and solid attendance. On Saturday May the 12th I went with some of the other students of Kim Il Sung University to an event held at the Russian embassy. The event was an international food fair for charity organised by the Pyongyang International Women’s Association. Proceeds went to supporting nurseries in rural North Korea. Each participating country had its own stall selling drinks, snacks, and knickknacks. I saw stalls for Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Laos, Romania, Russia and Vietnam. It was a nice, diverse, crowd, and I met attendees from Germany, France, and Canada there too. The… [Read More]
