By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. One of the perks of being a student in Pyongyang is that you can pretty much go wherever you want inside Pyongyang, with few restrictions and without the need for a guide to accompany you. I had previously travelled to Pyongyang about a dozen times with tour groups, but after exploring the city on foot after coming to Kim Il Sung University, I was able to see a whole other side to the city. There’s a multitude of shops, restaurants, and leisure facilities, as well as interesting and unique architecture to discover walking the city, many of which are not accessible to tourists and people visiting Pyongyang on short term stays. While tourists are generally able to see the city along its main streets and thoroughfares, we are able to go inside its blocks and go… [Read More]
Archives for August 2018
Ryongnamsan Musical Instrument Store
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. While exploring Ryomyong Street with Han Sol, a Korean Canadian in his 3rd year of undergraduate at Kim Il Sung University, and Sasha, a Korean Uzbek on short term exchange for the summer from his university in Moscow, I discovered this beautifully decorated musical instrument shop. Located in the lotus flower-shaped Green Architecture IT Center (록색건축기술교류사) just above Miniso, it is named the Ryongnamsan (룡남산) Shop, after one of the DPRK instrument brands it stocks (perhaps it is run by the company much in the same manner as the May the 1st Stadium brand specialty store, which is situated not too far away). But it sells other local instrument brands, as well as imported items such as Yamaha equipment. The manager of the store came out and greeted us enthusiastically, chatting with us, asking where we… [Read More]
A Visit to the May 1st Stadium Ice Cream and Beverage Shop
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. In North Korea there’s a brand that specialises in ice cream and bottled drinks that is as far as I can tell, much loved by local people. It uses one of the country’s most recognisable architectural landmarks for its name and logo– the May the 1st Stadium, where North Korea’s famous mass gymnastics celebrations are held. The May the 1st Stadium (5월1일경기장) brand manufactures its products in its own plant, and sells them in shops and snack stalls all over the country, as well as in a newly-opened specialty store on Ryomyong Street, on the other end of the road from the Kim Il Sung University Foreign Student Dormitory. According to the Choson Shinbo newspaper, the May 1st Stadium brand began in 2006 as a work unit within the stadium itself, where the Arirang Mass Games… [Read More]
My Walk to Class in Pictures
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This past semester I had class every Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 2:30 in the afternoon. It took me about twenty minutes to walk to my classes in Building No. 3 of Kim Il Sung University from my room in the Foreign Student Dormitory. Here I will go through photos of my thrice a week journey explaining what I saw along the way. I’ll start from after having just left the dormitory, since I plan to introduce the dormitory itself in a separate post later. At about 2pm each class day, I put my notebooks, textbooks, printouts and stationary into my backpack and exit the dormitory. There’s a small car park area that usually has a taxi or two waiting around for customers and several stalls (매대). On the right there is a “Refreshing Drinks” (청량음료)… [Read More]
An Update—Summer Holiday!
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. I just wanted to give a little update to the readers of this blog, and at the same time apologise for the lack of new posts the past couple of weeks. I’ve already completed my first semester at Kim Il Sung University, and returned to my wife’s apartment in Tokyo, where I’ve been since mid-July. It was kind of an intense experience leaving Pyongyang after being there for three and a half months straight. Suddenly I was able to use the internet to my heart’s content, eat foods which I’d almost forgotten the flavour of, be outside past 9pm (we had a curfew in the dormitory), use a credit card, see and use vending machines, purchase from a 24 hour convenience store, and be surrounded by advertisements, foreign tourists, and people wearing diverse fashions. This was… [Read More]
