North Korea

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Well, it looks like this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity will be offered again this year. That's what happens, though, when you're dealing with Pyongyang – you never know what to expect. The latest news is that the Arirang Mass Games festival has been extended from the ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
If you didn't get a shot at the last short trip that Koryo Tours organized into North Korea, you have another chance coming. This rare breed of travel company – which brings westerners into the most isolated country on earth – is planning an excursion for ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Arirang, the stunning synchronized performance native to North Korea, began on Monday at the May Day Stadium. New material was on display, as Act III Scene I was "enriched" with "fresh contents more truthfully representing the great mental power and skills of the Korean ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
North Korea, the reclusive Communist state, is always reluctant to try something new. The government controls information tightly, as anyone who has read updates from the Korea Central News Agency can see. But, occasionally, a fissure forms in the barriers that separate the ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
If you visit Pyongyang, you can make a discovery that has been known in bowling alleys across the United States for decades: beer and pizza go together. This year, new approaches to both the food and the drink have been developed, and the only thing missing is the crash of ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
With the latest deal from Koryo Tours on travel to Pyongyang for the amazing Arirang event, one commenter had a great question: "I'd love to go and take lots of pictures, but I wonder if they would allow that??"
Well, Kelso, you would definitely be allowed to take ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (4 months ago)
Koryo Tours is offering the least expensive North Korea travel deal I've ever seen. Granted, there aren't many tours to this corner of the world, so there can't be too many discounts. But, even in this limited field, a $1,000 jaunt to the most isolated country in the world ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (4 months ago)
The ban on UK visitors in the DPRK has been removed for the summer, according to an e-mail announcement from Koryo Tours. This was the last of the restrictions that the world was waiting for North Korean authorities to lift. Citizens from the UK will be able to travel to ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (5 months ago)
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters with Current TV, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor this morning – the maximum sentence under law. The five-day trial yielded a verdict of guilt for the "grave crime" of illegally crossing into North Korea, the Korea Central ...

by Aaron Hotfelder (RSS feed) (5 months ago)
North Korea has a reputation as one of the most secretive, authoritarian, repressive countries in the world. But that doesn't stop Curtis Melvin, a PhD student at George Mason University, from trying to shine some light into the country's dark corners.
Using knowledge ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (5 months ago)
There's something chilling about journalists being detained and tried in a foreign country ... a prospect made all the more uncomfortable when you throw the "Dear Leader" into the mix. But, do we really know what's about to happen? Well, aside from the fact that they're ...
![June 4 trial date for American journalists in North Korea]()
by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (5 months ago)
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both reporters for Current TV, will be tried in a North Korean court on June 4, 2009 for entering the country illegally and planning "hostile acts." Ling and Lee were picked up along North Korea's border with China on March 17, 2009
Anybody ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (7 months ago)
It is confirmed: the Arirang Mass Games will be held in Pyongyang, North Korea this summer. The event will run from August 10, 2009 through the end of September, highlighting the precision for which the DPRK performers have become famous. According to Koryo Tours, Americans ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (8 months ago)
Korean Air and Asiana Airlines are followed by Air Canada and Singapore Airlines in routing flights around North Korean airspace. The change comes as a result of North Korean warnings that it "cannot guarantee the safety of South Korean passenger jets" if the United States ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (8 months ago)
It may not be time to celebrate, but you can certainly be optimistic (with a dose of caution). Koryo Tours has received an update from its partners in North Korea about the upcoming Arirang (i.e., "Mass Games" event). The Mass Games are expected to be held in August and ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (9 months ago)
The small golf course in Panmunjom is often called the most dangerous in the world. Nestled between North and South Korea – which are technically still at war – sending a ball off the fairway means that it probably won't be retrieved. Welcome to the strangest ...

by Brenda Yun (RSS feed) (10 months ago)
Several of my close friends and family members were adopted, adopted a child, or are in the process of adopting a child from Asia. In fact, my sister is months away from traveling to China to pick up her daughter, and our very own Gadling writer, Jamie Rhein has a daughter ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (10 months ago)
It's surprising; I know. There are competing accounts of how open North Korea is to outside tourists right now. Koryo Tours, as usual, is cutting through the rumor and gossip to give travelers as real a sense of possible of how, where and when you can go to North Korea. ...

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) (10 months ago)
Rumors earlier this year suggested that the North Korean Mass Games ("Arirang") were being pushed back to 2012. The magic in that number is that it's the 100th anniversary of the birth of the deceased but still-serving president, Kim Il Sung. Koryo Tours' recent newsletter, ...

by Jerry Guo (RSS feed) (11 months ago)
Read part 1 of this post here. And for additional reading, be sure to check out former Gadling blogger Neil Woodburn's excellent series, "Infiltrating North Korea," from last year. I also reported from North Korea for The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor ...
Next Page →