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NorthKorean posts
Candid look inside North Korea
Mar 18th, 2011 at 2:30PM:
In this video, Steve Gong goes into a North Korea hair salon and gets his hair cut "Pyongyang style." Like the city it is named for, Pyongyang style is a largely unchanged fashion. This metropolis on the banks of the Taedong river appears much as it did when the U.S.S.R. was its principal ally many years ago. The ghost of communist Russia hovers over Pyongyang like a specter, and in this ...
North Korea resumes construction on world's most hideous hotel
Mar 5th, 2011 at 3:00PM:
North Korea is the hermit kingdom; a strange land of mass games and dear leaders trapped in a 1950's communist time warp. While they may not have modern supermarkets or PlayStation 3, North Korea does have one of the tallest hotels in the world, and it looms high above Pyongyang like a tribute to the ill advised whims of dear leader Kim Jong Il.
According to USA Today, The pyramidal Ryugyong ...The stinking streets and subways of Seoul
Dec 8th, 2010 at 2:00PM:
Look, it's been a long time since I got off the 4 Line at Samgachi Station – a dozen years, in fact – but I remember it being rather clean and pleasant. The train itself was, too. Well, I guess I was wrong. I now have it on good authority saw on the internet that Seoul is "well known to the world as heavily polluted."
Yep, that's what you'll find in North Korean geography ...Tip this waitress or she'll kill you
Jul 27th, 2010 at 12:30PM:
There are two types of waitress you want to tip. The first will climb onto your lap for an extra $20 while the DJ pushes the sounds of Whitesnake through the speakers, and she'll earn every dime of it. The other, however, is far more dangerous. She won't take your money, but she will take your life.
When you enter a North Korean restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia, notes The Chosun Ilbo, be ...Which way is up? The travails of travel writing on North Korea
Dec 28th, 2009 at 8:00AM:
It's easy to be attracted to news about North Korea- for travel writers and every other type of journalist. So little comes out that even the appearance of information makes it noteworthy. This is why those of us interested in covering the most unusual place on Earth will run with press releases or other announcements that would make us groan if they came from anywhere else (I hope this answers ...North Korea vacation: can I take pictures?
Jul 13th, 2009 at 8:00AM:
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 pictures.
Though there are "many restrictions on photography that have to be obeyed in the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of ...Amazing North Korea trip deal: Arirang for $1,000!
Jul 9th, 2009 at 12:00PM: 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 is an incredible find.
tweetmeme_url = ...American journalists get the max in North Korean court
Jun 8th, 2009 at 12:00PM: 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 News Agency reported, according to MSNBC. The English version of the story, at least, has not yet made it to the KCNA's website, ...A peek inside the North Korean courts
May 15th, 2009 at 3:00PM:
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 going to be tried "according to the indictment of the competent organ"?
Frankly, there's little information about what Laura ...June 4 trial date for American journalists in North Korea
May 14th, 2009 at 8:30AM:
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 want to guess how this one will end?
According to reports by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which is controlled by the ...
Arirang gets green light in DPRK!
Apr 10th, 2009 at 12:00PM: 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 are welcome to attend the festival this year. If you are considering a visit to the Hermit Kingdom late this summer, do be ...North Korea, South Korea and a closely watched train
Feb 1st, 2008 at 12:30PM: Well, it hasn't taken a long time before the "most closely watched train" in the world may need to cut back its service.
Last month, North and South Korea started a symbolic rail service connecting the heavily fortified joint North-South industrial complex in Kaesong, just north of the border. Although the train served only to ship goods, it seemed like a start of some sort of communication. ...
