Living Like a Tourist in North Korea

Food and drink

 

When I first mentioned going to North Korea, I got asked whether there would be enough food for tourists.  And the answer is a definite yes.  A large portion of the travel fee goes to purchasing food during our stay in North Korea.  With the endless fields of corn in North Korea’s farmland, it’s not surprisingly to learn that corn is a major staple for North Koreans, especially during times of food shortage.  The typical meal for tourists always has kimchi, bean sprouts, scrambled eggs and spicy stir fried pork.  Everyone gets a bowl of rice and North Korea’s rice is probably one of the best in the world, with just the right amount of stickiness and a fragrant aroma.  Another specialty is ginseng chicken cooked in soup.  There’s nothing added besides ginseng and salt, so the taste is quite bland, but the flavour of the ginseng is quite distinct when you taste the glutinous rice stuffed inside the chicken since it has soaked up all the ginseng essence.  Don’t be surprised if the power goes out during dinner time, which happened twice for me, since electricity supply can be unstable.  The most brightly lit places in Pyongyang are probably the Mansu Hill Monument and the Kim Il Sung Square.  Housing units are relatively dark at night, but North Korea does make extensive use of solar panels, which can be spotted on the roofs of most buildings and homes.

The majority of tourists that visit North Korea stay at the Yanggakdo Hotel.  The 170 metre hotel sits on its own island in the centre of Pyongyang.  We were advised to not wander outside of the hotel’s gate by ourselves by our guides.  Built in the late 1980s, the hotel houses about a thousand rooms and most of the furnishings are reminiscent of those in the 80s, especially the sofas.  Hot water is only available during a limited period of time, so showers have to be taken after 8pm.  If you look closely at the elevator buttons, you’ll notice that there’s no fifth floor.  There are stories that share more about the surveillance rooms and propaganda posters that exist on the floor, but I won’t share more about them.  Just Google it and you’ll see.  What I did notice were the tour guides stopping on the same floor in the morning before heading down for breakfast in their separate room.  Perhaps they gather for a briefing before the start of each day, who knows?

As much as the hotel is a five-star one in North Korea standards, I really missed having a comfy and spacious bed to sink into, so three days in the country was enough, at least for the first visit.  We used the brand new airport that just opened up in July.  This is part of the massive plan for North Korea to open up to more tourists and the outside world.  But Air Koryo is the only airline that travels in and out, mostly to other parts of North Korea and China.  The Russia manufactured planes have relatively new leather seats.  No pictures are allowed but I managed to slip a few in!  All in all, this has been an interesting journey and an experience of a country that is so unlike any other, but it will be even more interesting to travel further outside of Pyongyang if I do step foot into the country again.