Yanggakdo Hotel

... so we could easily identify it once the Mass Games were over. And then we were out, for the first time outside the Yanggakdo. We emerged onto a large plateau which you enter the stadium from, and where a few stands, small tents, really, were pitched in ...

... . Or foggy. Whatever. At any event, it was windy and rather cold. From up here on the thirty fifth floor of the "Yanggakdo Gugje Hotel", however, I had some great view on the still mostly sleeping city below. Pyongyang was still in a low murmur, mumbling ...

... same as the day before. First down at the breakfast, followed soon by Nicole and Mathew and then another round on the Yanggakdo island promenade. And at nine o’clock in front of our bus. Our first destination for today was another thing famous from ...

... out from the map by American bombs, there were in fact less than 10 buildings standing after the war..! Our hotel is the "Yanggakdo" on an artificial island in the middle of the Taedong river. My first North Korean beer, it tastes excellent. On day two ...

... curiosity. Who cares that much to get something that perfect when all around is crumbling?   We check into our Yanggakdo Hotel - 47 storeys of magnificence just coincidentally located on an island in the river. The Alcatraz of tourism.   ...