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When in North Korea, foreign visitors will often be asked to pay homage to the Great Leader President Kim Il Sung. This will usually be done at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.Visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace to pay homage to Kim Il Sung is quite an experience. Entry is through a long passageway which has the longest travelator that I have seen in my life. I was advised by my guides that it was installed at the initiative of the Great Leader General Kim Jung Il so that visitors would not get tired when walking to the palace. “The great leader is always thinking of the comfort of his people”,
Continue reading “The Great Leader” is Kumsusan Memorial Palace in North Korea

The “105 Building” is one of the boldest buildings in Pyongyang. From a distance, it is a dreadful, if awe-inspiring piece of architecture. It reminds one of the following passage from George Orwell’s book, 1984:The Ministry of Trutha Minitrue, in Newspeakwas startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air…The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below.

This Pyongyang building is not actually a government ministry or a place of terror, but the Yu-kyung hotel. In a strange coincidence, it is the same height as the building in 1984 and contains the same number of rooms. Construction of the building began in 1987 and was abandoned four years later. Some people say that faulty engineering has left it structurally unsound, and visitors are not allowed to approach it up close.