Now there are many people traveling to North Korea, and I went to North Korea. I don't want to travel anywhere else, and I don't need a tour guide to travel to North Korea. And travel to North Korea can only be with a group tour, eating, drinking and having fun, the local guide will make proper arrangements for you.
In North Korea, foreign-related shops can spend directly in rmb. So it doesn't matter if you bring more cash, because North Korea can't pay with a credit card or with a mobile phone. For tourists who are accustomed to mobile payments, it may be a bit uncomfortable. If it weren't for buying all kinds of valuables in North Korea, I personally think more than 1,000 cash would be enough.
When traveling in Korea, your guide will introduce the history of North Korea. Hear what your guide has to say. It is best not to argue with the tour guide. Although many tourists do not agree with the tour guide's point of view from the bottom of their hearts. In terms of hardware equipment, the Seosan Hotel in North Korea is superior to the Giethoorn Hotel.
We stayed at the Giethoorn Hotel, where there are many restaurants with different tastes, including Chinese restaurant, Western restaurant and buffet restaurant. Good taste and reasonable price. If you don't eat well during the day, you can go back to the hotel in the evening to eat another meal. There is a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor of Giethoorn Hotel, which mainly serves Western food and enjoys the night view of Pyongyang while eating.
Giethoorn Hotel has a lot of leisure facilities, bowling, sauna, table tennis, etc. The price is ok. The hotel has Korean Taedongjeong Beer for sale. One is a bottle of 5 yuan and the other is a bottle of 9 yuan. North Korea also produces beverages such as Sprite Coke for 5 to 8 yuan. The Korean beer was delicious, but the drink tasted average. The best cigarettes in North Korea are 727, giethoorn hotels for 330 yuan, Panmunjom for 280 yuan.
So let's take a look at the excellent material and cultural life in North Korea today.
On the opening day of Dacheng Department Store, North Korea's "world-class shopping mall", there were many people coming and going, almost like the shopping in large domestic supermarkets before the Spring Festival.
The refurbished Dentons department store will open on April 15, coinciding with North Korea's biggest festival, the Sun Festival. It was supposed to open at 2pm to greet guests, but we arrived 1 ahead of schedule due to too many customers waiting outside the door.
The first floor of the store is a supermarket and children's play area, the second floor is mainly men's and women's clothing, the third floor is shoes, watches, cosmetics and electronic products, and the fourth and fifth floors are small restaurants.
Soon after the store opened, traffic restrictions were imposed. At the door of the supermarket on the first floor, a large group of people crowded outside the glass door. The security guard would randomly let a group of customers in at regular intervals, and occasionally quarrel with customers.
The food in the supermarket is mainly Pyongyang's local brands, and many domestic products are imported from China, Japan and Europe, and the latter is much more expensive than the former. For example, a 250ml bottle of North Korean Coke costs 0.9 yuan (equivalent to RMB, the same below); a box of small coffee from Yunnan, China, costs 50 yuan.
On the third floor, I met internationally renowned watch brands such as Rolex and Omega, as well as internationally renowned cosmetics brands such as Chanel, Lancôme, and SK-II. On the fourth floor are health care products and medicines. We feel that the biggest change in North Korea should be here. North Korea has always been conservative. However, here we see liquid Viagra da Dura Conde from Switzerland, but there is no small blue tablet in the United States, but it can be seen that North Korea is developing towards the national fashion trend, and the conservatism is gradually fading, but the price is indeed a bit outrageous, almost twice the price of domestic pharmacies. However, the price of North Korean goods is similar to or higher than the price of a Chinese counter. A teller told us that Estée Lauder's lipstick was basically sold out after it was launched.
There are cash registers on each floor of the store, but the card swipe machine is temporarily unavailable and only cash is accepted. According to local sources, North Korea does not issue credit cards, and the mall will only accept debit cards in the future.
It is understood that Dacheng Department Store is located near the embassy district in Pyongyang, and the target group is mainly foreigners with purchasing power. But the crowd at Daesung that day was mainly Korean locals.
A month after the reopening of Japan-based Ayutthaya department store Shinpo, South Koreans are enjoying a "civilized experience" at a "world-class" shopping mall. The sale of foreign luxury goods by these shops demonstrates North Korea's efforts to provide people with a fine material and cultural life in defiance of international sanctions.
In North Korea, foreign citizens are typically only able to spend in dollars, euros, and renminbi at fixed numbers of hotels and shops that are open to the public and accept foreign currency. The hotel focuses on Japanese, Chinese and Korean dishes. The shop sells Korean tourist souvenirs and souvenirs such as Korean cosmetics, alcohol, cigarettes, Korean ginseng, postcards, stamps, etc. Some stores sell imported products similar to Dentons Department Store. Because of the high prices in such places, Koreans rarely spend money on them.