Yanggakdo International Hotel
| Yanggakdo International Hotel | |
 | |
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 양각도국제호텔 |
| Hancha | 羊角島國際호텔 |
| Revised Romanization | Yanggakdo Gukje Hotel |
| McCune–Reischauer | Yanggakto Kukche Hot'el |
Yanggakdo International Hotel is one of the largest working hotels and the second tallest building in North Korea, after the Ryugyong Hotel. The hotel is located on Yanggakdo (Yanggak Island), two kilometers to the south-east of the center of Pyongyang, the nation's capital. It rises to an overall height of 170 meters and sports a slowly revolving restaurant on the 47th floor. The hotel is said to contain 1,000 rooms and a total floor space of 87,870 square meters. The structure was built between 1986 and 1992 by France’s Campenon Bernard Construction Company and opened in 1995.
Background
The hotel has a promotional video that is displayed in the foyer and in guestrooms when the national North Korean channel (KCTV) goes off air. This was recorded from the hotel's analogue video network by a guest in August 2011 and placed on Youtube.[1]
Uncirculated North Korean currency sets can be purchased at official rates at reception, and postcards and letters can be mailed from the desk next to it. Behind the latter, there is a small shop which sells basic commodities at western prices. The ground floor also contains a small bar to the right of the main entrance, and to the left, a small bookshop which stocks a wide range of North Korean reading material including back-issues of the local English-language newspaper, the Pyongyang Times, treatises by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, various children's books, and a wide range of material which describes the North Korean understanding of the history of the region.
In addition to the revolving restaurant, the hotel guide issued to all guests indicates that the hotel contains four further restaurants on the second floor—these include the numbers one and two dining-room, the main banquet hall and the Japanese, Chinese and Korean food dining-rooms.
The hotel's basement contains a bowling alley, a pool room, a swimming pool, a barber shop, a casino and a massage club run by a Chinese company with an exclusively female staff.
The hotel's grounds include a 9,000 square meter nine-hole golf course.[2] Also on Yanggak Island, right next to the hotel's grounds the Pyongyang International Cinema Hall can be found, which hosts the opening and closing ceremonies of the Pyongyang International Film Festival.
The hotel is a standard stop on all tours of North Korea and was featured in the graphic novel Pyongyang.
Fifth floor
Visitors to the hotel have noted that the elevator buttons skip from Floor 4 to Floor 6;[3] however, Floor 5 is accessible by way of stairs (and it is the floor where the guides have their rooms). While there is no certainty as to the exact nature and purpose of Floor 5, one blogger who ventured there has written about it:
First, the 5th floor is unlike any floor of the hotel, it is all concrete, like a bunker, complete with steel doors. There are no decorations of any kind; instead there are propaganda posters. At that time all the strange doors were shut tight, but we were still able to stumble upon the most intriguing of all: in a corner there was a large pile of what appeared to be miniature cameras, as if awaiting repair. Cameras, lots of them, and well enough for each room of the hotel. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you, word for word anyway. Oh, and another member of our group reported that when he went at a different time one door was open and there appeared to be official-looking men before computers or machines of some kind and listening to something with headphones.[4]
See also
References
- ^ "Yanggakdo Hotel promotional video".
- ^ Sthankiya, Nayan. "North Koreans Eager to Play Golf as Well". Seoul Times. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
- ^ http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294444-d644971-r77938615-Yanggakdo_Hotel-Pyongyang.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT
- ^ http://our-sekai.com/blog/?p=1590
