Month: July 2017

First Day In North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province

Xavier Raychell BlanchardeLeave a comment

After crossing the border into North Korea from Tumen, China, we were ready to go sightseeing. Today, we were to visit Namyang, Wangjaesan and Hoeryong city, in North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province. We met our two North Korean guides, Mr Lee and Mr Kim, at the border, and they both seemed very friendly. We drove for no more than two minutes after crossing the border before reaching the tourist restaurant and shop in Namyang town. The tourist restaurant appeared to be solely used for Chinese day-trippers and our Western tour group was a rare sight.

namyang building

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Peeking Into North Korea In Tumen (Before Entering It)

Xavier Raychell BlanchardeLeave a comment

After a great day in Beijing, our 1pm train was to take us on a 25 hour journey into China’s Jilin province in the north east of the country, ending up in Tumen city, on the North Korean border.

This area of China is really interesting, as it’s part of an autonomous region called “Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region”, where a large portion of the population are ethnic Koreans, who speak Korean, rather than Chinese, as a first language. Being so close to the border with Russia as well, a lot of the sign posts and restaurants are written in 3 languages: Korean, Chinese and Russian. This part of China is regularly referred to as the “3rd Korea”, which most people do not know about.

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