10 of the world’s ugliest buildings – CNN
North Korean Hotel of Doom - photo by Joseph A Ferris III
CNN fluff web article on the world’s ugliest buildings:
On the Streets of Kaesong, North Korea
A busy morning street scene – photos all taken from the gate of the Folk Hotel (with no freedom to explore further), Kaesong, North Korea.
The Porters of the Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea
With the philosophy that it’s best to cultivate a little good will, even in the lowest of places, because you never know when you might need a friend or a little help, and even though we carried our own bags, we always greeted the Yanggakdo Hotel porters and bell hops with bright smiles, handshakes, and a few packs of Marlboro Red cigarettes discreetly slipped into their palms.
Not that we ever needed their assistance, but the porters made us proud when on the last morning of our trip, while tossing and playing Frisbee with us in the hotel parking lot, several government agent types – black shades, slick suits, BMW ride, angrily asked the porters “what are you doing, don’t you know you are playing with Americans?”
It was later told to us that they replied with the Korean equivalent of “f*** you, they are our friends!”
Awesome!
Hotel of Doom – Ryugyong Hotel
Dominating the Pyongyang skyline, the North Korean Ryugyong Hotel finally nears completion after 20 years of on and off again construction. I’m not going to badmouth the Ryugyong Hotel any further – I will leave that to this Esquire.com article.
More North Korea pics at my Flickr Photostream
Related articles
- North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel Exterior Completed (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)
- Pyongyang Pyramid: The Ryugyong Hotel, located in the… (curbed.com)
- World’s Most Notoriously Unfinished Hotel Finally Opening (Supposedly) [Hotels] (gawker.com)
- Top 10 spookiest buildings around the world (cnn.com)
- One Of The World’s Largest Hotels Is About To Open In North Korea (businessinsider.com)
Casino Pyongyang
Welcome to basement floor #1 of the Yanggakdo International Hotel of Pyongyang, the one and only red light district open to foreigners in all of North Korea. Don’t expect to find any North Koreans in this shady area, this floor is forbidden to residents and staffed only by Chinese workers. Here the adventurous can party at the Egypt Palace Karaoke and Nightclub, try their luck at the Casino Pyongyang, and get a naughty Chinese massage in the VIP room of the Golden Spring Island Sauna. While this all sounds like a Hangover movie in the making, in reality don’t expect too much. During my visit to basement floor #1 I found the nightclub closed, the casino empty and depressing, and the naughty massage parlor simply intimidating.
On a side note – my father runs a video game company and in the past was involved with casinos, so I took a close look at the serial number tags on a handful of the slot machines that sat unpowered in the Pyongyang Casino. All of the slots were registered and had come from the United States! I wish cameras were allowed so I could have recorded some of the tags – would have been fun to track these machines down.
Check out all my North Korea pics at my Flickr Photostream
Related articles
- S Korea to send medicine to North (bbc.co.uk)
- Massive Human Billboard Mosaics of the North Korean Arirang Festival (laughingsquid.com)
- North Korea in Autumn – David Guttenfelder (oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com)
