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South Korean tourists are now able to visit the ordinary North Korean city of Kaesong, ancient capital of the Koryo Dynasty that ruled the peninsula between 918 and 1,392. Hyundai Asan started a one-day overland tour program to Kaesong on Wednesday with a first batch consisting of 229 tourists and 332 reporters and various officials.
Hyundai Asan¡¯s second regular package program to North Korea comes nine years after it launched tours to Mt. Kumgang in November 1998, and two years and four months after the pilot trip to the city in August 2005. What distinguishes the Kaesong from the Mt. Kumgang program is that it offers a glimpse of the ordinary life of North Koreans. Although North Korea does not allow tourists to approach citizens, the South Koreans said being able to see ordinary people and houses was still interesting.
The program consists of Pagyon Falls, the Koryo Museum and Seonjuk Bridge. The first stop in the morning was Pagyon Falls, 30 minutes by bus from downtown Kaesong. For lunch, there was a traditional regional 13-dish meal at the Tongilgwan restaurant in downtown Kaesong that included rice, Sinseollo (a royal dish of meat and vegetables), and chicken, fish and pork dishes served in brassware.
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South Korean tourists to the North Korean city of Kaesong look around the Koryo Museum on Wednesday, the first day of Hyundai Asan¡¯s Kaesong tour program.
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After lunch it was the Seonjuk Bridge, the place where the late Koryo Dynasty statesman Jeong Mong-ju was murdered by men sent by Yi Bang-won, a son of Yi Seong-gye, who founded the Chosun Dynasty. Next up was the Koryo Museum housed in the Songgyungwan, the central institute of education in the Koryo Dynasty. The building was destroyed during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in the 1590s and restored in the early 17th century. It now displays some 1,000 artifacts and is famous for two 500-year-old gingko trees and a 450-year-old zelkova tree.
Hyundai Asan CEO Yoon Man-joon said the company plans to take some 300 tourists to Kaesong daily except Monday and expects some 100,000 people will take the tour program every year. ¡°We will see the extent of increase in the number of tourists and then consider operating tours of more than a day and accommodation,¡± he added. The one-day program costs W180,000 (US$1=W923) per person, $100 of which goes to the North.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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