Golfing in North Korea
Golfing in North Korea.
Courtesy of Golf Magazine.
Golf In Pyongyang
Group of Americans with North Korean guide and golf pro hitting balls off the first tee at the Pyongyang Golf Course
Golf has reached the communist North
1. Wide monument to Korean Worker's Party
2. Close pan of carved stone of armed workers on monument
3. Medium tilt up from base to top of monument of hammer, sickle and torch
4. Wide shot of golf course with people in distance putting
5. Medium shot of foreign golfer hitting the ball
6. Close tilt up of man on green hitting ball and walking after it
7. Medium shot of two female caddies watching shot and walking out of frame
8. Medium pullout to wide of man sinking putt and bending down to get ball
9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Mark Edmonds, Australian businessman:
Being from Australia and a keen golfer I've played quite a few courses throughout Asia. I live in Seoul, originally from Melbourne and it was a good opportunity to come to North Korea and a once in a lifetime opportunity to play golf in Pyongyang. I quite enjoy it.
10. Medium pan pair of caddies pushing cart past camera and following golfer
11. Wide caddies pushing cart
12. Medium shot of clubhouse
13. SOUNDBITE: (Korean) Pak Yong Man, Pyongyang Golf Links director of services
The Pyongyang golf course opened in September 1987, thanks to the benevolence of the great leader and the great general. Up to 100 to 150 people can play the course at the same time and it has 18 holes. The greens comprise 45 units of area and the whole course has a 120 units.
14. Wide of empty course
STORYLINE:
A monument dedicated to the Korean Worker's Party captures in stone the determined faces of a people united under a monolithic political system.
Rising from another part of the capital Pyongyang, granite fists clutch hammer, sickle and torch in symbolic tribute to workers, peasants and intellectuals, the three pillars of socialism.
A bourgeois round of golf could seem out of place in North Korea's classless society.
But thirty minutes away from the city lies the lush expanse of the Pyongyang Golf Links, an 18 hole course catering mostly to foreign tourists and businessmen who wish to test their skills in an exotic setting.
The first challenge of the Pyongyang Golf Links is getting there.
Once you've left the Young Heroes motorway there are no signs along the last ten minute leg of bumpy dirt track leading to the links.
Open from April to October each year the course operates on membership but also welcomes visitors to play.
Green fees are about U.S. dollars 80 and the club is staffed by 150 employees.
Foreign businessmen who visit Pyongyang say they have played here with North Koreans who, they say, don't easily agree to indulge in a game of golf.
Visitors rate the links as more of a novelty than a world class playing field.
The greens are unusually long and the fairways are in need of a good mowing.
Even so, club manager Pak Yong Man is proud to be part of this unusual sporting facility.
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North Korean Amateur Golf Open 2014
A few clips from the 2014 Golf Open in Pyongyang. Winner was Nobuaki Kasahara from Japan.
2 Pranksters Sneak Into North Korean Golf Tournament
Two Australian men posed as professional golfers and convinced officials they were from the national golf team to compete in the North Korean Golf Championships in Pyongyang.
How sanctions are impacting North Korea
How are international sanctions affecting North Korea? What we encountered in our visit to the reclusive country's capital, Pyongyang, was surprising. Adriana Diaz reports.
KCNA (DPRK Has Many Tourist Destinations: Foreign Tourists)
Korean Central News Agency Copyright © 2000-2012 DPR of Korea
Scenes of mass grief as mourners line streets at funeral for Kim Jong Il
(28 Dec 2011) SHOTLIST
1. Mid of start of funeral procession with car carrying large portrait of Kim Jong Il
2. Wide of soldiers and civilians bowing
3. Long shot of exterior Kumsusan Memorial Palace with portrait of Kim Il Sung and flag at half mast
4. Mid and zoom out from large portrait of Kim Jong Il on car at head of funeral procession, behind him Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law and a vice chairman of the powerful National Defence Commission
5. Wide of hearse with Kim Jong Un walking beside it
6. Soldiers watching procession
7. Hearse with Kim Jong Un walking beside it
8. Mid of weeping soldiers and civilians watching procession
9. Kim Jong Un walking next to hearse, pull out and pan
10. Tracking shot of soldiers and civilians screaming and crying
11. Close and pull out of Kim Jong Un walking next to hearse
12. Tracking shot of civilians screaming and crying, held back by soldiers
13. Mid of hearse with Kim Jong Un and pan to onlookers screaming and crying
13. Soldiers and civilians wailing
14. Various of hearse and motorcade after it has just left Kumsusan Memorial Palace
15. Close of women crying
16. Wide of hearse and motorcade pull out to wide driving through downtown Pyongyang
17. Wide driving shot passing by crowds of mourners
18. Wide of funeral motorcade driving through Kim Il Sung Square
19. Wide of women crying
20. Wide of hearse driving round Kim Il Sung Square
21. Wide of mourners crying and pan to hearse driving past in Kim Il Sung Square
22. Close of men grieving
23. Wide of motorcade
24. Mid of women crying and pan to motorcade passing
25. Women crying
26. Wide pan from hearse driving past, to mourners screaming and crying
27. Mourners screaming and crying
28. Wide of motorcade from rear
29. Wide of exterior of Kumsusan Memorial Palace
30. Wide of motorcade returning to Kumsusan Memorial Palace after procession around city
31. Wide of military watching motorcade
32. Close of Kim Jong Un walking next to hearse and pull out to wide
33. Wide of onlookers grieving
34. Close of Kim Jong Un walking next to hearse and pull out to wide
35. Wide of Kim Jong Un and hearse
36. Mid of honour guard holding flags
37. Close of member of honour guard looking tearful
38. Wide pan of crowd outside memorial palace
39. Mid of Kim Jong Un standing outside memorial palace with Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho on his right and parliament head Kim Yong Nam on his left, with Premier Choe Yong Rim on the left of Kim Yong Nam
40. Various of honour guard marching past
41. Wide exterior of memorial palace
STORYLINE
Footage from APTN North Korea showed tens of thousands of North Koreans lining the snowy streets of Pyongyang on Wednesday, wailing and clutching their chests as a black hearse carried late leader Kim Jong Il's body through the capital for a final farewell.
The procession also put his young son and successor, Kim Jong Un, on centre stage.
He was head mourner on a gray and freezing day, walking with one hand on the hearse, the other raised in salute, his head somberly bowed against the wind.
Associated Press Television News was the only foreign independent media crew covering the event.
At the end of the 2 1/2-hour procession, Kim Jong Un stood flanked by the top party and military officials who are expected to be his inner circle of advisers as goose-stepping soldiers carrying flags and rifles marched by.
Kim Jong Il - who led the nation with absolute rule after father Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, through a devastating famine that killed hundreds of thousands and a controversial drive to build up nuclear and missile programs that earned North Korea international sanctions and condemnation - died of a heart attack December 17 at age 69.
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Kim Jong Un Orders Destroy South Korean Buildings from Kumgang Resort
Pyongyang, October 23 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and supreme commander of the armed forces of the DPRK, inspected Mt Kumgang tourist area.
Supreme Leader of the Party, state and armed forces Kim Jong Un looked round Kosong Port, Haegumgang Hotel, House of Culture, Kumgangsan Hotel, Kumgangsan Okryu Restaurant, Kumgang Pension Town, Kuryong Village, Onchon Village, Family Hotel, Onjong Pavilion No. 2, Kosong Port Golf Course, Kosong Port Immigration Office, etc. which were built by the south side and Lagoon Samil and areas of Sea Kumgang and Kuryong Pool.
Learning in detail about the service facilities in the tourist area, he said that the buildings are just a hotchpotch with no national character at all, and that they were built like makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area or isolation wards. He added they are not only very backward in terms of architecture but look so shabby as they are not taken proper care of.
He said that it was extremely wrong that a few blocks of such buildings reminiscent of temporary buildings at construction sites were set up for the tour of Mt Kumgang, the world-famous mountain. He added that in the past those concerned with construction built awkward-looking tourist service facilities only to damage the natural scenery. He said that due to the mistaken policy of the predecessors who tried to get benefits without any efforts after just offering the tourist area, the mountain has been left uncared for more than ten years to leave a flaw and the land is worthy of better cause. He made a sharp criticism of the very wrong, dependent policy of the predecessors who were going to rely on others when the country was not sufficient enough.
He pointed out that structures on our land must be those of our style rich in national character and they must be created to meet our own sentiment and aesthetic taste.
He called for removing all the unpleasant-looking facilities of the south side with an agreement with the relevant unit of the south side and building new modern service facilities our own way that go well with the natural scenery of Mt Kumgang.
The present general view is that Mt Kumgang is a common property of the north and the south and it is the symbol and epitome of the north-south relations, and that the tour of Mt Kumgang would not be possible without the development of the north-south ties, he said, adding that this is certainly a mistaken idea and a misguided understanding.
Mt Kumgang is our land won at the cost of blood and even a cliff and a tree there are associated with our sovereignty and dignity, he said, noting in a serious tone that the relevant department of the Party Central Committee responsible for policy guidance over the service for tour of Mt Kumgang thoughtlessly allotted the plot of the Mt Kumgang tourist area and paid no attention to the management of the cultural tourist area, thereby damaging the scenery.
He continued that there are lots of distinguished scenic spots on our land but Mt Kumgang boasting of myriads of forms of natural scenery is the summa of scenic spots. He set forth detailed tasks for wonderfully developing modern cultural tourist resort in Mt Kumgang area so that the people can rest, fully enjoying the natural scenery of the country.
He instructed to build Kosong Port coastal tourist area, Pirobong mountaineering tourist area, Haegumgang coastal park area and sports cultural area and to push for the construction in 3-4 stages on a yearly basis after mapping out and examining the master development plan of Mt Kumgang tourist area.
He also said Mt Kumgang tourist area, the world-level scenic spot, should be taken good care of as the cultural tourist area that encompasses Mt Kumgang, Wonsan Kalma coastal tourist area and Masikryong Ski Resort, as befits the world's scenic spot.
He said that we will always welcome our compatriots from the south if they want to come to Mt Kumgang after it is wonderfully built as the world-level tourist destination but what is important is for our people to have the shared view that it is not desirable to let the south side undertake the tour of Mt Kumgang, our famous mountain.
He was accompanied by officials of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea Jang Kum Chol, Kim Yo Jong, Jo Yong Won, Ri Jong Nam, Yu Jin, Hong Yong Song, Hyon Song Wol and Jang Song Ho, First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui and Director of a bureau of the State Affairs Commission Ma Won Chun.
Do you know about N.K's newest resorts which Kim Jong-un described as demonstrations of prosperity?
You can watch this video at
North Korea began operation of the Yangdok spa resort, newly opened last month in the country’s central region, on January 10. Earlier on January 8, Masikryong Ski Resort, located on its east coast, also began receiving tourists for this season. Both are one of the pet projects of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to nurture the tourism industry. North Korea seems to be making every effort to boost its tourism industry, which is not subject to sanctions, at a time when strong sanctions on the North have blocked the channel of making foreign currency. However, questions still remain over whether North Korea is safe enough for foreigners to tour, as shown in the case of Park Wang-ja or Otto Warmbier.
#NorthKorea #KimJongun #HotspringSki
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Kim Jong-il given military funeral in North Korea
North Korea's military have staged a huge funeral procession in the snowy
streets of the capital Pyongyang for its deceased dear leader,
Kim Jong-il, readying a transition to his son, Kim Jong-un.
Australian impostors play official golf tournament in North Korea
Two Australian men managed to bluff their way into an 18-hole international tournament in North Korea by posing as world-class golfers.
Morgan Ruig and Evan Shay, both 28, were on a polo trip in Beijing when they heard about the competition.
They successfully applied to play as the Australian team and wore green blazers bearing the national logo.
The men, who do not play professionally, left North Korea without problems after the event.
The two-day tournament brought 85 participants from around the world to North Korea's only golf course in Pyongyang.
The Australian pair were chaperoned throughout their five-day trip which included a tour of the capital, where they placed a bouquet at a monument to the country's leaders.
We were very nervous handing our passports over at the border. There are stories of people not coming home, Mr Ruig told the Courier-Mail newspaper.
North Korea's later leader Kim Jong-il opened Pyongyang golf complex in 1987. It is claimed he shot 11 hole-in-ones on his first attempt at the sport.
Mr Ruig and Mr Shay, who became friends at Brisbane Boys' College, did not come close to beating the Supreme Leader's supposed world-record 38 under par.
I hit 120 and my caddy told me I had bought great shame to my family, Mr Ruig said.
We played very poorly... but we met some very interesting people.
Mr Ruig told Yahoo Sport that officials thought it was quite funny, and that they had no problems leaving the country afterwards.
Despite their poor show, he said the whole trip was character building.
I wouldn't recommend it to a light-hearted traveller. It was pretty hardcore but it was an amazing experience.
Inside Pyongyang: That Time We Went To North Korea | Full | GQ | Documentary
GQ Australia writer Adam Baidawi went to North Korea to run the Marathon and, in doing so, gained rare access into perhaps the most secretive nation on Earth.
Watch the mini doco in full.
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CREDITS
Writer: Adam Baidawi
Executive Producer: Jack Phillips
Videographer & Editing: SixtyFourFilms
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Yanggakdo Hotel Pyongyang, North Korea
This is one of the two big tourist hotels in Pyongyang. It is located on Yanggak Island in the Taedong river and is 170m high with a revolving restaurant on top. There are also a bowling alley, a casino, a swimming pool, several other restaurants and bars, a souvenir- and bookstore, a post office and a golf course.
Music is President Kim Il Sung stands on Mount Paektu forever.
NKorea congress gives Kim Jong Un new title
(9 May 2016) North Korea's ruling party congress announced the new title of party chairman for Kim Jong Un on Monday, in a move that highlights how the country's first congress in 36 years is aimed at bolstering the young leader.
The news emerged in Pyongyang during the few minutes that a small group of foreign media was allowed to watch the congress in the ornate April 25 House of Culture.
As a military band in full uniform played the welcoming song, used whenever North Korea's leader enters a public place, Kim strode onto the stage, generating a long loud standing ovation from the several thousand delegates.
In unison the delegates shouted, Mansae! Mansae!, wishing Kim long life.
He and other senior party members took their seats, filling several rows on a stage, below portraits of Kim's grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, and father, Kim Jong Il.
The walls were decked with red banners, featuring the ruling party's hammer sickle and pen logo embossed in gold.
Kim Yong Nam, the head of the North Korean Parliament, stood to read a roster of top party positions - calling Kim Jong Un chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea for the first time.
Kim was already head of the party, but with the title of first secretary.
His predecessors keep their posthumous titles: Kim Jong Il remains eternal general secretary and Kim Il Sung is still eternal president.
The congress, which began on Friday, has touted Kim's successes on the nuclear front and promised economic improvements to boost the nation's standard of living.
Mostly, though, the congress has put Kim himself front and centre in the eyes of the people and the party as the country's sole leader.
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Koreans pay tribute to Kim Jong-il | North Korea | 김정일
People in DPRK Pay Tribute to Kim Jong Il | North Korea | 김정일
December 17, 2014
***16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011***
North Korea staged a ceremony on Wednesday to mark the third anniversary of the death of its former leader Kim Jong-il, who is officially revered as the founder of the nation in North Korea.
Trains, ships and cars sounded their horns and masses of North Koreans fell silent for three minutes as they bowed toward the mausoleum in Pyongyang where Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, lies in state.
Crowds laid flowers below statues and portraits of Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011, and his father Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994.
(Kim Jong-il; 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011 was the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly referred to as North Korea, from 1994 to 2011. He succeeded his father and founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, following the elder Kim's death in 1994. Kim Jong-il was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), Chairman of the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world).
***
Kim Jong Il's Feats for Turning DPRK into Economic Giant:
The third anniversary of demise of leader Kim Jong Il (December 17), the people in the DPRK recollect with deep emotion the great feats he had performed for turning the country into an economic giant.
Kim Jong Il laid down the Juche-based economic construction line of simultaneously developing the light industry and agriculture while giving priority to the development of defence industry.
And he clearly indicated the orientation and ways for building an economic power, which suggested rapidly developing electricity, coal and metal industries and railway transport, doing double-cropping on a large scale, updating light industrial factories and paying preferential efforts to the production of basic consumer goods.
In June Juche 85 (1996) when giving field guidance to the Anbyon Youth Power Station near to completion, he praised the soldier-builders for having unfailingly carried out their supreme commander's order under the very difficult conditions. And he called their indomitable fighting traits the revolutionary soldier spirit, urging all the people to follow it.
Consequently, the spirit of Kanggye was created and a big production upsurge witnessed at the Songjin Steel Complex and the Ranam Coal-mining Machine Complex, bringing about an epochal turn in the building of an economic power.
Such signal achievements were made in the country as successful launch of earth satellites, large-scale land improvement, completion of Kaechon-Lake Thaesong and Paekma-Cholsan waterways and construction of many minor hydraulic power stations.
With a view to greeting the year 2012, the birth centenary of President Kim Il Sung, with eye-catching economic successes, Kim Jong Il visited the Chollima Steel Complex on Dec. 24, 2008 to kindle a torch of fresh revolutionary upsurge in the economic field.
Thanks to his ardent patriotism, energetic field guidance and devoted efforts, the DPRK grew stronger in national power. And the country could witness the establishment of Juche-based production systems of iron, fertilizer and vinalon President Kim Il Sung desired so much and greet a history of industrial revolution in the new century through a drive of breaking through the cutting edge.
His plan for building an economic power is now creditably carried into practice by supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
Pyongyang, December 15 (KCNA)
North Korea Enters 'state of war' Against South Korea
North Korea announced early on Saturday morning that it was entering a state of war against South Korea, hours after Kim Jong-un said he would settle accounts with Washington for threatening him with nuclear-capable stealth bombers.
As of now, inter-Korea relations enter a state of war and all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol, the North said in a joint statement attributed to all government bodies and institutions.
The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over, said the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The two Koreas have technically remained at war because the 1950-53 Korean War concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
The North had announced earlier this month that it was ripping up the armistice and other bilateral peace pacts signed with Seoul in protest against South Korea-US joint military exercises.
This is not really a new threat - just part of a series of provocative threats, the South's Unification Ministry said in a statement.
Russia warned on Friday that North Korea, the US and South Korea were engaging in a dangerous game of brinkmanship that could spiral out of control.
We are opposed to any steps from any side that increase tensions, said Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Kim ordered missile units to prepare to strike the US mainland as a British tour operator was warned that the outbreak of war was probably only hours away.
The order came after US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington would not be cowed by Pyongyang's bellicose threats and stood ready to respond to any eventuality.
Mr Kim directed his rocket units on standby at an emergency meeting with top army commanders after nuclear-capable US B-2 stealth bombers were deployed on Thursday in ongoing US joint military drills with South Korea.
Plans to strike targets in Hawaii and the continental United States were revealed in a photograph taken in Kim Jong-un's military command centre that was released on Friday.
The photo appeared in the state-run Rodong newspaper and was apparently taken at an emergency meeting early on Friday morning. They show Kim signing the order for North Korea's strategic rocket forces to be on standby to fire at US targets, the paper said, with large-scale maps and diagrams in the background.
The images show a chart marked US mainland strike plan and missile trajectories that the NK News web site estimates terminate in Hawaii, Washington DC, Los Angeles and what they claim is Austin, Texas.
In the event of any reckless US provocation, North Korean forces should mercilessly strike the US mainland ... military bases in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea, he was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
While North Korea has no proven ability to conduct such strikes, Mr Kim said: The time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists.
Meanwhile, Dylan Harris, director of Lupine Travel, which specialises in holidays to unusual places like Iran, Chernobyl and Siberia, received an email on Friday morning.
It said US stealth bomber flights over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DRPK) had made the situation critical with the outbreak of war probably only hours away. It was not clear who the email was from.
There is currently a British golfer in Pyongyang as part of a group holiday.
Mr Harris said: I contacted the Foreign Office and if they say it's unsafe we will not travel or organise further trips to North Korea.
However, there is a group of ten golfers in Pyongyang, which is where the only public golf course is, who are due to fly out of the country tomorrow (Saturday).
One of them is British and nine are Chinese. I'm in constant touch with them and they are all safe and in good spirits.
We had planned to organise a golfing tournament in May but with the current situation I don't know if that will go ahead, some customers have already cancelled.
Mr Harris, 34, from Wigan, has been a visitor to North Korea since 2007 and organises golfing trips to the country up to four times a month.
Kim Jong-il, Mr Kim's father and the iconic former dictator of the country, who died in 2011 aged 69, famously played a round at the course in 1994.
It was apparently the first time he had played golf in his life and he shot a hugely impressive 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one.
Satisfied with his performance, he reportedly immediately declared his retirement from the sport.
At the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK)
A visit to the esplanade in front of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the former offices and and now the Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il - Pyongyang, North Korea.
Near the North Korean Border lies this Massive Abandoned Ski Resort
Deep in the mountains, close to the North Korean border(DMZ Zone), lies this incredibly massive abandoned ski resort. This resort had every amenity you could think of including bowling, golf, restaurants, pools and of course the ski slope. This abandoned resort was attempted to re-open for the olympics but never did. Its future is unknown but join me in this amazing urbex explore of a ski resort complete with ski shops full of skis left behind.
Song: Fog Over the Forest - Flouw
#southkorea #abandonedexplore #dmz
KCTV: Kim Jong Un gave field guidance to the newly-remodeled Pyongyang Trolley Bus Factory.
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