【Travelogue Sharing】Shopping in North Korea: Buying Cosmetics and Eating Kimchi

Aside from accommodation, my friends around me seemed quite interested in North Korean food and shopping, so I’ll wrap up the North Korea section by satisfying everyone’s curiosity!!

Let me start with shopping—girls are always more enthusiastic about this part XD
Souvenir shops in North Korea are everywhere, with at least one at every attraction, even the rather serious political border—Panmunjom.

As for the products sold, they include: 

North Korean cosmetics—the toner comes with an entire ginseng root soaked inside, which feels luxurious.

Huge assorted kits are available for just over 200 RMB, and the quality is decent. But here’s something worth mentioning: the mascara and lip gloss on my left hand cost only 12 RMB each!! The mascara is amazing—it’s the best I’ve ever used, giving defined lashes without smudging. The lip gloss is also great; for 12 RMB, it’s absolutely worth it.

If any clueless person doesn’t want to buy local goods but suddenly craves high-end international brands, the souvenir shop at Yanggakdo Hotel offers such services.

Actually, foreign products are pretty common in North Korea (at least in places tourists visit), which surprised me a bit.

Standard souvenirs for sale: posters, postcards, stamps, etc.
There are hand-painted oil poster versions priced at over 200 RMB, but I bought the 50 RMB printed version and a bunch of postcards

There are also military caps—you can try them on

Occasionally, you’ll come across fashion stores selling civilian-style clothes, very plain.... very rustic lol—I’m glad I get to enjoy trends.

Though locals still coordinate within restrictions, at least I noticed that girls in Pyongyang love these colored stockings (the woman in the photo above is our tour guide).Lots and lots of varieties of tobacco and alcohol

Though colorful sodas caught my attention more haha

The beer is pretty good too

And there’s North Korean ice cream—I saw locals eating it. This coffee-flavored one is nice

I bought this book for a friend who loves reading “biographies of great figures.” The glorious deeds of Kim Il-sung are simply not to be missed XD

On the last day, we visited Pyongyang Department Store and found that 80% of the items mentioned above were available there

But I also spotted an interesting “No Smoking” sign, stating it’s sold only in Iran and North Korea

There’s also bottled strong liquor, four small packs for 15 RMB. I bought the ginseng-flavored one to bring back to Hong Kong—it has a very strong ginseng taste, definitely the real deal.

Now, onto the food section. It’s only been a few decades since the Korean Peninsula split, so it’s still the same kimchi, the same Korean BBQ, the same stone pot rice, and the same unforgettable pearl rice (heart)—at least I couldn’t tell much difference in taste.

Sticking to their usual habit of putting on a show, the North Korean government doesn’t shortchange foreigners. So aside from one or two meals outside the city area being rather ordinary, most meals are of very good quality.

But the downside of going overboard to entertain tourists is: everyone in our group got sick of Korean songs and dances!! And the traditional pieces are just the same few songs—I’ve memorized them all=__=

They also pretend to interact with the audience by handing flowers to tourists, so they can present them to the singers. Some male tourists got unusually excited for the chance to get close to North Korean girls. I took the flower but turned around and gave it to our guide sister to thank her for taking care of us these past few days. In the end, the waiter had no choice but to awkwardly take the flower back from her XD

At everyone’s request, the sister also sang a song herself～

Alright, the North Korea section is finally over!! I really hope that one day this country will be liberated and its citizens’ quality of life improved. Also, as a travel enthusiast, I sincerely feel that the world is so big, and it’s such a pity if we don’t even have the chance to connect with it through Google. So… I can only hope something dramatic happens to change this country.