First Night in Hotel

We met around 7pm for a meal in the evening and this was in the hotel, the food was nice for Korean standards but personally I am a fussy eater and did not care too much for the food but it was edible, albeit small portions and of buffet style on the table, of course everyone went for the nicest and left the not so appetizing looking food to go to waste. A lot of food was wasted on the trip; I can only hope it went to good use rather than being thrown away, even if just to feed the dogs!

Later that night we all met in the bar for a few beers. There were several bars in the basement and each bar had a theme such as bowling, karaoke, billiards etc... Most evenings we went bowling. What was really bizarre was that each of the stores and rooms in the hotel were all fully staffed but we seemed to be the only guests in the hotel, plus a Mongolian group with another tour company, one of whom slapped one of the guys in our group (but in a friendly manor!!). The staff in these bars seemed to just be waiting for us to arrive, I suspected that we were being watched on CCTV and that as we approached the basement the staff were instructed to take their positions but of course this is total speculation.

We had a very good evening in the bars and spent most of the time getting to know each other and in the karaoke areas! At one point though a fight was close to breaking out between to guys from our group, one of whom was very drunk and annoying. This almost fight was of course provoked from one man only, and the other guy was very quick to back down, but the drunk one wanted to escalate the situation. I managed to de-escalate the situation by calming the drunk guy down and reminding him that this was a bar in the DPRK, not Ireland! 

Random Mongolian tourist

The night ended well, we were chatting to some Mongolian tourists who seemed to be the only other tourists in the hotel. they were a little strange but overall nice once you got to know them, we then all went to bed as we had to be up early the next day, I had no idea what time I went to bed until... read on...