The Yanggakdo Hotel, or Yanggakdo International Hotel (양각도국제호텔), located on an island in the heart of Pyongyang, is North Korea's most famous hotel. This temporary home away from home on many a journey to North Korea has recently undergone an interior design redesign of the hotel lobby — from classic 1990's to futuristic Ashgabat airport Turkmen modern chic (if you don't get the ref, join us in Turkmenistan).

Closed since early this year, the hotel is now reopen for business. And Koryo tours were first to get an exclusive inside the new and improved (?) — Your judgement! — Yanggakdo Hotel.

These largely cosmetic renovations to the lobby come just in for the 2019 Pyongyang Marathon this Sunday 7 April and the upcoming anniversary of the birthday of Kim Il Sung on 15 April — commonly known as 'The Day of the Sun' — one of the largest North Korean holidays of the year.

Like similar renovations at the Koryo Hotel, the layout of the lobby remains roughly the same, but everything is brighter now and more open — gone are the lobby cafe's beloved semi-closed booths for smokey meetings over beers. The Yanggakdo Hotel's Pyongyang Casino is also back and operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For those fans of the Yanggakdo's original decor, much remains the same beyond the hotel lobby.

Koryo's scheduled group tours will be in and out of the Yanggakdo Hotel over the next few weeks. We'll check back with you soon with more to report on North Korea's most famous hotel.

For more real-time updates from North Korea, check out Koryo Tour leaders on Instagram:

Simon (@simonkoryo) — Koryo Tours' General Manager

Rich (@adventurerich) — Tour Leader

Zoe (@zoediscovers) - Tour Leader

Marcus (@marcus_mcf) — Tour Leader

Greg (@gergovaczi) — Tour Leader

Jessica (@jeskimojay) — Tour Leader

Koryo Tours (@koryotours) — Company Account