Last Week in Review

· Nick Bonner has returned from the annual Koryo Tours Founder’s Tour with a great shot of the Ryugyong Hotel, the long-standing construction fences now removed (above). There is still much work to be done and rumor has it that the lower levels may open for commercial and office space. Perhaps our Architecture, Art, and Design Tour, in the country since yesterday, will find out more.

· We returned from the field in north-east China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region, home of Korean beat-boxing, and came across the first North Korean Embassy in a Beijing hutong. We also posted A Very Short History of Northern Korean Marathons and their dramatic origins at that historic 1936 Berlin Olympics.

· Our friend Jeremiah Jenne of Beijing by Foot undertook an interesting thought experiment, writing about his hometown of Boston in the ‘prose/guidebook media prose typically used to describe China’.

· The Calvert Journal posted an extract from Holidays in Soviet Sanatoriums by Maryam Omidi (Fuel Publishing, 2017). This new book includes the Khoja Obi Garm Spa, which we visit on our annual Tajikistan-Persian New Year Tour (March 22-31, 2018; from 2,200 USD).

Upcoming Next Week

Tuesday October 24: Our last budget tour of the year (November 14-18/19; from 990 EUR) closes for bookings. If you can’t make this one, never fear. We have some new and exciting budget tours in the works for 2018. Stay tuned in the next few weeks! APPLICATION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO TUESDAY OCTOBER 31

Wednesday October 25: Pop-Up Beijing will be hosting the book launch and author talk for Made in North Korea by Nick Bonner (Phaidon Press, 2017) at 7.30 pm. The event is free and spaces are limited. Donations welcome and will go to the China Red Ribbon Foundation. Bonner recently spoke about Made in North Korea with the BBC (see below).

All the best from Beijing!