In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

The afternoon of our second day in North Korea, our tour bus took us from Pyongyang to Nampo, a seaport city on the country's west coast. The two cities are connected by the Youth Hero Motorway ( Read more... )

Below is the inner page of an invitation I produced using XeTeX. I repurposed a decorative border from the frontispiece of Quadrans Astrolabicus, a 1534 book written by Oronce Finé and printed in Paris by Simon de Colines. The text is set in EB Garamond with occasional use of fancy ligatures and coloured initials. The whole invitation is printed ( Read more... )

I don't think I've ever mentioned it here before, but digital typography is one of the true loves of my life. Back when I had more time, I used to contribute lengthy articles to TUGboat, the journal of the TeX Users Group. Nowadays I mostly dally in reproducing curious old paper documents, since it's something I can work on a few minutes at a ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

The Kumsusan Memorial Palace was impressive, but it wasn't the only thing on the agenda that day. We had a long list of places to visit, each of them fascinating in their own way.

The first ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

Another member of our DPRK tour group has very generously permitted me to use some of the photos he took. It's great to have these to supplement my own, particularly since he was able to get a ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

Nobody needs an alarm clock in Pyongyang. Every morning around 6:30, streets come alive with a cacophony of loudspeakers blaring patriotic music. They were clearly audible even from my suite at ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

The first thing I ever remember reading about North Korea, and what really sparked my interest in the country, was a Straight Dope column from 21 July 2000. Titled "Is the world's tallest ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

All together there were 17 people in my tour group, plus Sarah, the British tour manager from Koryo Tours; Mok Ran, Song Ii, and Chong Song, our three local guides; Mr. Chae, the bus driver; and ( Read more... )

In this series of posts, I document my travels to North Korea (formally, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) as a tourist in August 2015.

Independent travel to North Korea is generally prohibited, and the country's main tour company, the state-run Korea International Travel Company (KITC), doesn't deal directly with the public. ( Read more... )