Starbucks opens new cafe giving customers rare view into North Korea
Freshly ground coffee beans, variety, service with a smile, creamy milk, and modest prices; these are all things we've grown to expect from Starbucks - but a look into life in North Korea is certainly not one of them.
It might be an odd selling point, but a selling point nonetheless for the American coffeehouse giant, which has just opened up its newest store in a South Korean observatory.
It is located just a mile from North Korea, over 30 miles northwest of the South Korean capital of Seoul, at Aegibong Peace Ecopark, north of the city of Gimpo.
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Customers can enjoy whatever flavored latte they'd like while taking in views of the quiet Gaepung county on the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone region, with the immediate view appearing to be of a farming community - or, at least, farmlands.
Speaking to Reuters, a 48-year-old Gimpo resident distastefully mocked the citizens of North Korea - who live in fear under the iron fist of their Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un.
Kim Jong-Un's, his father's, and his grandfather's dictatorship over the country since Korea broke into civil war in 1948 has been hugely controversial, and resulted in a highly secretive nation.
Baek Hea-soon told the publication: "I wish I could share this tasty coffee with the people in North Korea."
The observatory is a bit out of the way, on the border between the two Koreas... so, why is it the latest location for the American giant?
Well, Gimpo city officials opted for the move in a bid to make it more attractive for tourists and generate larger footfall for the town, adding that Starbucks is the epitimy of 'robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand'.
But before those same tourists make it to the coffee shop's destination, they must first pass through a military checkpoint, and once they have, they will gain access to the observatory.
The same location where customers can gaze at North Korea is believed to be the region where the dictator-led nation has been tying waste to balloons and sending it over the border and into South Korea.
Thousands of balloons have been flown over, and the strategy has actually been used since the 1950s from both sides of the Korea.
North Korea claims it has done so in retaliation against the 'frequent scattering of leaflets and other rubbish' sent over by activists in the South.
In a statement sent out in May, North Korea's vice-minister of defence Kim Kang said: "Mounds of wastepaper and filth will soon be scattered over the border areas and the interior of the ROK [Republic of Korea, the official name for South Korea] and it will directly experience how much effort is required to remove them."
Topics: North Korea, Politics, Starbucks, Military
Joe Yates