The contrast cannot be starker: selfie-taking tourists sipping coffee at Starbucks – an icon of globalisation and capitalism – while looking out over reclusive, communist North Korea.
Welcome to Aegibong Starbucks in Gimpo – less than an hour’s drive from South Korea’s capital Seoul but a world away from its closed-off northern neighbour less than 2km across the Han river.
Perched on a hilltop beneath the Aegibong Peace Ecopark observatory where telescopes peek into the secluded state, the shop has drawn tens of thousands from South Korea and abroad since opening in November 2024.
Kim Jong-hyun, who lives in San Diego and was visiting South Korea with his family, said it was the irony of the contrast that drew him to the hilltop.
“When I heard there was a Starbucks here, I naturally thought I had to come and see it for myself. It’s quite unusual,” he said.
Customers need to book ahead to enter the park that houses the coffee house.
They then travel from a parking lot in a shuttle operated by park authorities and cross a military checkpoint guarded by armed South Korean marines.
The journey is part of the experience – walking the last stretch inside South Korea while looking out on agricultural and mountain landscapes in a country whose outside image the government under Kim Jong-un seeks to manage entirely.
James Seymour, an Irish tourist, said the scene from the lookout point was one of “polar opposites”.
“We’re from Belfast and we’re kind of used to war ... the Troubles and all that if you know what I mean,” he said, referring to the sectarian conflict that gripped Northern Ireland in the late 20th century.
But standing near the border, sipping coffee from a global chain while looking at the North’s nondescript low-rise buildings, was “on a different scale completely”, he said.
“You couldn’t get any more American than Starbucks and you couldn’t get any further than America than, you know ... North Korea.” — AFP
