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It may not boast the palatial interiors of its Parisian counterpart, next to the Opéra Garnier, nor the glamour of the branch by Milan’s Duomo, but this new Starbucks is undoubtedly the most distinctive.
A new café in South Korea is attracting tourists for its location – close to the border with North Korea.
This allows people to get a glimpse through the militarised border, all while sipping a latte.
Hundreds showed up yesterday for the opening of the US chain’s newest store in an observatory overlooking the hermit kingdom.
It is located near the city of Gimpo, 30 miles northwest of Seoul and close to the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, one of the world’s most heavily armed borders.
Visitors must pass through a military checkpoint on the way, although it is in a lesser known and less militarised area than more popular tourist spots along the border such as the Panmunjom truce village.
Customers sit in the new store at the top of the Aegibong Peak Observatory, south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), separating the two Koreas (Picture: Reuters)
A river designated as ‘neutral waters’ runs between the observatory and the border town of Kaepung in the North less than a mile away.
On a clear day, North Korean villagers can be seen from the observatory through its telescopes.
Baek Hea-soon, a Gimpo resident, arrived early to try out the Starbucks coffee.
‘I wish I could share this tasty coffee with the people in North Korea,’ the 48-year-old said.
North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen from the observatory (Picture: AP)
Meanwhile, Gimpo mayor Kim Byung-soo said that Starbucks could finally change the border area’s ‘dark and depressing’ image.
‘This place could now become an important tourist destination for security (and) peace that can be seen as young, bright and warm, as well as garnering global attention,’ Kim told reporters.
In recent decades, North Korea has suffered mass food shortages – and a famine in the 1990s – often exacerbated by floods that damage harvests.
The two Koreas are also still technically at war after a three-year conflict ended in a 1953 armistice. A peace treaty has never been signed.
In recent months, tensions have also grown over balloons of trash floated from North Korea, which the dictatorship says are a response to balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets sent by activists in the South.
North Korea blew up inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the border last month, while Seoul warned Pyongyang that any use of its nuclear weapons would spell the end of the North Korean regime.
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