culture

The Pyongyang Gold Lane on the banks of the Taedong River in Pyongyang is always crowded with people.

With two storeys above and one under the ground, the building has bowling tracks, table tennis courts, billiard tables, an amusement arcade and other amusement game facilities. 

The building can serve as a venue for international games as well as domestic ones. 

Many competitions took place there in the past.

The bowling tracks number 40 and they are always full.

The facility is always crowded with people as the game can be played by housewives as well as young people and the whole family at a time.

When you see merely a single ball sliding or rolling fast along the smooth track to knock down ten pins, you can feel refreshed free from fatigue. The game is quite popular with office workers and women as well as the quantity of the motion is appropriate to them.

“Many ordinary working people frequent the gold lane. They, however, probably know nothing about how much the state bears expenses for leisure activities of the people,” said Sin Ju Hyon, head of the establishment. 

President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il personally fixed the site for the establishment.

According to Sin, during his inspection of the newly built gold lane in February 1994, the President pointed to the need to use it as a public service base working people would be able to visit for leisure activities at any time. 

The establishment has also welfare service facilities as befits a public service base for sporting activities.

After playing bowling and conducting other sports activities, people head for saunas and shower rooms to wash before going to a dining hall and soft drink stand on each floor where they, in a refreshed mood, can relish tasty traditional dishes such as meat grilled on charcoal and grilled clams and world-famous dishes.

Visitors can buy bowling apparatus and health foods at the shop of the gold lane.