There appears to be no sense of crisis in Pyongyang according to a foreign participant in a North Korean marathon.

"I did not find any sense of crisis and uneasiness in North Korea despite the ongoing international sanctions," said a Singaporean woman, fresh from her rare trip to Pyongyang to participate in this year's annual Pyongyang marathon.

"The streets of Pyongyang, with the full blossoms of cherry and forsythia, were peaceful and people looked cheerful and bright," Ong Wann told Yonhap News Agency in a telephone conversation.

Ong, 39, made a rare three-day trip to Pyongyang from April 9 with her brother and joined the 10-kilometer half marathon course.

Participants can choose to run the full or half marathon.

The Pyongyang marathon is officially called the "Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon." Mangyongdae is the place where North Korea says its founding leader Kim Il-sung and the late grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un, was born.

Kim Il-sung's birthday is April 15 and the marathon is one of many events staged to celebrate the key date. 

This year marked the third time that foreign amateurs have been allowed to take part in the event. However, the race saw an increase in amateur participation -- nearly 1,000 foreign amateurs took part, the marathon's organizers said.

The Singaporean woman studied in South Korea previously and speaks Korean fluently. She is currently operating a Korean language institute in Singapore.

During her trip to Pyongyang, she occasionally acted as an interpreter for other foreigners including her brother.

She said the atmosphere in Pyongyang was far from any sense of crisis or insecurity although the marathon event was held under the severe international sanctions for the North's nuclear test in January and the long-range rocket launch the following month.

She explained the landscape of Pyongyang was generally peaceful when she looked around some tourist spots such as Mansudae Hill and nearby parks and subway stations. 

"The streets of Pyongyang were full of cherry and forsythia blossoms and people on the streets look relatively bright," she said.

"At first I somewhat had a sense of fear as I had a negative image of North Korea which I had obtained from newspapers and media, but was able to adapt myself soon," she said.

"Before I went to North Korea I was told about the prohibitions on what to do and what is not allowed in the country. In fact, individual action was impossible without North Korean guides, but nevertheless their control was not as tight as I first imagined," she said.

Ong said she felt she came to a different world when she saw all the propaganda posters and mural paintings on the walls of subway stations in Pyongyang, which is quite different from commercial advertisements that are often seen in capitalistic countries. 

She said that North Korea was also different from other former communist bloc countries which had transformed themselves into capitalistic system in some areas. 

"I felt North Korea is not like China and Russia," she said. (Yonhap)