December 2007 ArchivesMain page is here. |
December 31 2007
Morning in Okpo Land We returned to the amusement park at sunrise to take more pictures. It was an easier climb this time because we took the front way, and there was plenty of light long before the sun rose. I will have to return to this place again some day. This seems to be the only gallery taken in a cold season, and I think that worked to our advantage because the colours were more subdued. It certainly would've been better if the sun had been out longer and had risen higher though. |
December 30 2007
Okpo Land Swimming Pool Of all the photo galleries I previously posted, only one of them (the German sounding guy) had a look inside this building. However, this gallery seems to have the only pictures of the pool itself that can be found online. There were a lot of other facilities as well. |
December 30 2007
Okpo Land I'm not sure how other people view the photos on this page, but when I look at them I feel reverence for the past, for the people who were displaced, and for the dark little places where people don't look. I'm always respectful and I never resort to vandalism, rarely leave graffiti unless it's on a chalk board, and almost never take anything. But Okpo Land is different. This was an amusement park run by obviously a corrupt businessman. After the first accident in the park resulting in a fatality, he kept the place open and refused to pay damages to the victim's family. The second fatality, this time a young girl (aged 4 according to one source), resulted in the closure of the park in 1999. I can't be sure, and my only source is Laura's comments on her pictures, but I think the last fatality took place exactly where this photo is staged. This pedal-powered duck derailed, dumping the young girl out, and she was killed by the fall. A few meters away we found the shattered duck head from the ride. The fall either happened right here, or a few meters back up the track, in which case the ride was pulled up to the platform and then just abandoned. It must have been a quick closure--open one day, then closed the next and everything not nailed down was taken. I dislike the owner of this place, which is different from all other places I've visited. Coming to this place is different than peeking inside a condemned hanok in downtown Seoul or a girls' high school. This place has also been abandoned longer and is more decayed, so we took more safety precautions than normal. |
December 30 2007
Going to Okpo Land I've been meaning to go south to Okpo for some time, ever since it was mentioned on ESL Cafe that there's an abandoned amusement park there. The original plan was to go during Chuseok in September, but that was cancelled. It turns out a good number of my friends went at that time, seemingly on two expeditions. None of them had posted directions to the park. Of course it's hard to miss, just sitting on top of a ridge on the edge of town, but we chose the wrong way up and ended up crawling through thick brush, only to reach a road leading safely up to the front gates. |
December 25 2007
Girls' High School Recently there's been a lot of activity at the girls' high school, so I stopped by with Jung on Christmas Day to see if we could find out what was going on. None of the usual people were there, so we managed to get inside and see what they were doing in the auditorium school. I had seen a lot of film trucks, and it looks like they're turning it into some kind of set. They completely dressed up the auditorium. |
December 23 2007
Seongdong High School Last time we visited this school, Jung was too afraid to go into this building. The entrance is about three meters off the ground, but as you can see in this photo, it's not a dead drop. First we had to get up on this landing where Jung is, which is five feet off the ground. Next, I climbed up those two steps and the window was right there. I went down a floor and let Jung in through a lower level. No danger whatsoever. This school was in a similar state as the other building, not dilapidated with lots of stuff left behind, but on the upper floor we found one room that looked like it was buried under fire extinguisher dust. Also there was a huge amount of chalk in the building, some still nicely packaged and some smeared all over the place. |
December 22 2007
Baseball Stadium Day 2 Jung was interested in seeing the stadium so I took her back there on Saturday night. In these pictures you can see all the progress that was made with just one day of demolition, and a Saturday at that. |
December 21 2007
Baseball Stadium Last time I posted a link to a picture of the baseball stadium in Dongdaemoon, where demolition has begun. It turns out they didn't build their security fence well enough, so I easily slipped in and got some pictures of the stadium, right in the middle of a busy market district. It was night time but the place was well lit by all the buildings around. |
December 16 2007
Itaewon Brandon finally answered his phone around 12 and said maybe he would try to come out in an hour or two. Meanwhile I was wandering around looking for a place to have lunch, ideally Ape with Pipe. On the far end of Itaewon I saw this abandoned building sitting facing the road. It was partly closed off with blankets but getting in was a snap, and the interior of the building was far more bizarre than I could've imagined, possibly one of the strangest discoveries I've made. Afterward I found Ape with Pipe and Brandon met me there for brunch. I'm gonna miss that guy. As his final act in Korea, he told me about this picture in the paper, showing demolition starting at the baseball stadium in Dongdaemoon. Coincidentally, Jung and I had tried getting in there just one week earlier. |
December 16 2007
Movie Set Sunday was Brandon's last chance to go out before leaving Korea, so we decided to meet up at Sudo at 11am. Unfortunately he was too sick to go out, so I wandered around by myself. The site was alive with activity. There were food stands, as well as tents and vans that seem to carry camera equipment. I saw a few people dressed in costumes, such as this girl. All evidence seems to suggest they're filming a movie. The activity seems to be mostly centered in the auditorium building which I've gotten into before. They have also opened up a couple other buildings for their own use. The gymnasium building near the entrance was open and I peeked in, witnessing a large number of old men playing badminton in the abandoned gym. No pictures though. |
December 15 2007
Seodaemoon Brandon's time in Korea is almost finished, but he's still finding some amazing things. Some of his information comes from coworkers and some comes from newspapers. He found this article about the last(?) non-multiplex movie theatre in Seoul that is being torn down soon. You can read the article yourself, but the theatre was set to close its doors and the manager decided to show Dirty Dancing, which attracted a huge audience. The owner of the building was so impressed that the theatre is being kept open until the last minute. I'll be keeping an eye on it in January. |
December 15 2007
Final Visit to Sindaebang This is probably the last time I'll stop by Sindaebang. All the buildings in the condemned zone have been knocked down, and the construction machines are starting to do their thing. Probably in a few months we'll see high-rises going up. |
December 9 2007
Dongdaemoon Dongdaemoon has always been one of my favourite places in Seoul. When I hopped on my scooter and headed over, I was surprised to find out we live barely ten minutes away. There's been significant demolition to the grey market, which is now missing a few blocks of buildings that were there when I went there with Nels. |
December 9 2007
Seongdong High School After I told my mom we were going to stay in this weekend and not go inside anything abandoned, a simple trip to Dongdaemoon turned into an odyssey through a newly abandoned high school. There are three old buildings on campus that have been abandoned, and everyone has already moved into the new building on the far side of the campus. |
December 3 2007
Sindaebang Church I went back to Sindaebang to check on the church, only to find that there's nothing left but a crater filled with iron and concrete. It's a shame, but I guess the church was never in a state of abandonment. There's a look back at my time spent observing the church on UER, a site I recommend you register on if you're interested in this sort of thing. |
CONTACT
Jon underscore Dunbar at Hotmail
010-3212-2812
Please remember that these photos are all copyrighted to me. If you want to use them in any way, there's a 90 per cent chance I'll give you my permission, and be able to give you a copy with a higher DPI.Copyright Jon Dunbar 2004
Photos taken by
Nikon CoolPix 950
digital camera.