January 2008 ArchivesMain page is here. |
January 28 2008Dongdaemoon Article Jung passed me this interesting article about the grey market of Dongdaemoon. For those of you who can't read Korean, it also has some interesting photos of merchants. The one fact I didn't know before is that this is the second grey market. With the building of Cheonggye Canal, these merchants were chased out of their original stores for demolition. They moved into the current grey market, and with its demolition this means they're being chased away for the second time. I wonder if they have anywhere to relocate to now. |
January 27 2008
Fortune Teller District part 2 There were many buildings to see in this area. Most of the buildings in this part are more modern. |
January 27 2008
Fortune Teller District I brought Jung with me to the future site of ACRO TOWER. She recognised it by a description she'd read in the newspaper. This is a well-known fortune-teller district. Many of the buildings once housed fortune tellers. I guess they didn't predict this would happen to them. Also, the swastika sign I've noticed here and there doesn't mean Buddhist temple; it's a type of fortune teller business. |
January 27 2008
Wrecked Building On the way down the far slope of Geumho Mountain, we passed by this building which was in bad shape. I make a point of never going into any building where the flooring looks unsafe, and this sets off a lot of warning bells just standing by it. There were bits of concrete dangling on the end of iron bars. As best as we can tell, this place caught fire. It looks like there was a sauna in the building, which may have caused the fire. |
January 26 2008
Return to Seodaemoon I decided to check back on Dream Cinema in Seodaemoon. It's still open but you can tell it's nearing the end. The theatre has been playing Dirty Dancing nonstop for over a month, and people were outside trying to raise support for the cinema. I walked past and it looked like they were selling shares in the theatre or movie tickets or something. While I was there, a police car showed up. |
March 9 2007Abandoned House in Seoul I found another video on Youtube of abandoned stuff in Seoul. This guy who I've been in contact before noticed a large amount of abandoned houses, so he brought his video camera and went inside. Not the most interesting house, but good video and I liked his commentary. I can't even contact him because it won't let me post comments. |
1999Music Video I really know nothing about this band, but they did a music video in 1999 or 2000 in a condemned neighbourhood in Bongcheon, a Gwanak neighbourhood. The video kind of starts strange but after a minute and 24 seconds of bbongjjak, anime, and Koreans shouting, the song itself starts. I wish I knew more about this video. |
January 20 2008
Future Site of ACRO TOWER Out on a scooter ride, I found an abandoned neighbourhood in a state of recent abandonment. There were several hanok-style homes that were smashed out, and some newer buildings in a similar state. I think they were all recently abandoned, because there were still plenty of people around, some working and some clearly scavenging whatever was worth its weight. |
January 19 2008
Okpo Land Guide Book I rescued two copies of the guide book for Okpo Land when we were down there. In the Viking Room Salon, there were reams of discarded booklets. I found one that was sitting so that the edges of the books didn't touch the floor, then opened it up and took two from the middle. Here's my poor attempt at scanning them. |
January 17 2008
Photo Essay I've put together a gallery of photos found at various places around the Internet showing eviction, abandonment, and demolition. Korea, particularly Seoul, is in a constant state of urban renewal. Old stuff is constantly being torn down and replaced with newer, taller, greyer stuff. Every year neighbourhoods are evicted, by force if necessary. Usually I visit these sites after eviction but before the bulldozers, but there's a lot of drama at all stages of the urban renewal process. |
January 13 2008
Jonggak A while ago, Scott Bug told me he was being evicted from his downtown home so it could be demolished. Earlier, he had drawn on my map where exactly he lives, so I went and had a look. I'm not sure where exactly he lived, but there's a substantial hanok village there that seems to be recently closed. I went up a very high building to get a bird's-eye view of the area. The picture accompanying this front page entry has a long back story. It gave me this visceral reaction so I snapped a picture. It wasn't until I got home that I remembered where I knew the name Pimatgol from. This article was written before demolition, but note where Scott writes at the end, "the building will be finished in 2007, and a 'new' or 'replacement' P'imat-gol of restaurants and the like will be housed in the basement of "Chongno Town." So much for 'history' -- buried "underground" where it belongs, and where it is much less 'inconvenient.'" I guess this is what it looks like when you rape a city. |
January 13 2008
Cheonggye Canal There wasn't much daylight left, and I made the mistake of driving along Cheonggye Canal. So much of the city had to be bulldozed for this vanity project, but the demolition hasn't stopped now that the canal is complete. Over on Urban Exploration Resource, one poster wisely wrote "Any explorer who hated Ronald Regan is a fool. He gave us our hobby, we should thank him." I grudgingly have to say the same thing to Lee Myungbag. Thank you for condemning so much of the city for demolition. It has ensured that this website will never run low on subject material. I'm not kidding. As mayor of the city he built a canal through Seoul. As president of Korea he plans to build a canal across the country. Check out the map. In the near future I'm planning to walk from one end of the canal to the other and document the whole thing. Maybe that'll be during the Lunar New Year holiday. |
January 13 2008
On the Corner of Dongdaemoon and Seongdong I went out on a scooter ride to downtown, and before I'd gone even five minutes I spotted this wreckage on the side of the road. There were a lot of commercial buildings, but entry to most of them was out of the question. |
January 12 2008
Return to Hapjeong Demolition has progressed quite a bit since my last trip to Hapjeong, but there were a few more buildings opened up that I was now able to get inside. I found one interesting bar that had better lighting than the last one, and got lots of pictures of the snow which was swiftly melting in most other parts of the city. Some of my pictures were spotlighted on Dark Roasted Blend, a very interesting website with a different gallery each day. Not sure if the guy who runs it has ever posted his own work, but he knows all the best pictures, from the world's most dangerous roads and freight accidents to steampunk and vintage stewardesses. This site is crammed with more content than most sites could ever hope for. It's going up on the sidebar which I usually try to keep as brief as possible. |
January 5 2008
University with Amy and John After I discovered John's pictures of Okpo Land I invited him and Amy to see the university. We had a pretty good day, getting into three buildings, two of which were new to me. The university is starting to look pretty cleaned out these days; I'm not sure how much longer it'll be around. |
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.