February 2008 Archives

February 26 2008

Right after, I also got an e-mail from a guy down in Daegu who found my site after he went to Okpo Land. It sounds like he's done some exploring down there where there are more condemned neighbourhoods. I'm waiting for him to contact me again.

Also through the Expat Korea site, the poster Lizara recently found an abandoned amusement park in Laos. I'm impressed she had the courage to go in there and take photos. There are some pretty cool rides there, including swings and a ferris wheel.

February 23 2008

Gynecological Hospital

February 23 2008

Area 52

There were demolition workers there but nobody really minded me being around. Quite a few people were cutting through the area.

Area 52 Part 2
I got farther away from the center of activity, and there were lots of very nice houses to look through. Some of them, such as this one, had a lot of personal belongings left behind. This gallery has lots of photographs, as well as Christmas cards, and of course the head of Park Jihye.

It's not too rare to find photographs, but this is the largest amount I've found all at once. Unfortunately most of them were in worse condition than the ones I photographed.

Area 52 Part 3
Lately, everywhere I go I find cuckoo clocks. I have no idea, but I really wasn't surprised when I found this big one. There are a lot of cliches you'll find if you look at enough urban exploration photos. In the US the most common ones seem to be the wheelchair-in-the-hallway or the peeling-paint. Here it's abandoned photocopiers and cuckoo clocks.

Up High
The last thing I did there was go up to the weird building I saw when I first arrived. It's basically two buildings connected by several walkways which each house an elevator that stops every four floors. Pretty crazy, and it would've been an attractive building if it weren't for the Easter colours. I also did some more miniaturisation which fooled some people on UER, so I guess that means I'm starting to do it better now.

February 17 2008

Soongraemoon

February 16 2008

Seoul Forest

I decided to investigate the one closest to my own home, on the other side of Jungnangcheon. It turned out most of the lot had been demolished, and of the remaining buildings, most were either partly demolished or still inhabited. It seems like a tough place to live.

February 9 2008

Cocktown

February 9 2008

Back to Sangbong

February 8 2008

Canal Fever

I decided to walk from one end of the canal behind city hall to the other, where it meets up with another body of water at the "Willow Swamp." This first gallery marks the first couple hundred meters or so of the canal.

The canal has become quite a big issue, as this thing was Lee Myungbag's grand scheme when he was mayor, and he was elected president with the promise to build a new canal connecting Seoul to Busan by water. I'm not sure if this would be faster than directing ships around the peninsula, but I'm no canal expert. Then again, neither is Lee Myungbag.

Canal Fever Part 2
Leaving the canal, we found tons of old buildings that were due for demolition. It was a miserable area that will be the next victim of the Cheonggyecheon urban renewal process. Unfortunately for us, all these buildings were locked up tight. In one area we found what appears to be an old market filled with winding corridors and sudden dead ends.

Canal Fever Part 3
As we went further down, the water became greener and greener. The buildings down here weren't abandoned, just old-fashioned, and a large portion was dedicated mostly to light stores. This monolith in the picture here strikes me as an early Korean attempt at futurism. Interestingly, right across the canal facing this building was an identically designed building (with a different colour scheme though).

I'm not sure what the plans are for this section, although if it is demolished I expect that won't happen until demolition is complete upstream.

Not too much further left to go. Just Dongdaemoon, and then we'll be in the final stretch. I wonder how many people have done what we set out to do. It doesn't really have much of a point, and it's not like the canal is interesting enough to walk its whole length. You could probably do it in a couple hours if you didn't stop.

Canal Fever Part 4
The last leg of our trip was from Dongdaemoon to the end. Of course in Dongdaemoon we made a few longer stops to see some of the familiar sights to us. It was the day after New Year so the baseball stadium was empty. Demolition has progressed there but not as much as you'd think. One difference now is from the outside you can easily see into the stadium. Not good for getting through, but certainly useful for seeing that nobody was working. Unfortunately we couldn't get into the high school that was there, as the gate was shut and the security guard looked unusually alert.

Once we passed the grey market, I had officially gone further down than I ever had before. We moved through the shadow of the monolithic Lotte Castle, and I stole a sticker of it from a sign. By the time we got to the end, both of us were very tired, but we made it.

By the way, the building pictured here was the first thing I ever explored inside. Go all the way down to the first entry of this site and you'll see it. I don't remember the exact date, but Paul and I went there in the brief period when we were both unemployed.

February 7 2008

Halfway House for Fat Kids

It looks like they're going to build a new building here. I'm not sure what'll happen to the half of this building still standing, but for now it looks like it's still in use.

February 7 2008

Itaewon

February 7 2008

University

February 6 2008

Sangbong Neighbourhood

February 6 2008

Sangdo Valley

Every building we looked at last time was gone, ground down to fine dust, except one house sitting in the middle of it, which seemed to have been converted into an office.

Sangdo Valley Part 2
The condemned area had grown considerably, and we kept going further and further along. We never got to the far end of it, although I assume we at least got close.

One advantage of going to these places is that most of the richer places are vacant, and the cheaper, poorer ones are inaccessible. Most likely this is because the government gives the richer homeowners a better deal and they get out of there quicker.

Sangdo Valley Part 3
The part that I'd been really curious about in this area was up this hill. Last time I was there with Laura and Matt, we were turned away by men who seemed to be on guard. Also we were unnerved by the number of dogs barking.

On our walk up, we found that we were following an old woman carrying groceries. She led us all the way to the top, where we could see a run-down but thriving neighbourhood built on the peak. This area showed no signs that it was in danger.

Then we walked back down the way we came, through some of the hillside homes. Some were still inhabited and some were not, and some were hard to tell. A couple times while going into seemingly abandoned places, we encountered old Korean men there, who more than likely had already moved out. There was also evidence of the violence inflicted on these homes.

At the last leg of our trip, we went up a different part of the hill, and found an entire neighbourhood that was still inhabited and was resisting eviction. There was a lot of strongly-worded graffiti on the walls, stuff like "They can kill us but they can't defeat us" and "We want to live here."

February 12 2008