20250228

Jeonnongcheon

I'd noticed this aboveground section of a stream, so I decided to head over and see if it went anywhere interesting. It's a strange little linear park, probably not known to too many people, but both ends had heavy doors I didn't want to mess with, so I didn't see anything interesting underground.

On this trip I also paid a visit to Chefmasters, after having passed the former restaurant in Hannam New Town earlier. That first one has since become a garage, with a van parked inside. The new restaurant location is pretty out of the way, so I hope he's saving a lot of money.

20250228

Hannam New Town

After my previous visit, for which I had only brought my smartphone camera, I returned with my DSLR. Being able to properly zoom in is good, but the lighting of this place is very delicate and hard to photograph right. I'll have to come back early one morning, or maybe late at night.

20250227

Restaurant Reviews

I was going to publish a review of a hot dog place called Holiday Frank, but when I went back one last time before finalising the review, I found the space it had occupied completely vacant. This is only the second time this has happened, and the first time was not my review.

After this sad encounter, I scrambled to find another restaurant to review. I settled on a pizza place south of the river, but ended up deciding it wasn't good enough.

20250227

Hannam New Town

I went for a look around Hannam New Town, and nothing too out of the ordinary happened.

20250227

Garbage

A few months ago, while I was throwing out garbage, I met an old man who I assume lives somewhere along the street who was eager to snatch up any empty aluminum cans. Since then, I try to separate them, and leave them in a clear bag so he can see them. Here's a before and after, showing that he -- or someone else -- is getting them.

20250226

Day at Work

This time I received a visit at work from Coetzer, and we went back to the VIP meeting room.

20250225

Bukchon Hanok Village

I had two reasons to go to Bukchon Hanok Village. First, I needed a picture of a paper window for an article, and secondly, I needed pizza. Some nights, it's crazy getting there because of all the activity in front of the Constitutional Court. Sometimes it's not much.

20250224

Redevelopment

You can see the closed Millennium Seoul Hilto in the distance up that one little alley. My understanding of their plans for the area is that all these buildings, from Seoul Square down on the street up to the Hilto, will have to be destroyed to make way for a very large mall-type building. This is something that will take several more years, while the hotel will remain closed.

20250223

Office

Bereket had been writing for me too much lately, and I was stacking up copies of newspapers with his articles in them. So he stopped by to pick them up, and we had a meeting in what I call the VIP meeting room.

20250223

Hair of the Dog

This was the final night of Hair of the Dog. I wrote about it, and I wasn't sure I'd stop by, but I did, and it was too crowded.

20250222

Eggies

Just catting around.

20250221

Budae Jjigae

I found a GS25 that was selling budae jjigae. Years ago, sometime before the pandemic when these meals were still new, and quality was a little better, there used to be very good budae jjigae sets, and then they disappeared. These ones are about as good. I got one of the two there, liked it, went back and bought the other one, and they haven't had it since.

20250220

Coetzer's Hair

While Coetzer had been catsitting, he gave himself a thorough haircut. His plan was to donate the hair. But somehow, this is all that he collected.

20250219

Delivery and Food Runs

I went around delivering papers, and picking up two meals in the course of these images. I also found out that the lock on the subway vent leading to the Joseon Door has been replaced, locking it once again.

20250217

Buster

Finally, Buster makes it to the vet. We are now giving him insulin only every 24 hours, not 12.

20250216

Surprise Party

Fin decided to throw a surprise party for MJ at Hair of the Dog, the Sunday before its closure. She was very surprised.

20250216

Hannam New Town

I went back to Hannam New Town in the daytime, and yes that roof was alright. The lighting situation with the angle of the sun was a little awkward, as it had already passed to the other side of the hill.

I had been in contact with someone rescuing cats in the area, and was hoping to make an article about it, but then she stopped responding to me entirely for no known reason.

20250215

Another Look

Looks like I'm the only one who showed up.

20250215

Hannam New Town

One thing I wanted to do this day was visit Hannam New Town and look for cats, and cat feeding stations. I ended up going, but only late at night. I found one fairly large, modern building where I figured I could get to the roof, but it was too dark at the moment.

20250215

Buster

Buster has been having a bit of trouble lately. I started to notice he seemed like he was turning into a watermelon, legs unable to work properly and slipping around, becoming floppy little appendages on a big round body. This is a sign of hypoglycaemia. It was the weekend and already too late for me to do anything other than cancel my own plans. I took him off insulin and waited for the vet to open on Monday.

20250214

Another Look

I went back for another look at the progress in this venue. The opening show was supposed to start the day after this.

20250212

Odometer

My odometer was about to turn over to 10,000 kilometers, so I was careful not to miss it. It happened while on my way to the hospital, specifically hitting the number in the middle of Geumhwa Tunnel, a predictably difficult place to note it.

20250211

Suzanne Crowder Han

I went to the funeral for Suzanne Crowder Han with an RAS Korea contingent.

20250210

Delivery

Just driving around making deliveries, and I guess some low-level snooping. Plus picking up food. I went to Homeboy Seoul which is fine but still kind of overrated.

20250208

Millie

Here's Millie at work, with her extra fifth leg now.

20250208

Day Off

I went to Dice Comics & Cafe for the afternoon, which involved taking a bus and other things. Also I was able to locate a Lotteria that still has the "Bearded Bikers Munching Sliders" crap up as the main decorative motif. So now I don't have to feel like I miss it.

20250207

Delivery

I went to drop off some newspapers, and the alleys of Yeonnam-dong or wherever I was were pretty iced down. It reminded me almost of the roads back in Edmonton, although at least here I'm pretty confident it will all melt in a day or two.

20250206

Work Night

This day at work, I went to Itaewon to try to locate a particular kebab truck. Mission accomplished. The kebabs he sells are massive.

20250205

Subriot

Work in progress...

20250202

Hangeul Kwaja

These snacks were at work, but when I picked them up expecting Hangeul, I got plain old alphabet. I want a refund.

"Talkative" was the longest word I could create with them.

20250201

PB Baguettes

I stopped by the PB on the corner in Huam-dong, the one closest to where I live. I picked up a few items, and also noticed they had baguettes. Not particularly long baguettes, but I was fine with the size. I bought one, took it home, and...it was stuffed with cream.

20250201

HBC

More checking in on HBC, which isn't doing so well these days. Hair of the Dog is about to close.

20250130

Lunch

I went out for lunch to Linus BBQ, and looked at some empty real estate I figured might be turned into the new Phillies, which turned out to be wrong. Also, on the way to work passing through the road between Noksapyeong and Samgakji, I noticed a lot of wreaths laid out against the garrison walls. I'm assuming it's all just protest funerary wreaths for the president.

20250129

Hair of the Dog

I noticed one painting high up on the wall that looked like a Cossrow. Turned out to be.

20250129

Found Photos

In one of the basements, we found a few binders full of photos like this. They all look to be early 1990s, and all of a corporate nature. Not sure why anyone thought a photo album would be the way to present this.

20250129

Itaewon

I went back to that strange Itaewon site, with Coetzer this time, and this time he discovered that one of the doors which I thought led to a closet actually led to a hallway. At that point, we started finding some pretty crazy stuff.

20250128

Hidden Space

Someone left the door to the Hidden Space unlocked over the long weekend. I made about three visits during that time.

20250128

Weird Little Park

While driving by slowly, I started to pay attention to this weird little park next to the closed Millennium Seoul Hilto. It's a big turret pedestal with a sculpture on top, and there's a park around it, but it turns out to be just the tip of a larger structure.

20250127

Catnip

Time for some catnip.

20250126

Sauce

I went to Sauce to finally try their Sunday roast. It was fine, but just as I was going to write an article about it, they told me to wait because they were changing the menu.

20250125

GTX-A Seoul Station

The GTX-A line is open in two unconnected segments. The one from Seoul Station runs out to the northwest, bringing you to KINTEX in about 12 minutes, a trip that took me about an hour on my scooter once. Kind of sucks though because I no longer have a tunnel system to explore.

20250125

Tequila Bar

I paid another visit to this bar in the former Al Matto location. I think people are saying it's named "Tequila." It's good and beer is cheap.

20250125

Hoehyeon 2nd Citizens' Apartment

I've been watching this site since at least 2008, when I first visited after watching a documentary from 2003 saying it wouldn't be around much longer.

People keep predicting its doom, but I went at night to see how many lights were on. Not many, but still some.

20250124

The Studio HBC

The door was open, so I had a look inside the former Studio/Camarata space. They're doing work on it, and it will look different.

20250124

Flowers

About once a year, there's a game of musical chairs at the office, in which a bunch of people who were working jobs get shuffled around to new positions. The latest one moved quite a lot, and now I'm working with less supervision above me than before.

20250123

Hair of the Dog

Hair of the Dog was about to close next month, so I went there in order to work on an article about it. I was especially impressed to notice that one of the former bartenders there had made a painting out of a photo I had taken for a previous article about the bar.

20250121

Redevelopment

The block of old buildings next to my office is getting fenced off, and redevelopment looks inevitable.

20250119

Game Market

I went and had another look at the game market.

20250119

Discarded Glasses

Someone left a box outside with discarded glasses for anyone to take. I grabbed a few things, including a wine glass that turned out to be cracked, and a White Crow beer glass.

20250117

Pyeongtaek

I went down to Pyeongtaek on a free day, and my main focus this time was on food, especially Wich Craft.

20250116

Interview with God

I went to Hair of the Dog with a few people, including a drag king. At one point three of us were sitting on one side of the table facing him, so it suddenly became an interview, and we were interviewing him for the position of God.

20250115

Small Park

I've been examining this small park next to the Millennium Seoul Hilto, which I'd never really paid attention to until this statue caught my eye. It's not really a patch of nature, just a structure built on top of a large buried thing.

20250114

Itaewon

After having photographed a blueprint the day before showing more buildings as part of this property under redevelopment, I returned and visited a few more buildings that had escaped my notice before. This small site feels like it keeps expanding.

20250114

Buam-dong

It had been on my to-do list for a while to visit this site, where I realised I could easily go up onto a part of the city wall overlooking these abandoned buildings. I wanted to go to a pet food store there to get expensive cat food, so I made this part of the journey.

20250114

Blue Screen of Death

Looks like I ran out of space on my hard drive at work.

20250113

Itaewon

I paid a visit to several sites around Itaewon, including the property I've been exploring a lot lately, as well as Hannam New Town and a smaller site next door that I'm assuming is not directly related.

The main reason I was there though was to see the presidential residence. I found a slightly better location from last time, a little more northward so there aren't any trees in the way.

20250112

Subway Tunnel Entrance

This is what's under construction right by Seoul Station at the entrance to my neighbourhood. Just some unguarded entrances to the underworld, leading down to the GTX-A tunnel.

20250112

Itaewon

I returned the next day before going to work for a more thorough look around this Itaewon site. I saw quite a lot, then went to work. Its mystery keeps deepening.

20250111

Itaewon

I had about 20 minutes to kill, so I figured I might as well take a closer look at these buildings I passed along a fairly well-used road. It turned out to be probably my most interesting UE discovery in about a year. Expect many more lengthier updates on this.

20250111

Hannam New Town

I paid another visit to Hannam New Town, from where I could hear the protests over in Hannam-dong in front of the president's residence. It also turned out that from where I was, I was able to photograph the compound. Didn't see anyone home though.

20250110

PB

I made a delivery and also stopped by a few PBs looking for food to taste test. It took me three before I found one that seemed better than the others. The food I picked out was all pretty decent, all things considered.

20250108

Failed Parking

Subsequent visits revealed more information about the bad parking job: other vehicles did not appreciate it, and also why it may have been parked like that.

20250107

Game Market and Kebab

After Coetzer reported finding the Yongsan game market still active, I went over to have a look, and was able to confirm. I also finally tried Seoul Kebab, which is probably one of the best kebabs in Seoul, but is also a bit too much portionwise and keeps terrible hours.

20250106

Failed Parking

I came across this motorcycle parked awkwardly in this one road by a Namsan tunnel, just jutting out into the road. It became a popular post on Failed Parking South Korea, but I would keep observing the bike over the next more than month.

20250105

Snow

Right after I returned, there was a major snowfall. I made sure to stop by hannam New Town to get pictures of it under the snow.

1996

DHMD Jr.

While on my recent visit to Canada, I found more photos from Korea in 1996. Probably all of these were from my uncle, and many of them are from the period before and after my visit, although I can be seen in a few. The images showing his apartment complex really show how different that area used to be, compared to what's there now.

This is part 2, and part 1 is viewable in the archive list on the sidebar, or just here if you're lazy. Weird to think that the Slackers Korea tour of 2007 is closer to that date than to the present.

I'll get back to the regular scheduled DHMD adventures at some point...

20241219-20250103

Edmonton Christmas/New Year's

Step inside here for photos from my visit to Edmonton in December 2024 to January 2025.

2024

Phone Pictures

As I use my phone increasingly as a camera, I've been posting those pictures all over this site.

Contrasted with previous years where I shared all the extra phone photos at the end of the year, this time there's much less.

It's just one gallery, and most of it is cat photos.

I might try to return to the older format of posting standalone photos in a gallery like this, because this year this site had way too many entries.

20241219

Lotteria

Renovation work has already completed on the Lotteria, and yes they removed the "Bearded Bikers" Konglish poetry. There may be a ROTW article in their future because of this move.

20241218

Construction

The tall construction fences have been taken away from GTX-A sites, revealing staircases leading down into the deep unknown.

I decided to give this one a try, and can confirm it looks like it goes all the way down to the tracks. They're deeper underground here by a significant amount, probably due to the higher surface level on the side of Namsan.

I made it halfway down to where I could see the rest of the way, confirming that it was a long way to go, meaning a longer way to go back up. As I was leaving, a worker entered above me and we passed by each other on the stairs. I said hi but he acted like he didn't see me.

20241216

The Making of Broke in Edmonton 2

Ahead of my next visit, I set to work on the latest issue of Broke in Edmonton. This shows some of the preparation that went in, as well as some images I took to tease it online.

20241214

Dough Daddy

After the book sale, a few of us went to Sindang-dong to visit Dough Daddy, which has since become a Restaurant of the Week. This was my first time actually having a sit-down meal there.

20241214

RAS Book Sale

In order to clear out space in the office, RAS Korea had a book sale. Apparently it was successful, with people taking away a lot of books. I ended up filling in my collection of Transactions, now possessing a copy of every single issue of Transactions ever published.

20241213

Rory Farewell

Rory, a comedian who contributed articles to my section on the stand-up scene, announced he was leaving, and had a farewell performance, which I covered for the paper.

20241213

Hannam New Town

What began as a shopping trip turned into a visit to an abandoned apartment building I've been trying to get into for at least a year.

20241212

Transactions Deliveries

To save money on delivery fees, I handled delivery of a number of copies of RAS Transactions myself. This took me between downtown, Seongdong-gu, Gangnam, and Itaewon all in one day, as I delivered about 35 copies to around six stops.

20241211

Pens

Someone at work has been distributing tons of these pens that happen to resemble Millie's right paw, the one that's on the cover of "Cats on Keyboards." A month later, more bags of the things keep appearing. At first they were cute, but now it's kind of morbid seeing dozens of the things all resembling Millie's paw.

20241210

Wokster

After deciding I wanted to put more emphasis on the chow mein, I went back to Wokster to take a few final photos for their Restaurant of the Week article. The article was scheduled to come out around Christmas.

20241209

Drunk Australian

A very drunk Australian showed up in HBC, having lost something like her wallet or her glove. She ended up making it a pair by forgetting her other glove. We went into the new bar in the former Al Matto space, which was better than I had been expecting. Beer is affordable, and they had a dog.

20241207

The Host Tunnel

Here are photos from this year's trip to The Host Tunnel. Smaller group than last year, but still pretty big, and about as much fun.

20241206

Persian Palace

Persian Palace was selected as Restaurant of the Week, so I went there to take some pictures and have a look at the place.

It is much more an Indian restaurant than an Iranian restaurant, specialising much more in Indian curry dishes than anything Persian. Also, since the writing of this article, they have stopped serving the spiciest curries. According to the owner on this visit, whenever people tried a 5 or 6 they would often faint, and he stopped wanting to deal with it.

20241206

Birds

I woke up to see snow outside my window. But then I noticed it was sunny outside, and also the snow was falling up, not down. When I looked outside, I saw two birds, one a corpse and the other some kind of predator. All I remember is it had a sharp beak, like a hawk's, and wasn't noticeably much bigger than the other bird, which I later found out lacked a head. I tried opening the window a little so I could take a picture, but it alerted the alive bird which flew off. I went out to inspect the crime scene. The next day, when I looked outside again, the corpse had vanished.

20241204

Lotteria

I was surprised to see the Lotteria closed for renovations, and the infamous "Bearded Bikers" poem seemingly removed after what I think has been more than 10 years. Good riddance.

20241203

RAS Korea

RAS Korea had its final official meeting, in which the decision to close was discussed. Later that night, on our way home, the president declared martial law.

20241201

Hannam New Town

On another visit to Hannam New Town, I got into an abandoned church for the first time, found a location with lots of furniture left behind, and revisited another place.

20241130

Thanksgiving

I ended up at the Jeff and Trash Moses Thanksgiving party this year.

20241129

HBC

I took pictures of Bonny's Pizza, and then ran into Rory, one of my contributors, who's leaving the country soon.

20241129

Hannam New Town

I paid a visit to Hannam New Town before the snow melted, hoping to get pictures of lots of abandoned buildings covered with snow. This was the best I could do.

20241128

Mono mansion

One day after the sign went up, the Mono mansion opened. And it was another Photo Heim. The differences are few.

20241127

Mono mansion

People rejoiced when the Photo Heim disappeared, but then the next day a sign showed up saying "Mono mansion." What would that be? It wasn't immediately clear. But just to be safe, don't kiss anyone there.

20241127

Heavy Snow

There was a massive snowfall, the largest Korea has ever seen in a November.

20241125

Eggies

Millie and Buster were being nice to each other, and even seemingly holding hands.

20241124

Thanksgiving

I was invited to a US Thanksgiving party, and I only took three photos during it, all of Coetzer and this cat that sort of looks like him.

20241123

The Studio HBC

After the stabbing spree was over, I went over to The Studio HBC where there was a punk show with a pretty decent lineup. I missed Pogo Attack sadly, but caught Fail Fast and Full Garage.

This may have been the last show I ever go to at The Studio HBC.

20241123

Mutiny Show at Victim

I showed up for Mutiny, but the show had a ridiculous long schedule and I had no chance of staying all the way until the end. I think it started at 4pm, and Mutiny was supposed to go on around midnight. I stayed for mid-evening and saw three bands before it was time to leave and go stab Buster.

20241122

Mutiny at Channel1969

I was at Mutiny's first Seoul show at Channel1969. I got to see the Japanese bands opening for them, and then saw a couple songs by Mutiny before having to leave quickly.

20241122

Cat Sori & the Inwangsan Ramblers

I went to a show in Seochon where this band was playing. The frontman was the son of Ned Forney, a friend I haven't seen in a few years. It turned out one of the acts was a foreign journalist, so the place was filled with foreign correspondents.

20241122

Abandoned?

I've been watching this place for several years, and this time I observed what looked like a light on inside.

20241121

Tampa

These two pictures come from my drive to Tampa to give them copies of the newspaper with the review of them in it.

20241120

Liminal Hospital

I wandered around on a hospital visit and managed to get into the two main liminal spaces I've observed before. While previously they were harder to access, this time I got into both.

20241119

Good Riddance Photo Heim

The HBC Photo Heim closed down, but rather than gutting it completely as I would have expected, it seems like they're just fixing it up. Stay tuned because there aren't many different types of businesses it could beccome with this interior.

20241118

The Moon

Just a few photos, starting from at work when I noticed the moon looking in through the window.

20241117

Skunk Itaewon

Over at Skunk, more work has been done on the decorations.

20241117

Underground

I passed by an unsecured construction site and decided to stop and see what it was about. I was pretty sure I was going to get into a utility tunnel, but all it led to was a concrete box, leading absolutely nowhere.

Next stop, I got into this subway tunnel for the first time.

20241117

Baeksa Village

I drove out to Baeksa Village and arrived right at dusk. There is still one security guard on site, and I didn't get too adventurous.

20241117

Academy House

Academy House used to be abandoned, then it was repurposed, and then it closed again. When I visited previously in the summer, I wanted to return when it was colder. Unfortunately, on this trip, I found that a lot of the furniture I remembered had been removed.

20241117

African

I'm pretty sure I've photographed this restaurant before, but it always catches my eye.

20241117

English Village

I went out to see what the Suyu English Village looked like now. It may be closed possibly, but it's not untended, anyway.

20241117

Drive

I set out to drive through northeastern Seoul.