Riding around Seoul.

First stop: Dapsimni.

The statue was still up, and the temple seems alive and well, despite the fact most of the surrounding buildings are gone. z

Time to head back to my scooter and go somewhere else.

Next stop: Wangsimni New Town. There was an abandoned love motel in the empty lot in the bottom of the picture I missed out on.

More nail houses, although it looks like only the church is still active.

Compound for the workers.

Click for a panorama of the area from up high.

Kind of unusual patterns in the dirt.

Good on you, Seoul, for trying to be colourful, but it's still not enough to win World Design Capital 2010, leaving the reason for that to be anyone's guess.

Isolated nail houses.

On the way up toward Singeumho, I randomly happened across a picturesque abandoned neighbourhood. First time that's happened, pretty well since I lived in Geumho. Hapjeong doesn't count because I was on a McDonald's run at the time.

I just had a 15-hour work day, so I don't feel like translating this.

The area was about half-abandoned.

Lots of flowers still.

If this is the eviction date, that's got to be the soonest I've ever seen. It probably isn't though.

The name "Hawangjae" seems to not refer to one area, but kind of an acronym of several. The Wang is probably for Wangsimni.

The giant spoon, sure, but what's the other one? Note my boot in the bottom for size comparison.

A bit blown out. If I were more diligent I might've tried to bracket a couple exposures. Or just shot for the brights.

Looking down on Geumho. When I first moved here several years ago, I got up on the same rooftop and took a picture of the same direction. Originally I moved to this area for its beauty, but look at it now.

Back in 2007 when I first moved in.

When I originally went up the stairs, this pigeon and another tried desperately to escape, but they were trapped. They scratched at the windows, then flew up to get a bit more momentum to ram the windows, eventually both getting trapped in two of these little nooks where they couldn't escape. I stayed back, and also opened a couple windows for them to eventually escape.

Reminds me of my last trip to the abandoned mental hospital, when I startled a much smaller bird inside the detention area and it flew at the window, tucked its wings in to fit between the bars, and flew out.

This is what's become of the original abandoned Geumho area.

Click for a panorama of a surviving neighbourhood.

Mmm, cranes.

This picture says best what Geumho has become.