Saturday, March 25, 2023

RAS Korea presents Uheeska: pungmul-ska fusion

DATE: Saturday. March 25, 2023. 7:30PM (KST)
DESTINATION: The Studio HBC in Yongsan
COST: 20,000 won; pay at the door
**RSVP is not required.

Uheeska will present an hour-long love performance uniting the music traditions of both Korea and Jamaica. Uheeska is a collaborative band, made up of members of the jazzy ska band Kingston Rudieska and pungmul troupe Uhee Company.

Fusion of traditional Korean music with modern genres has been in vogue in recent years, but Kingston Rudieska is one of the early groups to experiment with gugak fusion. The band began experimenting with pansori in 2005, and its 2014 album features a track with a gayageum. Maybe this is why so many later gugak fusion projects have involved Jamaican genres such as ska, reggae, and dub.

In 2018, Won Il, the music director of the Yeowoorak Festival, matched Kingston Rudieska with Yeonhui Company. The vocalists mix in a combination of traditional Korean “chuimsae,” a form of exclamation during music performances to emphasize feelings or influence the rhythm, as well as the Jamaican tradition of “toasting,” which is almost the same thing, just with a more Jamaican vocabulary.

Uheeska has mostly played at traditional music and world music festivals, and has also toured overseas to Australia last year. This will be a rare opportunity to see them up close and personal in a small-scale live music venue, and their first time playing a show in Haebangchon, one of Seoul’s foreign neighbourhoods.

Read more about Uheeska here.

Read more about the opening act, LAproviko, here.

20230311

Camp Howze

I went back to Camp Howze for the first time since before the pandemic.

Actually I may have attempted it once during the pandemic, but the front gate was closed at that time.Now it seems to be open pretty often, until fairly late.

I also noticed some of the buildings seemed like they were getting fixed up, with smashed windows removed and new glass put in.

Camp Howze Uphill

This gallery focuses on things that are high up on the hill, mainly the barracks buildings, the helipad (which is more of a flattened field), and the water silo or whatever it is. Also, the mess hall which is most of the way on the other side of the slope.

I'd heard one of the barracks buildings was to be converted into a hostel for adoptees returning to Korea to stay, but there doesn't seem to be any notable progress on that. One of the barracks buildings has been stripped down to bare concrete, so maybe that's progress?

On a previous visit, I took a helmet cam video and drove into the mess hall; this time I did the same thing, but it wasn't quite as interesting considering the state of the building.

Paju Omma Poom Park

One of the sites I intended to visit was Paju Omma Poom Park, which is hidden all the way over the hill, near the back gate which always seems to be locked.

I consider this to be basically dedicated to comfort women, albeit the ones serving the US military rather than Japanese. The fact that this would be put in here on a former USFK installation seems to indicate that was the idea.

They wanted it to be a message for adoptees, but the message seems to be hinting at the unfair situation in which this sort of industry crops up, resulting in unwanted births adopted away overseas.

There's some basis to that message of course, but maybe it's a little too in your face for what they wanted to pull off.

Sports Facilities

This set of pictures focuses on the former gym, as well as the sports field way out at the northernmost motor pool, plus some of the buildings high up on this other part of the hill.

The gym is an odd building, and on my previous visits I found it filled with a filming set. On my last successful visit, we found a set where they recreated the North Korean embassy in Spain in order to reenact an attack that happened there. Especially odd as the visit came no more than a month later than the attack. This time, it has been turned into what appears to be a performance hall, possibly one intended to be high-capacity.

Bunkers

I saw a gate left open that I'd never tried before.

Most of the gates around here can be unlatched, as there is no locking mechanism attached, but I don't like to take that kind of risk anyway.

As I drove up, I found a dirt road that got increasingly rough. Once I got over the shoulder of the mountain, I found myself in an area with a pretty extensive bunker system.

I drove a little further, finding it difficult to stay in the ruts left by trucks, and then I discovered I would have to turn around and go back out the way I came in.
Buildings I'd Never Seen Before

Before I left, I decided I might as well try to get to some of the buildings I'd never made it to before.

There was a cluster of smaller buildings, two of which may have been single-occupancy houses, maybe for base leaders, and further past that were a couple other smallish barracks buildings.

Getting through the brush was rough, and definitely could not be attempted in a warmer season once the brush grew back, and brought with it spiders.
The Ville

Whenever I visit Camp Howze, I make sure to pay particular attention to the ville, that area out front where soldiers used to go for fun, at least if they didn't want to make the voyage all the way out to Itaewon.

There are still quite a lot of nightclubs, and I saw one that actually seemed to be open on this visit. The others I imagine are collecting dust.

If you leave the main drags, you find a network of narrow alleys where the locals lived (and continue to live). It's an elderly area now, and probably all young people have long since moved on.

Abandonment in Seoul

I went to this area a few weeks earlier, and couldn't really get closer. As I'd been leaving last time, I thought I saw a way in, but when I tried it this time, it didn't bring me anywhere that interesting.

20230308

Reunion

I was about to leave Hair of the Dog when a bunch of friends who lived here in the 2000s came in. It was one of those nights.

20230307

Gwanghwamun Anarchaeology

Almost a year ago, I stopped by Gwanghwamun to photograph the haechis out front. It was notable that there was a little elevation running parallel to the palace wall. Most people walked on top of it, but some stayed on the more plain sidewalk right next to the wall.

For the ongoing renovation of the area, some of this elevated area has been dug up as part of the legally required routine archaeological survey, and they have uncovered...train tracks. They're for the old streetcar system, discontinued in 1968, but who knows when this particular section disappeared. I'm still a little unclear about where exactly the Governor General building used to be; presumably right behind the tracks, where Gwanghwamun is now.

The tracks are covered, but tours of the site are offered to the first few people to sign up online, and for that they'll have to uncover everything, which is when I'll be able to get a look.

20230304

Holy Moly at The Studio HBC

I stopped by HBC, where there were a lot of people at the latest Holy Moly show. Christmas went into Photo Heim to get some pictures made, which was probably the highlight of the night for me. Also, Pop Ents gave me a copy of their zine, "How to Win at Life & Unfuck Yourself."

20230304

KOTE Potluck Festival

I showed up at KOTE on Saturday to do my Pimatgol tour. It was a little too early in the day, and most of the people I thought would join were having lunch at the time.

20230301

Visit from Daryl

Way back in 1997 when I was at my high school graduation commencement, I turned on my walkman and found CJSR, which was playing a boogie show at the time. It was something I never heard before, and can't really explain now. As soon as I entered university, one of my first stops was at CJSR, where I ended up becoming an on-air DJ. The program manager who helped me all along the way was Daryl, who has long since left the station as well.

Daryl was on a vacation mainly to Vietnam, but stopped by Korea for two nights on the way back to Canada. I offered to take the day off so I could meet up and show him around. We ended up walking from Dongdaemun all the way to Gwanghwamun, and then ending up at KOTE where a big art festival was starting.

It was March 1, a national holiday, which came up a few times along our wanderings. There was also a massive conservative rally that day too.

20230226

DGBS

I saw that DGBS, the former site where Park Jong-chul was tortured to death in 1987, is undergoing heavy renovations. It appears they're going to preserve the main building, while also constructing another big thing that might be a museum.

While there, I also had a closer look at the building I call the "bunker," where I worked in a satellite newsroom for a few months early in the pandemic. The building is closed up now and probably slated for demolition.

20230225

Spiky Brats 2.0

Spiky Brats has reformed, but with a different lineup. The band last played, it seems, at the Korea-Japan Oi Festival in 2011, and since then the members have changed drastically. Gone is Jaeseok and his distinct Donald-Duck vocals. The only two non-new members appear to be Byungsun and Jonghee. Byungjin and Dorothy seem to be suitable new members, but without Jaeseok I wonder if it's still Spiky Brats.

It was a first show so I'll withhold judgement.

The venue was a bar that apparently had been run by Jonghee until right around now. When I walked in, it was a bright room with white floor, walls, and ceiling. During Spiky Brats' encore, the main lights turned off, and it became the perfect environment to try out the speedlight I'd borrowed from work.

Cockrasher

It was great seeing Cockrasher again. I think they've been more or less active over the decades, playing songs which are the majority if not all from the old days.

They were the best band of the night.

And Seung-han never once tried to break my camera this time. Though maybe he will after seeing these pictures.

Pogo Attack

Pogo Attack had a decent set other than an early problem with the bass.

For this show, Edaeng came with his wife Sharon, who I hadn't seen in ages, as well as their daughter Bia, who dressed the part but I couldn't tell if she really enjoyed the music.

Sharon got what appeared to be an unpleasant surprise at the end when they covered her old band Couch, and she could hardly hide her displeasure.

Oily Rag (and Lucy Valentine)

This show seemed to have been put on entirely by Bovver, as one last-last show before he moves back to Japan (and takes Oily Rag with him for one final show [until the next one]). It was also a birthday show for Jennifer of Lucy Valentine, who I found out were playing right at the very end.

Oh yeah, also Bovver cut himself afterwards.

20230224

Abandoned Buildings

I was in a hurry to get to the print shop, but had to slow down a bit when passing by some abandoned buildings I hadn't seen before. One had an unusual round roof style that's possibly Japanese-designed.

On a follow-up run to the print shop, I found a potential way in, so maybe there'll be an update soon.

Jabroni at The Beatles

I ran into my former boss from 2015 a few days earlier, and he invited me to see his band play. Formerly called the Beagles, they've since moved a bit away from being a Beatles tribute band and renamed themselves Jabroni, playing songs from various bands, including Pink Floyd and Coldplay.

The show was at The Beatles, a basement venue right across the street from that Hyundai venue near Hangangjin Station. Entry was free, but everything on the menu was heavily priced. The sound system and the lighting was high-quality, however.

20230218

Subway Tunnel

I went back to this subway tunnel under construction, after visiting sometime last year. It's still unbelieveably easy to enter. This was my third visit, and this time I made a new personal first: I crossed the river underneath. I walked about 2.5 kilometers in total, then I turned around and headed back to my original entry point. I know there's an exit on the other side, and I passed by another along the way, but I decided it was better not to risk emerging in an unfamiliar site.

20230217

Reseters at Jebi Dabang

I stopped by Jebi Dabang to talk to some people about a show I'm planning to put on next month. More to be announced soon.

20230214

Abandoned Wedding Hall

After the RAS Korea lecture on the Korean military, Anna and I visited the abandoned wedding hall. It's still in the exact same condition as before, the front all fenced off and locked up, but still way too easy to get in.

20230211

Uchi Zoo Park

My weekend plans sort of fell into place after last weekend's actions, after I found out that Hosooni was supposed to be moved to a zoo in Gwangju. I had already been thinking of visiting Gwangju for a local punk show, but the cards really fell into place when I realised that this was also the zoo that Moon Jae-in's dogs were moved to.

Our visit was inconclusive. Prior to the visit, we'd heard bad things about conditions here, but the quality of captivity was uneven across enclosures. The only sign of possibly making an enclosure for Hosooni was hard to confirm, as the space was much smaller than her current one, and it doesn't seem like much work has been done to even make it look more like the other tiger enclosures. So...are they really ready to take on an adult tiger, who I believe is larger than their other big cats, in a timely fashion?

Additionally, we were able to find the Pungsan dog enclosures, which were primitive, but it seems like the dogs don't spend much time caged up at least.

Abandoned Prison

I was brought all the way over to an abandoned prison, which can be read about most reliably at Gwangju News.

Getting in is kind of a crapshoot, as it takes lucky timing as well as some skill.

While walking through the grounds, we disturbed an animal that seemed to be some kind of large deer. It pranced away through the brush in a way that was very unlike a wild boar. Its scat seemed a little more doglike. We didn't get enough of a look to know more, and we couldn't find it after this initial encounter, as it was able to lose us in this complex prison system. Whether it's still in there, I couldn't guess.

Punk Smash

I'd seen posters online for a show in Gwangju that featured three local bands, plus three others from Seoul and one more that turned out to be from Cheongju.

A month earlier I had published an article with Gwangju News about Dirty Rockhon, one of the bands playing, and this was my first time seeing them. Also playing was Monkey Pee Quartet, which I covered way back in January 2020. The other Gwangju band, TwoFive, I'm planning to cover next, but unfortunately we arrived just after they finished playing.

It was an excellent show, with all bands playing extremely well, and left me feeling a little more refreshed about live music than I'd been feeling the last few months.

20230210

Abandoned Hostel

I passed by this abandoned hostel on the way to the print shop. Seems like the sort of thing I probably won't get another chance to look into in time.

20230208

Kyungrokjeol

The birthday party of Crying Nut's bassist Kyungrok is continuing, getting a little more ostentatious every year. It's basically a full music festival, except everything's free. It's at risk of pushing Zandari Festa aside as the most important annual event in Hongdae.

I showed up at the opening night, where Crying Nut was set to be the very first band to play. They were the only band I was there to see.

20230204

Lonely Tiger

After one of my friends shared this video, I booked a train ticket to Ulsan to see the tiger for myself.

Fantasia is probably the largest abandoned amusement park I've ever visited, likely by a significant margin. It would have been an enjoyable day, and worth it to pay for the train tickets to come all the way down here for a day of taking pictures. But visiting a tiger living in the closed zoo gave this trip a decidedly different bent.

I was expecting something worse after seeing the video, but on a warm, sunny day, the tiger seemed mostly fine. Healthy, well-fed, mostly clean. Maybe mentally understimulated though.

Back in Seoul, I later was able to put out this article with help from a reporter.

Yeongnam Alps

While I was down in Ulsan, I met up with Jason, one of those guys I've been networked with for probably more than a decade, but still had never met in person.

He was nice enough to chauffeur me around. We visited a parking lot with a structure being prepared for burning down the next day during Daeboreum.

He brought me to Yeongnam Alps, which is the actual name for the very un-Alps-like mountain range here. There's one area that has a lot of chintzy love motels, and maybe almost half of them are closed down.

Tiger Shirt

I went to the washroom in the KTX on the way back to Seoul, and decided to get a picture of my tiger shirt. It took a couple tries to get it right.

I bought my first tiger shirt several years ago, and had matching shirts with another explorer. That one got torn on a fence when we were fleeing security in the Nightmare Lab, so I bought a second one at some point.

I wonder if the tiger ever noticed my shirt.

Holy Moly

I got back to Seoul while Holy Moly was still happening in The Studio HBC. All I did was sit out front. At one point, some of the members of Billy Carter came by, and I hoped to get a group shot of them. It never quite worked out though.

20230202

Cats

These pictures come from the couple days before I was to set out to Yangsan in search of a tiger. The cats tried to help me prepare while I was rounding up supplies.

20230130

Itaewon at Lunch

Next, I went by the memorial that's still over by the triangular park near Noksapyeong Station. Probably a lot of people go by that one thinking it's just a COVID-19 testing site. Although it does have a great deal of far-right banners hung up around it. I heard apparently a nearby business owner calls the cops every day who come and remove them, and then the banners are put back up again that night.

20230129

Banpo Apartments

20230128

Binary Studios

Also I was looking forward to seeing Chain Reaction, but apparently one of their members came down with COVID-19.

It's not a great place for taking pictures, so I didn't get many.

Also, when we went to the restaurant after, I found out that they had taped up the cover of my zine on the front counter. One issue later, I had a feature about afterparty places, and reviewed this place positively, noting the guy even showed an interest in my zine.

2023123

Anarchaeology

After walking by this site with Jericho earlier in the month, I decided to have a closer look, and I found a very easy entry point around the corner from where we'd been looking. I got in with no trouble.

The watch market is going to be the site of a fairly large and probably long archaeological survey, as there's probably a lot of stuff to sift through down there.

The alleyways of the area are ancient, and some of them were built over water. I found traces of that as I walked around.

The final plan for this site is a large building that will preserve the alley courses on the ground floor.

New Buildings

I was eyeing these new buildings along Cheonggyecheon. But when I went by, I found workers still on site, even though it was the biggest holiday of the year and it was after 6.

20230121

Train Station

My first goal for the holiday was to go back to the train station. It turned out my usual entry point had been cut off, as the staircase down from the entrance had been removed. So I entered, got to the top of the stairs, and then saw there was nothing below me except a two-storey fall onto new concrete.

The way down to the tunnel was unpleasant, as the passageway is filled with metal bars that are probably part of some process to form concrete structures or something.

I didn't start taking pictures until I was at the bottom, so this gallery is sort of in reverse, documenting my exhausting struggle out.

Burning Sun

I went back to Burning Sun in the daytime, after confirming that, yes, it seems to have just been left alone for a long time.

As well as seeing the nightclub again, I walked up to the top floor of the smaller tower, then looked around the lobby more.

It's a good site to visit, based on how easy it is to access, but it's too bad that the whole place is so gutted.

In one area, I saw what looked like a giant rabbit in the distance. When I got closer, I confirmed that, yes, it was a giant rabbit for no reason.

It should have been a black rabbit for this year though.

Sex Cards

As I was leaving the hotel, I saw a number of sex cards scattered on the ground.

Most of these seemed to be for clubs where men pay to look at women wearing some amount of clothing, and they can do a lot of things that don't involve undressing the women.

I used to see more of these cards around, but not anymore for whatever reason, probably changing areas of town where I go. I recall once in Hongdae seeing cards for the kissing room being scattered by a guy on a scooter.

An extra indignity is that the models for these things always seem to be Japanese models. But maybe that also protects the privacy of the actual sex workers here.

Roof Guns
We went up to a couple roofs, one being an obvious one, and the other being something new. To get up to the helipad, we had to go through this one big open room that was two storeys high and sort of cube-shaped.

From the roof there, we looked over and saw the building's twin, which had a similar cube-sized room, except this one had the light on. And on top, there was something black we couldn't quite fully make out. So I raised the film speed and took a picture as we were leaving. Later, I was able to blow it up to confirm that, yes, there are anti-aircraft cannons on that roof.

20230117

Burning Sun

What's the most despicable location you've ever explored? I think I likely set a record with this one, as I was tipped off that the hotel housing Burning Sun was closed down a couple years ago. Thinking it was too late to see, I stopped by on a Sunday night, only to find everything left wide open, with nobody else in sight.

20230117

I.Animation.U

It won't be long now until the I.Seoul.U slogan fades into history. In fact, vote on it here (Korean) and here (English). My vote's for "Make it Happen Seoul," because I like the idea of Captain Picard saying "Make it Seoul."

Anyway, I drove past the former animation museum site, which now bears "I.Animation.U." Shouldn't it at least be "I.Animate.U"?

20230114

Jericho

I walked around downtown Seoul with Jericho for an afternoon, visiting Euljiro and Sewoon Sangga. After that, we went to Itaewon, which she had never seen before, and walked through Hooker Hill and the disaster alley.

20230113

Foggy Downtown

After several days of heavy dust warnings, a light rain hit the city, engulfing everything in a healthy mist.

While waiting to meet two visiting friends, I looked around a bit in downtown Seoul and got on a couple roofs.

Bust And The City

I returned to this abandoned building, which houses a shaman or Buddhist shrine, a goshiwon, a PC room, and a few miscellaneous ground-floor businesses.

It's a good UE destination because it's convenient, but entry is just challenging enough -- in both skill requirement, danger, and risk of being caught -- that not anyone can just go in. Most people would probably back out in fear.

Station Cat

We stopped by Noryangjin Station, where a friendly cat greeted me right at the turnstiles. I followed the cat around a bit, and discovered he's friendly but there's one single way he doesn't like to be touched.

Apparently his name is Yeokjeoni and he's pretty well-known to the people frequenting the station.

That includes the fish market evictees, who are still occupying the overpass that once led to the now-demolished former market, long since replaced with sports fields.

Abandoned Neighbourhood

We had pretty good timing with this abandoned neighbourhood visit. Alley entrances around the perimeter have been fenced off, but many of the buildings inside remain sealed, with doors and windows intact and with a fair number of those police warning stickers, something I'm not generally comfortable with openly defying. We found a few good places, including a couple roofs where we could observe darkness fall over the city, revealing how much of our surroundings were abandoned.

20230110

Abandoned Wedding Hall

20230108

Gwanghwamun

We walked through Gwanghwamun and saw the lit-up lanterns, including the 2023 rabbit and a despised wheelchair user. I didn't get a single picture of her.

20230107

Hipjiro

There is a great deal of metal-shutter hoarding up around many buildings in the area, and it seems like it'll have to be wiped out now. That's not so sad because the alley has become a monopoly.

At one point, I was driving away and I stopped to take a picture, and by pivoting to take the picture, I hurt an abdominal muscle that seems to be located somewhere around my diaphragm. It caused a sudden horrible pain that repeated about five times on my drive home. If I hadn't had a heart attack already, I would have assumed this was a heart attack and I was about to die, from my heart bursting. Stupid organs.

Abandoned Wedding Hall and Motel
Ryan reported that a fairly prominent wedding hall was closed down, so I went in for a look. I had last been here in 2016 for a punk wedding, during which I explored around the upper levels while tragically missing a Billy Carter performance.

Anyway, this time I didn't have a chance to see Billy Carter play, but I did get to see a lot of the building, plus the motel next door.

Hotel on Vacation
The other night, I had been driving home when I caught wind of this one hotel that seemed to be all closed down. I came back for a closer look, and found signs declaring it's on holiday. Also, on the front side there's a BK and a cafe, so it's not totally gone yet. Curious to keep an eye on it.

20230105

Burger Place

It's at a mini-mall built out of cargo containers near Ewha Womans University, right at the same site I remember seeing a few punk bands play in about 2004 or 2005.

20230103

Brother Anthony's birthday

Brother Anthony shares his birthday with two other guys, poet Jeong Ho-seung who he has translated a lot, and a professor whose name was saved in my phone until right when I went to write this.

20230101

Hilto Hotel

2022 Smartphone Photos

Smartphone Pictures 1

It was a pretty adventurous year. Here is the latest photo dump of pictures taken on my smartphone.

We'll start with a picture that signals the times we're in: drinking in a bar with the lights off after curfew.

This gallery also has some other views of things I otherwise documented on this site at the time, including the conflict at KOTE and partying at Turn Lounge before its demolition. Plus there are images from an anti-drug book I found at work.

The pictures for the first gallery seem to run into April.

Smartphone Pictures 2

Gallery 2 runs from April until July 16, during Seoul Queer Culture Festival.

You can see Buster wearing a hat, and then celebrating his 16th birthday. There are more pictures of drinking, and of the cats.

I used my smartphone to take pictures of Joey at Dice Latte, mainly because I thought it would be easier, and I was probably right.

There are also a few pictures from when I saw what appeared to be a horrific traffic accident, and then on driving past it became clear it was a film set. I never was able to figure out what they were filming.

It was also during this period when I started experimenting with Corn Flakes foods being sold in convenience stores, and you can see a picture of the only one I didn't try, the salad.

Smartphone Pictures 3: 13 Steps

There was a heavy rain during the parade at SQCF; it stopped right around when the parade started moving, and it ended right around when it finished. I tried to keep out of the rain, but my camera started acting up and wouldn't work properly. I ended up having to take it in for repairs.

That night I went to see 13 Steps at ACS, a venue I'd never heard of in Euljiro. There were other bands, but without a working camera, I didn't feel motivated to push forward to the front of the crowd to see the bands, except for when 13 Steps played.

Also at this show, Victor had a table set up to sell kendamas, plus get rid of his old CD collection. I got a lot of rare old GMC stuff that would probably be hard to find anywhere else.

Smartphone Pictures 4: North Korean Postcards

I bought a bundle of postcards during my 2018 visit to North Korea.

I was especially interested in the ones showing a North Korean space program, plus North Korea winning the World Cup.

I never did mail them out to anyone, and I don't think I'd risk it from the South.

Maybe someday...

Smartphone Pictures 5

The pictures in this gallery are mostly from July, up until right before I left for vacation in Canada.

There are pictures of several zines, plus a few from the night of the Broke 15th anniversary show on July 29. Because I had priced the show at 6,000 won for entry, I started saving up small bills for weeks in advance. I made it up to 110,000 won in 1,000 and 5,000 bills, and when I took them all out for the float, my wallet nearly fell apart. It doesn't feel right anymore, if it isn't stuffed with money.

Smartphone Pictures 6: Canada

These pictures follow me from Korea to Canada and back again, to find Korea had flooded in my absence.

I made ample use of my camera, so the only times I was using my phone during the trip were random things when I didn't want to drag out my camera.

There are lots of pictures of my parents' hostile cats, plus a lot of pictures of the sky at various times in the evening.

Smartphone Pictures 7

This gallery is a bit smaller, mainly because it seems like I did a bunch of post-vacation pictures, then set it aside, and when I got back to editing these, I created the eighth gallery.

All these photos seem to be from late August.

Smartphone Pictures 8

These photos run from Zandari Festa in September through to early November when I started photographing Pepero Day displays.

You can see the skateboard I found in the garbage somewhere, plus a lot of pictures taken around the neighbourhood.

A lot of times I take phone pictures for instructive reasons. There are a lot to show people where I am and how to get there, which explains why there are so many at bars. That led to some odd ones in this gallery, as we drank in some weird new places. In one other case in this gallery, I photographed two flavours of potato chips from Canada, in order to get my coworkers to vote on which to try next.

There's nothing related to the Itaewon disaster, as I'd already processed those images and included them in with my regular camera stuff.

Smartphone Pictures 9

The final gallery is filled with all sorts of things, showing a lot of things around HBC as well as the office plus RAS Korea. I took a lot more photos on my phone than my camera of the RAS Korea book sale, and I also photographed some odd mail we got at work. There are a lot of pictures at Phillies, which was supposed to close at the end of the year, plus a few of Gogi Boys where it will probably move to.

Pictures from the Moses Thanskgiving this year appear here as well, plus a cosmetics trade show and some more views around Songdo. There's one notable photo I took on my smartphone to send to people after I'd been left behind in a venue in Cheongju.

I also have a few photos in here of the time I had to chew my arm off in order to get away from my cats. Plus, Chris got new teeth. And there are more pictures from my last visit to the Hilto penthouse, looking mainly at the small objects left on display all over the place.

New Year 2023

New Year

31 December 2022

Hilto

31 December 2022

Another Abandoned Neighbourhood

31 December 2022

Mural Village

31 December 2022

New Town

31 December 2022

Abandoned Building

30 December 2022

Hilto Hotel

30 December 2022

Hipjiro

30 December 2022

Hilto Hotel

28 December 2022

Construction

27 December 2022

Order Pizza Here

25 December 2022

Christmas Tree

24 December 2022

Millennium Hilton Seoul

The hotel is set to close down at the end of this year, with reservations not being accepted overnight from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day.

21 December 2022

Bando

18 December 2022

Abandoned Cuck Chair

17 December 2022

Yunawa Aidoru

17 December 2022

Earl at Phillies

17 December 2022

Cats

17 December 2022

Closed Theater

15 December 2022

Snow

13 December 2022

Downtown

11 December 2022

MA O

One bathroom for everyone.

11 December 2022

Osong Station

Trains go through frequently, but when I showed up, I had to wait a full hour for one headed the right direction for Seoul.

10 December 2022

Iman's League Day 3 in Cheongju

9 December 2022

Iman's League Day 2 at Phillies

Tension was high at the Iman's League show as well.

8 December 2022

Iman's League Day 1 at Craic House

7 December 2022

UAC Zine Fest

No pictures at all from the zine fest.

6 December 2022

Orthodox Church Area

3 December 2022

Phillies Fest

2 December 2022

Namdaemun