I'm sure it'll get a few footnotes in the US media and may even make CNN's ticker, but South Korea just removed an incompetently authoritarian president from power. As a foreigner, it's been illegal for me to participate, but that didn't stop me from attending. Most of the country's urban explorers have been drawn in, looking to prove their rooftopping skills. Here's what I've been able to pull off and some of the adventures I had.
1. Nov. 5. For one of the first protests (possibly the second), downtown becomes cut off by riot police bus walls, making travel on foot difficult. But unlike the year before, there was absolutely no violence.
2. At 11 sharp, the police redeploy to allow traffic back through the square at the center of the protest.
3. Our crew, plus a random Korean guy walking through.
4. Nov. 12. The first protest to report more than 1 million participants. All of downtown was a huge parade of masses of people marching every direction.
5. Taken from on top of a power box.
6. Overlooking Gwanghwamun Plaza, the heart of urban Seoul, where participants hold candles. The white rectangle with the spotlights is where the punk band Crying Nut was performing to a million people. Behind is Gwanghwamun, the gate to Gyeongbok Palace. Behind that palace is Cheong Wa Dae (Blue House) where President Park Geun-hye is probably very afraid.
7. Looking in the other direction, the protest continues all the way south to Sungnyemun, the gate marking the traditional southern boundary of the capital.
8. We got onto the roof of the President Hotel, where shady figures were doing their own monitoring of crowds. I told my friend to shoot as quickly as possible and pocket his card. Within half a minute, the agents approached us and told us to leave.
9. Down in the street, everyone was sitting, and movement was virtually impossible.
10. Using my knowledge of the alley system, I got us through the crowd and within a stone's throw of the center of the protest. It was as thick of a mosh pit. I climbed some scaffolding on some trees to get this picture.
11. Nov. 26. The opposition camp is growing. Elderly people who support the president because they liked her dictator father gather in front of Seoul Station.
12. This protest was even larger than the last one.
13. I met up with a Korean rocket scientist with a taste for rooftops, and we managed to spend a few seconds on a hotel roof overlooking downtown.
14. Instead of leaving as ordered, we got to another roof part. The cluster of tents in the center, with the three red circles in front of the statue, is a sit-in protest by the families who lost their children in the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. They have been in that spot since about June 2014 petitioning to see the president.
15. I managed to work my way onstage to photograph a reggae band performing for the protesters.
16. Dec. 3. I managed to slip between two police buses and get inside the National Museum Of Korean Contemporary History, which had been set up by the government and is suspected of promoting a pro-dictatorship view of Korean history.
17. The protesters march left-to-right.
18. In this image you can see the presidential palace, the blue-roofed building in the upper right.
19. Meanwhile, hard rock band N.EX.T takes the stage.
20. This roof was quite popular with reporters.
21. It is very common for parents to bring their kids to the protests.
22. The Sewol parents prepare to march on the presidential palace. The yellow sign on top of the truck shows the faces of the 300+ mostly children who went down with the ship.
23. I follow the crowd into a dangerous place, up a street completely corralled by riot police buses.
24. After winning a court case, we were legally allowed to come this close to the presidential palace, pictured straight ahead.
25. Turning around to go back, I see how much of a struggle this is gonna be.
26. Wish the focus was right, but none of the riot police on the other side of the bus line wanted to stay still for me to fix that.
27. And now the president has transformed into that spider machine at the end of Wild Wild West.
28. Sad clown woman.
29. The girl on horseback is Chung Yoo-ra, daughter of the president's confidant. They extorted millions of dollars out of Samsung to fund her dressage career, part of why Samsung's leader is in jail right now.
30. On another roof, overlooking Seochon, the neighbourhood where the president lives.
31.
32. The final line of defence around Cheong Wa Dae.
33. Pushing my way out through this for one kilometer was not fun.
34. Dec. 9. The protest shifts south to the National Assembly, where a vote is being held on impeachment. One black and red flag shows a guillotine.
35. Sad clown again!
36. I got to shake Mayor Park Won-soon's hand.
37. A fleet of farming vehicles had been driving up to the capital to take part in the protests, but they had been stopped south of the city. They won a court case saying they could attend, but were asked to leave their vehicles outside the city. Except this one.
38. Dec. 10. More of a celebration than a protest. But we have a long way to go. This was early in the day before the protest was in full swing.
39. Dec. 31. Counterprotesters have begun appearing in larger sizes. They are all elderly.
40. Jan. 21. Following Donald Trump's inauguration, the pro-president protesters begin flying the US flag.
41. They are full of shit. Especially when they claim to have gotten 3 million people out.
42. Last weekend, we were drinking up on a roof and saw the south end of the pro-president protest down there. Looks pretty pitiful, but they are spread out at all times.
Now that the president is out, we have two months to hold an election for the next one, and it's likely the next guy will be a progressive. Relations with the US are touchy right now, and relations with China are melting down, so who knows what the future holds.
I'm going out now to see what the streets are like following the impeachment ruling.