While you all were compaining about Santa Claus flying around your screen whenever you logged into UER in December, in real life he was busy fighting monsters underground in Korea. And banging your mom.
It has been a
ritual since 2009 to celebrate Christmas in Korea by entering a massive underground river and hunting the monster from the
Korean film The Host.
The first explorer to visit this site was
Kim Miru in summer 2009, and on Christmas Day 2009 five of us entered with the intent of seeing where it led.
One of my companions on our first visit is now a
political prisoner in China. He was on his way to Korea when he was abducted last month, so his absence weighed on me over this last holiday season.
1. Before meeting the others, I scouted the tunnel entrance, noting that there was active construction at the site, Saturday afternoon before Christmas. Workers were above the wooden scaffolding and didn't notice me. I figured I could slip by them, but wasn't confident we all could.
2. So rather than take the usual route, we started upstream at the Bone Tunnel, entrance pictured below. From there, we could wander downstream to the river, and I figured it would be easier to bring our group out under any workers rather than in.
3. This year we went with only four people, the smallest group ever, partly due to a lot of people leaving Korea, partly because of my busy work schedule that made it impossible for a number of other more experienced explorers to join us.
Last year in comparison we probably had up to 20 people. One dude even invited three Tinder matches along, which was a stupid idea.
The four of us were an interesting group. One is a YouTuber, two are skilled academics who have proven invaluable to urban exploring, one is a reporter, and one is a drunk Santa. Up to you to figure out where the overlap is.
4. This underground river is downstream of a major US military garrison, and there are international issues with
waste leaking from that site. I'd heard reports of high benzine levels in the water, so I brought along a CD of the
Korean punk band Benzene for a photo shoot.
5. Santa Claus saw something moving in the shadows ahead and opened fire.
6.
7. Santa pops a squat.
8. This ladder is a usual exit point, or sometimes an entry point, but this particular day there was an elderly dude relaxing at an alley entrance up above so we had to avoid this way.
9. We walked downstream until we reached the river, right around peak blue hour.
10. After that, we went to a bar next to active train tracks where there was a friendly cat.
11. Then we had a feast at a nearby dakgalbi restaurant.
