A few weeks ago, it was revealed that a hitherto-unknown walkway had been discovered and disclosed to the public. This created a bit of a bunny pile, as people were eager to get a glimpse of it.

It was reported in The Guardian, as well as by the local newspaper I work for. So a reporter I work with announced its discovery in English, and then she also got to go on the tour. She also gave me some useful intel: the tours last 50 minutes, but are two hours apart.

The city always does this: it opened up a limited number of tours, with reservations opening at 9am on a particular day. The reservations for all filled up within about five minutes.

They allowed a limited number of walk-ins, and one other guy in my local UE network managed to get in on one of those. He helped feed me information about where the tour entered the tunnel and where it emerged.

1. Where it begins is at a toy library.


2. Located at a central subway station.


3. That's the door.


4. I walked through the door once into this space, to confront a single city worker there asking him about walk-ins like my friend had. He turned me away. I inwardly thanked him. This picture was taken on another earlier peek, when no one was there


5. This is apparently the oldest underground shopping mall in the country. It's not very popular though. Lots of nichey stuff and touristy stuff. I got into the rhythm of following behind slow-walking people so I could take advantage of openings to enter certain places.


6. I would like to add that this stalking process involved "piano stairs."


7. Through my friend, I knew where they exited from the tunnel, so I went there to find it completely unguarded, and totally unlocked. I poked my head in and took this picture. But on this day, I was late for a party.


8. Across the street at the UK Embassy was the RAS Garden Party, which I was late for. RAS Korea is the world's oldest Korean studies organisation, founded in 1900, and it has become a meeting point for the more scholarly urban explorers in the country, at least the foreign ones.


9. After the British ambassador kicked us out, I ran back.


10. But the door had been locked. Turns out, they only keep that door open while the tours are active, and now I was locked out.


11. I waited until the next tours were offered. Here's a picture of the tour exit point, which I share here only.


12. I was able to slip in no problem.


13. I suppose tunnels don't have exits and entrances, but I was walking from the exit toward the entrance where city officials working on the tours were stationed. Around the back part of the tunnel, there were lights on.


14. Further along, it got hairier.


15. I'd heard about this building booger, and with limited equipment this was the best shot I could get.


16. Here's the way out. My entry point was at the top of those stairs.


17. After exiting, I went back to the entrance, where the tour would be starting in over 30 minutes. I had been told at 30 minutes they'd start accepting walk-ins. But nobody was ever around. At this point I walked through the door mentioned earlier and was turned back. So I was like, time to go grab better equipment. And then I came back and did something like this.


18. In this one I've got the exposure set on bulb, and you can see me walking through lighting it up. When I got to the end, I could see the light from the starting point ahead, and worrying I might alert them, I restricted my activities.


19. I set up my tripod and lightpainted this mofo.


20. Oh yeah also I saw this pretty amazing graffiti, at least amazing in how shitty it was but also how remote.


21. Last, I came out coated in sweat and carrying all my gear, so I went into this shop which sported 7-Eleven colours, only to buy a Pepsi that cost more than 500 won than it would elsewhere.


The articles presented the disclosure of this hidden space as if it were some great mystery, but I think it's pretty apparent, albeit with more questions that need answering: It's just like all the other underground passages, just never finished.

There is so much more beneath our feet every day, at least in central Seoul, and the general public got a vague picture of this.

Thanks to Dr Paper Bag signing up on this site, I've suddenly discovered a network of native Korean explorers. One of them made this video of the Hidden Space. It shows the curated experience I would have liked to go on, but also that I skipped.

Here I rant about what the hidden space could be turned into: a live music venue.

https://www.koreat...09/197_360118.html