After my visit to the
live tiger the weekend before, I had plans the next weekend to go to Gwangju, another distant Korean city. My original reason was for a punk show, but on looking into the tiger's case, we discovered she was to be shipped to a zoo in Gwangju. So I figured that gave me an extra reason to visit the city. Additionally, a friend living down there agreed to meet up and drive me around, and said he could show me an abandoned prison there.
1. Here is one of the three active tiger enclosures, and probably the nicest. However, we had been told (by the closed zoo) that the receiving zoo had delayed the transfer so they could build a facility for a new tiger; we saw no such facility.
2. Unless this is the new facility, in which case, she's better off in the closed zoo.
3. Anyway, onwards from the animal prison to the human one.
4. I remarked that I would find it condescending to be imprisoned in a place with a mascot.
5. "Welcome!"
6. My friend had already explored here a handful of times, so my goal was to try taking all the weirdest turns and see if I could get to any area he hadn't seen yet.
7. I got into this hallway, and in the distance I saw...my friend.
8. I waded through this dry grass thinking maybe he hadn't been out here.
9. He heard the noise I was making and followed after me.
10. He led me to the solitary confinement area.
11. The cells looked like this, with a door on the far side leading to a squatter. Apparently the inmates had autonomy over decorating, including wallpaper.
12.
13. Actual lighting.
14.
15. The hallways were mesmerising.
16. We found a recently dead dog down this hallway, which I don't feel like sharing.
17. Heading to a guard tower.
18. Follow the link for the panorama view.
https://daehanmind...30211prison/57.jpg 19. When we came down, we caught a glimpse of some kind of animal running away through this heavy brush. He thought it was a wild boar, but from what I saw it ran more like a deer, albeit a surprisingly large one for Korea. We looked around but could find no more traces of it.
20. Here are some of its tracks.
21. Not pictured, but its scat looked more like dog crap than deer droppings.
My friend has explored a lot more of this site and recorded a lot of its details, so I was content to just go with the flow and not work too hard.
