Abandoned Ski Resort, Sokcho-si

 You hear about abandoned places all of the time. There are blogs and many pictures of all the abandoned places around the world. For some reason, these kinds of places attract many people. There's something cool about visiting one of these. It's quite eerie when you walk into an abandoned place and see everything still in it's exact place. Although I don't condone this person, I saw pictures about a man who broke into Fukushima. He took many photographs and everything was still there, from magazines to someone's laundry inside a washing machine. 

There's a ski resort in the Sokcho area of Korea. I'm not sure if I should publicly announce the location because if too many people go, the place might get too many visitors and then closed off completely. However, if you send me a message, I will point you in the right direction. 

You can get to this resort by driving or public transport. It's about 20-25 minutes outside of Sokcho city. I'm unsure about the public transport. There is a little village just outside, which still seems to be in business. I visited during the Chuseok holidays, so it was pretty deserted. To get here, I got a taxi with two others, David and Nashwin. It cost roughly 70,000W to get there and back! The taxi waited for 30 minutes too. Call us crazy, but it was totally worth it. 

We started off from Sokcho's Emart and asked for the resort. The guy seemed confused, but he took us there anyways. On the way we passed a beautiful waterfall. On the way up to the resort, it started raining. Hard! You can imagine how we felt. Anyways, he drove up the mountain, passing ski stores (I'm not sure if these were closed down or still in business as they didn't look in good shape!). Then, he drove to the resort which had a metal chain so cars couldn't get through. He was adamant there was another way. We could have walked through, but the driver didn't want us caught up in the rain. He lost his way, but we managed to find the car park. Someone had moved the concrete barrier so he could drive through, and basically took us right the the resort's doorstep. 

By this point, the resort was nice and clear, you could see the building details and all of the growth that occurred since it's closure. 

We started at the reception, and walked through the building. The building is still structurally secure. There was a creepy swimming pool too, with a stage. 

I'm not sure what the stage was for! There were still signs for the various floors. We didn't explore all of these. It was a little too creepy to walk up and down the dark staircases. Apparently there is a room with a piano still inside.

All of the pension rooms were intact. Some looked like they have been worked on since the closure. All bathrooms had no toilets or showers, but the tiles were intact. There must have been over 100 pensions! All of them abandoned and not in use. 

On the way out of the buildings, the weather shifted completely. From a nice clear day (apart from the down pour), it turned foggy. The buildings were covered in fog, you couldn't see the detail anymore.

 It was hard to see a few feet in front. It was a little creepy, it definitely added to the eeriness.  

I would definitely go back another time, just to explore the other floors of the building.

 Maybe make a short horror/comedy, or camp (people who know me will know how freaked I would be if I camped in the dark...>_<)! There was also a ski lift which we didn't get to see as it was so foggy!

Here is a video that Nashwin made.

'till next time, 

Kelly

*Some photo's are credited to Nashwin Rammayas, check out his blog here*