Draining
Second week in a row where the topic ties tightly to my urban exploration habit. This story is about my messiest mistake, and a girl's even messier mistake.

If anyone here's passingly familiar with Korean cinema, there's one horror/comedy/sci fi movie called The Host about a mutated monster living in the storm drain system under Seoul. A family goes after it in search of their missing daughter, and a lot of absurd stuff happens that characterises Korean culture perfectly.

Anyway, the tunnels they filmed it in are all (mostly?) real. I learned about them thanks to a Korean artist who is known for going to these sorts of places and posing for non-erotic nudes. Her work ties in very well with the "filth" theme.

Seoul used to have a lot of streams, but they were covered up to make room for more construction, leaving these bizarre underground rivers across the city. The biggest one has an entrance so huge, you could fly a 747 through tne entrance (it would be shredded by the the pillars very quickly, but it gives you a sense of how huge the tunnel is).

First expedition was Christmas Day 2009. Foreign workers in Korea tend not to have anything special to do for the holidays, so I rounded up the first expedition. Five strong, we got rubber boots, lights, batteries, and more batteries, we got together, and headed in. Immediately we agreed on the rule "No talking about the smell." Keep in mind this isn't a sewage drain or anything, mainly just runoff, but the place had this putrid stench to it I can only describe as wet slime. As it happened we discovered a ledge on the side we could safely walk to avoid water, ice, and uneven rocky ground.

We got about 500 meters in, and the tunnel curved to the point where there was no light coming in from behind. Not long after, we saw a light ahead. At first I thought we were looking at a subway station or some kind of subterranean lighting. When we got close enough, it turned out to be natural lighting from outside. The tunnel stretched 1.6 kilometers and surfaced at an intersection with a railway bridge. The way beyond this was through a five-foot-tall tunnel over thin ice, meaning if we wanted to continue we'd either have to go over the active train tracks or under on the thin ice. I took one tentative step and got a rubber boot full of black viscous sludge. Fortunately we found a way out here so we didn't have to go all the way back down to the river. It was in a surprisingly convenient place for us all, transportation-wise.

Second visit, I came back with a smaller group of three in colder weather, and we made it under in the low tunnel thanks to the thicker ice. It just involved 20 meters of hunched-over sliding across ice. The second leg was much more frightening than the first. There was no dry ledge, so we had to wade in our rubber boots. Along the edge was a small dry area, and we found what appeared to be an animal's jawbone inexplicably lying there. One of my companions put it in her bag. Soon after, we found another, and another, and another, and soon we were counting them by the dozen. All lined up and arranged the same way, inner side down with the jaw pointing back the way we came. Wherever they came from, I'm not sure I want to know. We gave up after about 500 meters, and pledged to come back with more people, weapons, and fire, to fight whatever monsters lay ahead.

We came back two weeks later to try it again, this time with four people. There was Stig, the gigantic Welshman whose feet were too big for all footwear in Korea, who had been on the previous trip, an American girl whose ex-boyfriend was dating my ex-wife, and a Korean girl I was in an "it's complicated" situation with. The weather had warmed a bit, but not enough to totally melt all the ice. It was the day before Valentine's Day, and also Lunar New Year.

We did the first 1.6-kilometer leg fine, and came to the uncomfortably low tunnel under the train tracks. I scooted ahead, camera in hand, wanting to get awkward pictures of the others as they came out the other side. As I neared the other side, I heard a loud crack. The ice in the tunnel cleaved in three places.

Consult the following diamgram, with me positioned over the middle cleave.

|..(exit)..|
|..........|
|..........|
|--cleave--|
|..........|
|cle(me)ave|
|..........|
|--cleave--|
|..........|
|..........|
|..........|
|..........|
|..........|
|..........|
| (next |
| person) |

Basically, the ice opened up like a two-flap trap-door, dropping me perfectly vertically downward. I went straight down, and fortunately the water was only abit less than a meter deep, so I was soaked up to my upper thighs. Plus, I somehow managed to keep my camera dry.

The next person behind me, the Korean girl, shrieked my name and ran to my aid. Worst thing she could've done. I broke the ice in a way that plunged me straight down; she ran to the edge which snapped off, sort of like walking out out on a pirate ship plank and having it fall out from under you. She fell on her back on the ice and slid in with me, certainly getting more of her body submerged, including her backpack.

We were now both trapped in meter-deep water. Somehow we both managed to scramble up on the remaining ice shelf and run for safety back the way we came. I managed to cut up my legs on the sharp edges of the ice, because the best thing to do in this situation is to allow these toxins into your bloodstream. Also in retrospect, fortunately one of the others had a camera out to capture our desperation and the subsequent cleanup.

It was subzero weather, and we were now both soaked in a wet substance that can't quite be classified as water. When I poured out my rubber boots, the fluid was as black as Guinness, only with more of a scent of motor oil and rancid moss. We squeezed out as much of the liquid as we could and went up the escape route, not wanting to freeze to death.

Ultimately her and I decided to take a taxi home for immediate decontamination showers. We decided against the metro because it would be slower and we'd be exposed to more people. Fortunately the taxi driver didn't notice our state. Unfortunately, she ended up getting a different taxi taking her to her own home.

Sometimes I get a whiff of an open drain grating, and it flashes me back to standing thigh-deep in black sludge.

Anyway, I've always said that if you're still clean after going urban exploring, you're doing it wrong.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 14:06, 5 replies)

... and then an anecdote happened.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 15:06, closed)

you leave steed alone, you horrible bully.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 15:57, closed)

soz
I'm sure he'll come back later and get to the bit that's actually interesting. He's probably just resting his fingers in iced water.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 16:20, closed)

...Then we had pie.
What did you expect, other than "We were clean, then we were dirty"?
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Thu 9 Feb 2012, 12:24, closed)

I've clicked 'I like this'
but what I really mean is 'you fucking mentalist'.

You're a braver man than me!
(SimianKid internet faffer, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 15:23, closed)