Near-vacant campus in Gwangju.

After a failed attempt to visit Gwangyang's Apricot Village, I rounded up the family and headed to Gwangju. First I bought a new camera at Kumho World---Gwangju's scaled-down version of Seoul's Techno Mart---and reminded myself why I hate buying big-ticket items. Sick of sales people walking away when a white guy comes over to the counter, while fawning over a Korean passerby the next second. Found a nice lady, though, willing to talk to my dumb ass and I ended up getting a newer version of my old Casio Exilim, which I had somehow scratched up in Beijing. (135호, if you're looking to throw some business their way.) As you might have seen from some of my other photos, there was a crescent-shaped scratch across the lens, which threw a . . . well, a crescent-shaped scratch into my pictures and gave my shots a kind of a supernatural look. It was kind of amusing when I was viewing pictures I had taken in a local cemetary, but I can assure you it was less amusing when the Holy Spirit crept into every other fucking shot.

Anyway, I did that, and my aimless strolling led me to 카톨릭대교육원, which I think translates to Catholic University Continuing Education Center, but I'm not 100% sure. I've always enjoyed visiting college campuses. To me they represent youth and hope, and Xenu knows I've squandered enough of both. Yonsei University in Seoul has a nice campus, as does Kangwon National University in Chuncheon. Others still have that tinge of romanticism, but aren't as uniform or as well-groomed as those back home.

I'm not sure how this particular campus is related to the main campus of Gwangju Catholic University, actually in Naju. I can tell you that this one is eerily vacant, and more than half the buildings are run-down and used for storage. A thread on Expatkorea about abandoned buildings in Korea reminded me of this campus, and since I was in the neighborhood I walked on over. Some nice blossoms this time of year, and lots of middle-aged people walking around the otherwise disused back half of campus. Anyone interested in having a look should go out exit 2 of 쌍촌역 on Gwangju's subway line. I have a set of 38 pictures on my flickr page.












Two Jindos chained outside.




Awwwwwww!




Okay, actually taken inside the Shinsegye Department Store.