If one were to crown the most bizarre city in South Korea, many users on r/korea would undoubtedly pick Songdo. Officially known as the Songdo International Business District, this 40 billion USD project is promoted as a smart, green, low-carbon city a fifteen-minute drive and a short flight away from a third of the world’s population.
Little do people realize that the city is far from just about everything else. Songdo is part of Incheon, and to get to the former you have to go through the latter if you’re not coming from the airport. From Seoul I took the subway, which crawled past enormous apartment buildings for what felt like more than an hour. I found myself wondering what Douglas MacArthur — the nuke-loving American general who surprised the invading Korean People’s Army here seventy years ago — would say if he could see what this village of brick and tile had become.
It was all too much for me, or at least for my stomach. By the time my map app was telling me I was in Songdo I was about to collapse from starvation. I staggered out of the subway into the dark gray empty station and wandered South Korea’s usual labyrinthine hallways, stairwells, and escalators echoing with electronic voices until I emerged in the middle of… nowhere. [Korea Expose]
You can read the rest at the link of what was a humorous read about what is likely Korea’s most empty city.
It looks like Songdo is the place to go for anyone looking to fly their drone in the Seoul area:
Songdo in Incheon has become a mecca for local drone developers as it is free of regulations banning the use of drones, making it become a hot spot for drone makers.
Songdo was created by reclaiming 32.3 square kilometers (12.4 square miles) of sea in a mega-project launched in 2003. It is largely free from regulatory measures, as there are no military installations near the area, since it used to be a vast coastal region covered by seawater prior to 2003.
The absence of legal obstacles to fly drones is a boon for gadget developers, as Seoul is ridden with regulations banning the use of drones to protect important facilities such as the presidential office and the government complex building. Gyeonggi is not exempt from state regulations because of its proximity to the inter-Korea border and the presence of military installations there.
“One big advantage to testing a drone in Songdo is that it is without no-fly zones, which are common in Seoul,” said Park Sang-gook, director of the research center for the drone manufacturer We Make Drone. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Using only an LG Electronics cordless vacuum cleaner, two-time U.S. rock climbing champion Sierra Blair-Coyle scales a 33-story skyscraper in Songdo, west of Seoul, on April 27, 2016, in this photo provided on May 23 by the company. LG said the 22-year-old female climber has succeeded in climbing the 140-meter-tall building carrying two LG Cord Zero Cykings on her back and using their suction power. (Yonhap)
