Seodaemun Prison and History Hall- Seoul, South Korea

Front of Seodaemun Prison and History Hall

One of the most underrated places in Seoul is the Seodaemun Prison and History Hall. When you walk in on the first floor, you'll get a great history lesson of what led up to the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1910 from Japan's war with Russia to Japan's war with China. Then you'll see how the Japanese occupation began.

Next, you'll see how Seodaemun Prison was made and you can see an interactive model of the prison and each function of the prison. It's really intriguing especially after you get out of the history hall and see the real prison before your eyes. As you make your way around the first floor, you'll come to a room with a lot of pictures and identifications of the thousands of prisoners that occupied Seodaemun Prison. This wasn't there last time. The Korean government made it legal for their pictures to be released. It was pretty sad seeing real faces of innocent victims of people that wanted to fight against the oppression of invaders in their country:

You'll also get familiar with Yoo Gwan Sun, who was a brave woman that was a martyr. She wasn't afraid to express her anger and displeasure of what was happening to her country. Later, you'll see a picture of the women that were put into this prison. There was a separate cell only for women.

Then you'll be led downstairs into the basement where the torture chambers used to be. There were two things that stuck out in my mind most. One is that the Japanese used sharp sticks to insert under the prisoner's fingernails to get them to either pledge their allegiance to Japan or to reveal important information. The other was a special box that people were put into that prisoners could not stand or sit properly. Thinking about how much pain the prisoners had to endure was difficult to ponder and just purely unimaginable. In the following picture, here's a mock interrogation room of Japanese soldiers questioning a prisoner:

You'll notice how cold it is during the winter since the basement is made mostly out of stone. Imagine how it would be without the doors and heating system. It must have been pretty unbearable.

Once you finish up in the basement, this will lead you to the main part of the prison. You'll see the flag of South Korea on one side. They used to have two flags (one on each side), but the other flag was moved and hung on another building.

You'll see the prisoner's exercise facility. Each prisoner was separated by a wall so that they couldn't talk to each other. One guard would stand at the end while the prisoner exercised in his limited amount of space.

Gyeokbekjang Exercise Facility

You'll also be able see the actual prison cells where the prisoners were held. You'll even get a description of many of the people that were held there including pastors, politicians, or just ordinary people that wanted to stand up for their country. Various things are on display: things that they owned, a letter that one prisoner wrote, and a biography of the people that were held captive.

Finally, my wife and I made it to the women's prisoner's cell. This was also sad because there were also pictures of the female prisoners on display.

 The whole experience made me thankful that I had a life of freedom and didn't have to worry about each word I say or each action that I do. I pray for the people in North Korea that go through these kinds of situations on a daily basis. I also pray for those that are going through difficult circumstances in life that they can't control (people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, etc.).

Cost: W3,000
Location: Dongnimmun Station (Line 3), Exit 5.
Length of Time Needed: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Operating Hours:
From March until October: 9:00am-6:00pm
From November until February: 9:00am-5:30pm


Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy