A sign on the Millennium Seoul Hilton reads "Hilto" on its closing day, Dec. 31, 2022. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

The pandemic was bad overall, but it resulted in temporary good things, windfalls, for certain entities at particular times. Delivery companies and vaccine-making firms certainly had their heyday, and then seemed to die out once pandemic restrictions eased. Another group that did surprisingly well during the pandemic was urban explorers. After all, urban explorers are probably the world's best social distancers.

One of the biggest changes we've seen during the pandemic was the closure of a lot of hotels, including five-star hotels like the Millennium Seoul Hilton.

The Hilton, located not far from where I live, was set to close for good at the end of 2022. The last night of guests staying there would be the night before, meaning the New Year would not be ringed in there.

I had visited the Hilton at the start of 2022, curious to see the model train they have running in the lobby, and also hoping to get up to the roof. On that first trip, I failed, but I found something even weirder.

A large model train set is on display in the lobby of the Millennium Seoul Hilton, Dec. 24, 2022. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

On reaching the top of the stairs, I encountered locked doors cutting off the way up to the helipad. Rather than give up, I went back down to the top floor of suites and simply tried another stairwell. Finally on my third or fourth attempt, I passed a sign pointing toward the "Penthouse," which led to a door that was wide open.

Through that door, I found myself in a large, lavish space on the 23rd floor, with many rooms and some furniture left out, plus art on the walls. Nobody was here, but most of the place had been kept clean, with no dust accumulating anywhere.

The penthouse of the Millennium Seoul Hilton had been sitting vacant but well-tended for years, Dec. 30, 2022. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

I later found out that this 903-square-meter suite had once belonged to Kim Woo-chung, former chairman of Daewoo Group, the builder of the hotel. After his chaebol went belly-up in the 1990s Asian financial crisis, he was able to continue leasing the room for apparently only 328 won per day, according to his contract with Daewoo Development. He was finally forced to surrender it in 2008 when the building's next owner wanted him out. Don't feel bad for him though, as he hadn't been living there, while staying abroad to dodge a corruption investigation and then being sentenced to prison.

In the final week of 2022 before the hotel's closure, I returned again to pay one last visit to the hotel. This time, I had to really try hard to tailgate someone on the elevator, with a lot of failed attempts that hotel staff could have detected easily. Finally I got a ride up to the banquet room on the 20th floor or so, an easy walk up to the top.

All that was different this time was that the door to the helipad was left open, so I was finally able to get onto the roof. I went out, took a flurry of pictures, then saw a crew of workers doing something on the far side of the roof, so I slipped away before they could notice me.

The Millennium Seoul Hilton offers a fantastic panoramic view of the city, Dec. 30, 2022. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

On the morning of New Year's Eve, guests checked out and were ushered out of the hotel for the final time. One other explorer managed to slip into the casino and get a picture of himself at one of the tables; I wasn't so lucky. I went up to Namsan Park where I could see the scenic hotel from uphill, only to find that they had already started taking down its sign from the top, leaving only the five letters "Hilto." The end of an era.

Since then I've been monitoring the site, but haven't made it back inside. There is still a tailor active on site, and it appears the 2022 train set that had been on display in the lobby has been left intact there.

A few weeks after its closing, I ran into a fellow urban explorer at a restaurant. While we were talking abandonments, another guy in earshot mentioned knowing about an abandoned five-star hotel in Gangnam. I tried to correct him, saying it was next to Seoul Station. But it turned out the Ritz-Carlton, which rebranded as Le Meridien Seoul under the Marriott chain, had in fact closed a few years earlier as well.

The two beige towers of Le Meridien Seoul Hotel, earlier a Ritz-Carlton, sit empty in southern Seoul's Gangnam District, Jan. 21, 2023. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

I'd actually been here a year earlier in mid-2019, after the club closed on Feb. 17 that year. The basement had housed a nightclub that gained global notoriety: Burning Sun. On that visit, I found the club locked up, although the hotel was still open. Entering from within the hotel lobby was impossible due to the number of people around. I also found the aboveground entrance to the club.

The entrance to Burning Sun is left open after the hotel's closure, Jan. 17, 2023. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

But now that I knew the whole hotel had closed down, I realized I might now be able to enter the club. I was distressed viewing street view footage of the hotel, realizing how much time had passed in which I could already have been visiting this site, and worried that they may have finally completed the fence around the site. When I arrived, I found that they had given up on completing the fence, years ago but shortly before enclosing the whole site, so entry was easy. Nobody was there, and all doors were open. I was able to walk right into Burning Sun, only to find the room gutted, all furniture and other objects removed other than a few signs and posters on walls.

The interior of the closed Burning Sun nightclub is covered in dust from demolition work, Jan. 17, 2023. Courtesy of Ron Bandun

I've explored some fairly unpleasant places before, including torture rooms on the slope of Mount Nam, but Burning Sun was a particularly meaningful one to me, as it represented something ugly that was still prevalent in Korean society, probably still operating in other dark corners of different exclusive nightclubs with dirty connections to K-pop industry figures.

More recently since then, I returned to the site, to see that heay renovation work has resumed on the building, so we shall see what the future holds.

Ron Bandun is an urban explorer. He has been visiting forgotten, abandoned and forbidden spaces in Korea since 2005, documenting changes and conflicts in the urban environment.