26 Around Korea
The Rise of Indoor Skateparks By William Urbanski
Gwangju News, April 2022
gwangjunewsgic.com
TRAVEL
A
s a wee lad in Ontario, Canada, nothing was more exciting or mythical than an indoor skatepark. Even so much as a rumor of an indoor skatepark was enough to make my friends and I pile into a jalopy and hightail it off to the nether regions of the province. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the few and rare skateparks that existed in Ontario were nothing short of legendary and were literal hubs of skateboarding activity and culture. The stories of what tricks were done and what international pros came by to put on a demo are, to this day, firmly etched into my psyche. Not many of these skateparks lasted more than a couple of years at most (skateboarders are not exactly known for their business-prowess), but their effects live on through the ages.
journey, undertaken like a modern-day voyageur, traveling into the vast unknown.
Fast forward twenty-some years and I am happy to see that Korea is undergoing its own golden age of indoor skateparks. While free, outdoor skateparks are not difficult to find countrywide (except for in Gwangju*), they tend to be cookie-cutter and very hit-and-miss in terms of quality and fun factor. Indoor skateparks, on the other hand, are almost always amazing and have excellent build-quality – probably owing to the fact that they are owned and managed by, you know, people who actually skateboard and are not the product of some fat cat in some city hall.
▲ Jeju Pipeline is a wonderland.
During the past winter, after being forced to cancel a trip abroad due to omicron-a-bing-bong restrictions, I decided that instead of bumming around the house like a Grumpy Gus, I would visit several of the newest parks around the country. What follows is a chronicle of that wintertime
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JEJU PIPELINE (@jeju_pipeline)
Distance from Gwangju: 2 hours (by plane and bus)
Located near Seogwipo in the southern region of Jeju, Jeju Pipeline was by far my favorite indoor skatepark experience of the winter. In terms of “adventure,” fun factor, and all-around good times, this place was the best. Taking a flight just to visit a skatepark may sound excessive, but depending on the time of year, flying to Jeju from Gwangju can be both quick and economical. After hopping from the subway to the airport, checking in and finding my way to the plane, it was only a forty-five-minute flight to the island. Being a domestic flight, getting through security and everything was a breeze, and
2022-03-24 �� 9:37:22
