The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast
Ghost Science
What if a ghost is a recording instead of a soul? Shawn explains stone tape theory, the boy who plays around a nearly 400-year-old zelkova tree at Gye...
Slaves, Bastards, and Bureaucrats | The Fall of Joseon, Part 19 (1801-1803)
King Jeongjo is dead, his reforms are on life support, and the woman holding the throne is making moves that will shape Korean politics for the next c...
The History of Korean Horror
Justin Kyle from the Straight Chilling Podcast joins Joe and Shawn to walk through the history of Korean horror cinema decade by decade, from silent-e...
The Problem with Korean Ghosts
Why do ghosts conveniently conform to the culture of the people seeing them? Korean folklore gives us the cheonyeo gwishin, Western traditions have th...
The Museum That Won't Tell You Its Own Story
A brand-new free museum just opened under Insadong in Seoul, built on six years of archaeological excavation exposing the city as it looked right befo...
Tourist Season: How is Insa-dong?
Insa-dong may be marketed as the heart of traditional Seoul, but the neighborhood’s history is far more complicated than the souvenir shops and tea ho...
Tourist Season: Nami Island & Tourist Trap River
Nami Island is one of Korea’s most promoted tourist destinations, but how did it get that way? We dig into its strange history, Winter Sonata, the sel...
Tourist Season: The Dark Side of Korean Tourist Sites
As part of our Tourist Season summer replay series, we're revisiting one of our favorite travel episodes from the archive. Behind Korea's most famous ...
Tourist Season: Tourists from Hell
Every tour guide has stories. Joe and Shawn's are just funnier and pettier than most.
The Ulsan Family Tragedy
A father and his four young children were found dead in their Ulsan home after months of financial hardship, leaving behind heartbreaking questions ab...