People in South Korea are paying to stay in a 'prison' hotel to escape from their stressful lives

• Prison Inside Me, a hotel in Hongcheon, South Korea, hosts thousands of "inmates" who yearn to escape from their stressful daily lives.
• The facility is meant to operate like a prison, with guests wearing blue uniforms, eating from strict menus, and sleeping in numbered cells.
• Many of Prison Inside Me's guests are students and office workers who need relief from South Korea's "demanding work and academic culture."

HONGCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) - For most people, prison is a place to escape from. For South Koreans in need of a break from the demands of everyday life, a day in a faux jail is the escape.

(Reporting by Minwoo Park and Yijin Kim; Editing by Josh Smith and Darren Schuettler)

"This prison gives me a sense of freedom," said Park Hye-ri, a 28-year-old office worker who paid $90 to spend 24 hours locked up in a mock prison.

Since 2013, the "Prison Inside Me" facility in northeast Hongcheon has hosted more than 2,000 inmates, many of them stressed office workers and students seeking relief from South Korea’s demanding work and academic culture.

"I was too busy," said Park as she sat in a 5-sq-m (54-sq-foot) cell. "I shouldn’t be here right now, given the work I need to do. But I decided to pause and look back at myself for a better life."