Mixed visits, two done over Chinese New Year and two done in April. Please note there is one additional report which I have not posted here, as it will be saved for a later report.
Though not the most practical time of year to travel in Taiwan, I took the time that we were all free from work to do some more exploring, to tick off what still remains an innumerable number of sites left to do. So as things began, I took an early train down to Tainan on a Tuesday and immediately rented a scooter for 2 days. The initial targets were 3 elementary schools which had closed over 2023, all of which were within a reasonably short driving distance with one another. Their present status (i.e. explorable and fully derelict, or closed and used for storage and so on) was unknown. All three were small schools that served children of local villages and towns in the mountains of Gaoxiong county, and as you will already know from my previous reports on Taiwan's derelict schools... they closed because of a birthrate that continues to fall year on year.
Unfortunately, although it was not entirely unexpected... all 3 were failures. All 3 schools were still in mint condition, possibly still maintained and even converted for alternative uses. School number 1 was completely locked up, so whilst I could see inside all of the classrooms that were still full of books, TVs and files, and even an intact medical bay, there was no way in. School number 2 was very much the same, with the announcement board still powered up to say that it was not accessible to the public after hours (for your reference: school grounds usually open to the public out of hours for sport and fitness purposes). Walking in, all classrooms were locked tight, and most of the furnishings were either removed or ready to be taken away. Then there was school number 3. Again the announcement board was still on and displaying messages for students and parents, and I walked straight into the grounds. I noticed some of the classroom doors were padlocked, whilst others were not. Picking a classroom door at random, I open the door to the inside...
“異常發生，異常發生，異常發生。。。" This translates as abnormal activity into English, and it's a familiar sound to me. For all site security across Taiwan, 9 out of 10 places use the same equipment and security service, which means they use exactly the same security setup. In this case it wasn't a PIR as you're more likely to be familiar with as an urban explorer, but a door trigger. Whenever you open a door and break the magnetic switch, the alarm goes off. So the only thing I could do, rather than stick around to see whatever was left, was to run away and drive off. 5 minutes later I look down from the road on top of the hill, and somebody is walking away from the same door, having presumably reset the alarm.
The secret college
Then there were two more failures. One was the 新建國戲院/Xinjianguo cinema which although still derelict remains firmly locked and inaccessible. The next was a failure of courage and determination on my part... @Unsympathetica and I both knew about a college, and he had looked at it a few days before myself and tried to explore it. We actually did get in the dorm block opposite the site, but this is now ruined to within an inch of its life and completely sabotaged by metal theft and vandalism. So onto the main block... although one of his contacts had successfully found a way in, @Unsympathetica was not so lucky. I said I'd go and have a look to see if I could succeed where he had failed. This place had security stickers pinned to its doors and a point for a key fob, so I knew it had some degree of protection. I turned up with @quick draw magraw, and found two ways in. Unfortunately I chose the easier of the two, and with my body halfway inside I spotted a PIR next to a door and jumped back out of the window, my ring cutting into my finger as it got caught on the frame. This could have been an illusion on my part, but since my brain was in primal fear mode I assumed that if I got inside by any means the alarm would go off and it would be game over.
As I said there are ways into this now-unnamed site, but unfortunately as a photo from my phone revealed to me, again the fire doors are fitted with magnetic switches which means if you unlock one and open it, the alarm sounds and alerts the remote security team. Once this does get done this will be posted in non-public as it feels like a high risk site, as you will (hopefully) realise when you see what actually lies within...
Day two, the exploring begins
With @quick draw magraw still back in Tainan and me in Gaoxiong, I took the time to start the day with a cinema that I found from extensive map scouring. This one again is another cinema that has been derelict for at least 30 years, with even the original and even longer-derelict shell of the original cinema next door to it too! Unfortunately this one was a failure because like a few other cinemas in Taiwan, this one was built above shops that left no access from the ground floor whatsoever, hence it has remained unexplored. Half of these shops were derelict, whilst the other half were still in use but closed for Chinese New Year celebrations. Under the gaze of suspicious old ladies looking down at me from their balconies, I searched high and low for a way in but it was no use. If I ever do succeed in accessing this place, it would take outlandish efforts to do so... so that's why I'll leave it until later this year.
I have looked at this school once before, but ignored it to focus on bigger projects at the time. As you will see in the pictures below, it's an absolutely enormous school built over 29000 square metres, with 6 floors that go around an O-shaped block with the sports field in the middle. I had high expectations for this one given its size and seeing how other schools have stunned me with what remains in at least 3 other cases. However I left feeling that there was nothing truly exceptional about it, with many of the classrooms stripped and with fewer interesting features than other schools that I have visited. Nevertheless I took the time to explore it in as much detail as possible, at first going solo before meeting @quick draw magraw an hour into my visit.
The school was built as a private vocational school in 1965 and closed in August 2022 because of reasons you already know, and according to the most recent news report is due to be completely demolished in 2025 with plans either for a transport hub or as social housing.
A sign that other explorers have visited before me... 廢墟 translates as ruins, but 野祼 is impossible to translate.
Unlike other schools, this one looked like it had been closed far longer, but in reality the place has seen others enter, kicking in padlocked doors and stealing the metal inside. Indeed, the top floor looked like it had been disused for decades (which in truth is not impossible, judging by another school I've explored) because all of the ceilings had collapsed and made the classrooms either difficult or impossible to enter.
The best part of the school by far was the artwork in the south wing, being from a bygone style not entirely dissimilar to North Korean murals. I know that's a crass comparison, but it's the only way to describe them in my mind!
As I walked into this classroom after seeing little that truly stood out, seeing the Annie collapsed in a chair absolutely shook me to my core, thinking it was a sleeping homeless person!
Staff files found in an archives room
Far from the greatest site I've seen here in Taiwan, but it's another pin that I can remove from my extensive map. @quick draw magraw said he'd never seen anything like this back in his motherland, so he was satisfied and that's a bonus from being his guide I suppose. We did look at one derelict cinema after this, however whilst the original doors and projection room remained, the upstairs and downstairs had been cut up into living space then abandoned decades ago so there was little photographic merit. Then there was the rail works, which although was not impossible to access was heavily protected by extensive CCTV, gate guards, stray dogs and an active patrol which ruled out any chance of exploring it.
Part 2 to follow in the next post.
Chinese New Year, February 2024
The elementary schools
Though not the most practical time of year to travel in Taiwan, I took the time that we were all free from work to do some more exploring, to tick off what still remains an innumerable number of sites left to do. So as things began, I took an early train down to Tainan on a Tuesday and immediately rented a scooter for 2 days. The initial targets were 3 elementary schools which had closed over 2023, all of which were within a reasonably short driving distance with one another. Their present status (i.e. explorable and fully derelict, or closed and used for storage and so on) was unknown. All three were small schools that served children of local villages and towns in the mountains of Gaoxiong county, and as you will already know from my previous reports on Taiwan's derelict schools... they closed because of a birthrate that continues to fall year on year.
Unfortunately, although it was not entirely unexpected... all 3 were failures. All 3 schools were still in mint condition, possibly still maintained and even converted for alternative uses. School number 1 was completely locked up, so whilst I could see inside all of the classrooms that were still full of books, TVs and files, and even an intact medical bay, there was no way in. School number 2 was very much the same, with the announcement board still powered up to say that it was not accessible to the public after hours (for your reference: school grounds usually open to the public out of hours for sport and fitness purposes). Walking in, all classrooms were locked tight, and most of the furnishings were either removed or ready to be taken away. Then there was school number 3. Again the announcement board was still on and displaying messages for students and parents, and I walked straight into the grounds. I noticed some of the classroom doors were padlocked, whilst others were not. Picking a classroom door at random, I open the door to the inside...
“異常發生，異常發生，異常發生。。。" This translates as abnormal activity into English, and it's a familiar sound to me. For all site security across Taiwan, 9 out of 10 places use the same equipment and security service, which means they use exactly the same security setup. In this case it wasn't a PIR as you're more likely to be familiar with as an urban explorer, but a door trigger. Whenever you open a door and break the magnetic switch, the alarm goes off. So the only thing I could do, rather than stick around to see whatever was left, was to run away and drive off. 5 minutes later I look down from the road on top of the hill, and somebody is walking away from the same door, having presumably reset the alarm.
The secret college
Then there were two more failures. One was the 新建國戲院/Xinjianguo cinema which although still derelict remains firmly locked and inaccessible. The next was a failure of courage and determination on my part... @Unsympathetica and I both knew about a college, and he had looked at it a few days before myself and tried to explore it. We actually did get in the dorm block opposite the site, but this is now ruined to within an inch of its life and completely sabotaged by metal theft and vandalism. So onto the main block... although one of his contacts had successfully found a way in, @Unsympathetica was not so lucky. I said I'd go and have a look to see if I could succeed where he had failed. This place had security stickers pinned to its doors and a point for a key fob, so I knew it had some degree of protection. I turned up with @quick draw magraw, and found two ways in. Unfortunately I chose the easier of the two, and with my body halfway inside I spotted a PIR next to a door and jumped back out of the window, my ring cutting into my finger as it got caught on the frame. This could have been an illusion on my part, but since my brain was in primal fear mode I assumed that if I got inside by any means the alarm would go off and it would be game over.
As I said there are ways into this now-unnamed site, but unfortunately as a photo from my phone revealed to me, again the fire doors are fitted with magnetic switches which means if you unlock one and open it, the alarm sounds and alerts the remote security team. Once this does get done this will be posted in non-public as it feels like a high risk site, as you will (hopefully) realise when you see what actually lies within...
Day two, the exploring begins
With @quick draw magraw still back in Tainan and me in Gaoxiong, I took the time to start the day with a cinema that I found from extensive map scouring. This one again is another cinema that has been derelict for at least 30 years, with even the original and even longer-derelict shell of the original cinema next door to it too! Unfortunately this one was a failure because like a few other cinemas in Taiwan, this one was built above shops that left no access from the ground floor whatsoever, hence it has remained unexplored. Half of these shops were derelict, whilst the other half were still in use but closed for Chinese New Year celebrations. Under the gaze of suspicious old ladies looking down at me from their balconies, I searched high and low for a way in but it was no use. If I ever do succeed in accessing this place, it would take outlandish efforts to do so... so that's why I'll leave it until later this year.
I have looked at this school once before, but ignored it to focus on bigger projects at the time. As you will see in the pictures below, it's an absolutely enormous school built over 29000 square metres, with 6 floors that go around an O-shaped block with the sports field in the middle. I had high expectations for this one given its size and seeing how other schools have stunned me with what remains in at least 3 other cases. However I left feeling that there was nothing truly exceptional about it, with many of the classrooms stripped and with fewer interesting features than other schools that I have visited. Nevertheless I took the time to explore it in as much detail as possible, at first going solo before meeting @quick draw magraw an hour into my visit.
The school was built as a private vocational school in 1965 and closed in August 2022 because of reasons you already know, and according to the most recent news report is due to be completely demolished in 2025 with plans either for a transport hub or as social housing.
A sign that other explorers have visited before me... 廢墟 translates as ruins, but 野祼 is impossible to translate.
Unlike other schools, this one looked like it had been closed far longer, but in reality the place has seen others enter, kicking in padlocked doors and stealing the metal inside. Indeed, the top floor looked like it had been disused for decades (which in truth is not impossible, judging by another school I've explored) because all of the ceilings had collapsed and made the classrooms either difficult or impossible to enter.
The best part of the school by far was the artwork in the south wing, being from a bygone style not entirely dissimilar to North Korean murals. I know that's a crass comparison, but it's the only way to describe them in my mind!
As I walked into this classroom after seeing little that truly stood out, seeing the Annie collapsed in a chair absolutely shook me to my core, thinking it was a sleeping homeless person!
Staff files found in an archives room
Far from the greatest site I've seen here in Taiwan, but it's another pin that I can remove from my extensive map. @quick draw magraw said he'd never seen anything like this back in his motherland, so he was satisfied and that's a bonus from being his guide I suppose. We did look at one derelict cinema after this, however whilst the original doors and projection room remained, the upstairs and downstairs had been cut up into living space then abandoned decades ago so there was little photographic merit. Then there was the rail works, which although was not impossible to access was heavily protected by extensive CCTV, gate guards, stray dogs and an active patrol which ruled out any chance of exploring it.
Part 2 to follow in the next post.
