Solo jaunts.
As this month was my birthday month, I decided to head to a city that I haven't seen too much of in my 7 years of in Taiwan, either derelict or touristy: Tainan. Whilst I'd be enjoying the food after a day's exploring, I had other sites bookmarked on my map which I think would provide a fruitful two days of exploring. There were four sites I had listed within the city limits, and three in the neighbouring towns which I'd do on the second day, and I think it was a good run for only two days; 4 full successes, two fails and one half-fail, half-success. Plus two bonus sites for trains. And the best of all is that these are all sites that have only been done by a select few, those which are only known to those who are in the loop on the exploring scene in Taiwan, which means I go in with the absolute beauty of NEVER knowing what to expect. That, as we will all know makes exploring far more exciting than visiting a honeypot site like you'd expect to do in the UK or Europe.
The first site was a "porn cinema", Jianguo Theater (建國戲院，externals available here) which was a fail. I walked round looking for a way in, only to find the front doors locked and the wall on the east side protected by glass and barbed wire. Plus the neighbours knew the owners, who they said lived opposite and that I couldn't just jump in. They were nice enough, but they made themselves clear that I was not allowed to go inside. So then it was onward to another cinema, Dongan Theater. This one is a more complex story, which I will detail later on in this thread. For now all you need to know is that it was a fail... until later in the day.
城光中學/Chengguang High School
As you will have seen from my older reports on Taiwan's schools, this again is a victim of the same issue that Taiwan faces: a seriously low birth rate. Going on Wikipedia's page, details are scant as is to be expected. All that I know is that it was built in 1963, and student enrolment ended in 2017 and is now derelict. As of 2023, the Ministry of Education (MoE) have applied to convert the buildings into a care clinic for dementia patients.
As for the explore itself, it was a very chilled one as schools generally are here. Just walk in and have free roam, with no security to be fearful of or annoying locals that won't mind their own business. That said, as it is a recent closure and by nature of its design, there were still a number of rooms which were locked and inaccessible, so it was a case of just walking up and down the balcony corridors getting lucky and finding an unlocked door or open window; if they were locked, then there was no way you were getting inside. In this case thankfully most of the doors were open, which is the opposite of my experiences at the next school...
The only problem was that like I've said before, if you've seen one school then you've seen them all... nearly. So whilst they all (and this one definitely!) have features that you won't find in another one, you do know what to expect from site to site. So unless there is something that really pushes it beyond anything else, it can never truly be an epic experience.
I don't know if this was done before or after closure, because I can't imagine a teacher allowing a pupil to stick gay over a poster for a K-Pop band...
The red banner denotes a graduation ceremony that took place in the school's 52nd year, which would have been 2015.
This room was absolutely stunning, and pushed this place from being a deeply mediocre and uninteresting place to one that was actually really special! Just look and you'll see why...
Abandoned taxidermy and pickled specimens, which is something that I've never seen in 15 years of exploring anywhere. Certainly not in a school!
Hidden in one of the upper levels in the cabinet was this preserved chicken specimen.
...and some snakes...
Dinky toys from all over the world, found in an upstairs classroom.
The rear building was firmly locked, but I managed to get into parts of the front admin, where the dormitories were. Not much privacy if you slept here, with row upon row of beds all packed closely together.
Part 2 to follow.
As this month was my birthday month, I decided to head to a city that I haven't seen too much of in my 7 years of in Taiwan, either derelict or touristy: Tainan. Whilst I'd be enjoying the food after a day's exploring, I had other sites bookmarked on my map which I think would provide a fruitful two days of exploring. There were four sites I had listed within the city limits, and three in the neighbouring towns which I'd do on the second day, and I think it was a good run for only two days; 4 full successes, two fails and one half-fail, half-success. Plus two bonus sites for trains. And the best of all is that these are all sites that have only been done by a select few, those which are only known to those who are in the loop on the exploring scene in Taiwan, which means I go in with the absolute beauty of NEVER knowing what to expect. That, as we will all know makes exploring far more exciting than visiting a honeypot site like you'd expect to do in the UK or Europe.
The first site was a "porn cinema", Jianguo Theater (建國戲院，externals available here) which was a fail. I walked round looking for a way in, only to find the front doors locked and the wall on the east side protected by glass and barbed wire. Plus the neighbours knew the owners, who they said lived opposite and that I couldn't just jump in. They were nice enough, but they made themselves clear that I was not allowed to go inside. So then it was onward to another cinema, Dongan Theater. This one is a more complex story, which I will detail later on in this thread. For now all you need to know is that it was a fail... until later in the day.
城光中學/Chengguang High School
As you will have seen from my older reports on Taiwan's schools, this again is a victim of the same issue that Taiwan faces: a seriously low birth rate. Going on Wikipedia's page, details are scant as is to be expected. All that I know is that it was built in 1963, and student enrolment ended in 2017 and is now derelict. As of 2023, the Ministry of Education (MoE) have applied to convert the buildings into a care clinic for dementia patients.
As for the explore itself, it was a very chilled one as schools generally are here. Just walk in and have free roam, with no security to be fearful of or annoying locals that won't mind their own business. That said, as it is a recent closure and by nature of its design, there were still a number of rooms which were locked and inaccessible, so it was a case of just walking up and down the balcony corridors getting lucky and finding an unlocked door or open window; if they were locked, then there was no way you were getting inside. In this case thankfully most of the doors were open, which is the opposite of my experiences at the next school...
The only problem was that like I've said before, if you've seen one school then you've seen them all... nearly. So whilst they all (and this one definitely!) have features that you won't find in another one, you do know what to expect from site to site. So unless there is something that really pushes it beyond anything else, it can never truly be an epic experience.
I don't know if this was done before or after closure, because I can't imagine a teacher allowing a pupil to stick gay over a poster for a K-Pop band...
The red banner denotes a graduation ceremony that took place in the school's 52nd year, which would have been 2015.
This room was absolutely stunning, and pushed this place from being a deeply mediocre and uninteresting place to one that was actually really special! Just look and you'll see why...
Abandoned taxidermy and pickled specimens, which is something that I've never seen in 15 years of exploring anywhere. Certainly not in a school!
Hidden in one of the upper levels in the cabinet was this preserved chicken specimen.
...and some snakes...
Dinky toys from all over the world, found in an upstairs classroom.
The rear building was firmly locked, but I managed to get into parts of the front admin, where the dormitories were. Not much privacy if you slept here, with row upon row of beds all packed closely together.
Part 2 to follow.
