Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

Outside of Seoul, South Korea

While I was living and working in Korea in 2014, I kept hearing about this place outside of Seoul. It was an abandoned mental hospital that had been shut down in 1996. Mental health generally wasn’t treated well, and I guess some methods are still a bit problematic even today. 

I found a friend who was willing to come with me. We were living in Jeonju and decided to take the bus up to Seoul for the weekend. Upon arrival at the station in Seoul, we transferred to a big metro transfer area to leave our bags since we wanted to immediately board the city bus to take us to this area. All we had was a dot on google maps and our determination. 

The bus out to this suburban area took about an hour. We found the closest stop along the highway to get off and start walking toward the dot. We walked for another 15 minutes to the road that would take us to the entrance. As we walked the road, a light rain started to fall and the clouds were getting greyer. Finally, we found the entrance that we had seen in photos and discovered the barbed wire and signs warning us not to proceed that it was private property and dangerous to enter. We took some photos and kept walking past the gate to find a way to get in. We rounded this bend and followed the fence until we could see it stopped. From that point, it seemed the only thing between us and the hospital was a hill. 

The hill was kind of steep and full of pine needles that made the ground very slippery. Cautiously, we made our way to the top of the hill and we saw the hospital in front of us. The only other barriers we noticed was the steep hill down with more pineneedles preventing our foot grip and a ditch at the bottom that we would have to find a way to cross carefully to enter the property.  As we entered the property, a light rain started to fall. 

We succeeded. We walked from the back of the building to the front to find the entrance. The main door was closed off but there was a tiny crawl space at the bottom of the barred doors and crawl, we did. When we got inside, it was very dark even though it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The wind was blowing down the hallways and through the windows, making the doors slam and echo on all sides. This properly freaked us out. We didn’t have an actual flashlight on us so we had to use the light from our phones. We methodically walked through the hallway propping the doors open so they couldn’t slam and scare us anymore. 

On the floor there were papers, calendars, debris from the furniture and walls. It looked like a bomb had gone off. We saw some of the patient rooms, nurses’ desk, some offices, bathrooms, dining hall, and an outdoor exercise place. Even though we didn’t experience anything supernatural, it was haunting to see the place left in that state. Some of the medical equipment was still there and some of the papers from old patients were just lying around. As someone who really struggled with my own mental health while living and working in South Korea, I was unsettled by the thought of being locked up in such a facility.

Thinking back, I would have come more prepared with proper lighting and maybe some gloves. I would have tried to be a little more adventurous by trying to get into some of the other spaces around the hospital.  There was another building but we couldn’t get in at all. Also, we were intimidated to enter the rooms much because we didn’t know how sturdy the floors were or what was under some of the furniture that had been flipped over or broken down. In the end we only had about an hour and a half to wander around because sunlight was dwindling as the days were still short in the early spring. 

It was such an adventure though. I traveled so far to get there and I still can’t believe I convinced my friend to come with me. The feeling of success when you finally get in is incredible. Plus with all the trees in bloom, even in the spooky and gloomy weather, it was gorgeous. More than anything, I consider myself blessed to have made it at all since in 2018 it was completely torn down.