Category Urban Exploration
A couple of weeks ago my friend told me he had found a bunch of abandoned buildings in central Hsinchu, not far from where I live. One Saturday when I had a bit of time for myself I grabbed my camera and my flashlight and went to check them out.
Since becoming interested in urban exploration I’ve been to all kinds of abandoned buildings; factories, hotels, amusement parks, police stations, military tunnels, temples and so on. This list of course includes ordinary houses but as I started to explore the first one, I soon realized this was more than just … Read the rest
I’ve previously written about what I like to call neglected spaces, those places that are not fully abandoned but rarely see any use. An interesting example of such a place is the Putian Temple which sits on a hill overlooking Hsinchu City. The temple itself is in use and seems to have a fair amount of visitors. However, on the hillside below it it is a semi-abandoned park full of weird statues, that becomes more overgrown and dilapidated the further you get from the main building. Actually the temple itself is pretty weird as well. Instead of trying (and … Read the rest
In Hsinchu City, not far from the very center, is a hill somewhat ambitiously called 18 Peaks Mountain. As you might guess, it’s not much of a mountain but local people like to go there for “hiking“ and jogging. The main entrance is big with several parking lots nearby but there is also a second entrance on the backside. Actually there are two entrances on the backside, the nice new one and the dilapidated old one. Last weekend I took my son out for some toddler friendly hiking and figured it could be fun to try the backside entrance. … Read the rest
Finding and exploring abandoned buildings is generally referred to as Urban Exploration (or Urbex for short). The ironic thing is, most of the urban exploration I’ve been doing has been out in the countryside; abandoned amusement parks or hotels up in the mountains, or old bunkers out by the coastline. Perhaps in my case calling it “exploring modern ruins” would be more accurate, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Urbex. Recently however, I’ve been doing some actual urban exploration.
Whenever I’m out and about, could be the morning commute, could be running some errands after … Read the rest
First I want to thank my wife for finding out about this place and sharing the information with me so we could arrange a trip. Now on to the post
Down in Jiayi (Sometimes also spelled Chiayi) in South Taiwan there’s a region with a lot of fish farms and oyster farms. In fact it’s so many that the GPS makes it look like the expressway is running on a bunch of islands and sandbanks out in the ocean, even though it’s actually on land. Over time the usage of these seafood farms has changed and some of the old … Read the rest
There’s a certain type of spaces that I feel strangely drawn to. The kind of spaces at the edges of the urban landscape, half forgotten spaces hidden behind and below the infrastructure that keeps our cities running. I don’t really have a good name for them, liminal spaces isn’t quite correct, backstreets indicates something that is more populated, they’re definitely not slums and you can’t call it wasteland; forgotten spaces is wrong, people still remember them, and they’re not abandoned or deserted. Perhaps the best term would be neglected spaces, they’re a bit dirty, they don’t get taken care of … Read the rest
Shortly after I made my last post about the old military tunnels at Fengqi Sunset Trail, my friend Johan, who is a Youtuber, contacted me saying he wanted to make a video about the tunnels. My other friend David, who was the one to introduce me to the tunnels in the first place, said he would also like to join (you can find David's post here). Said and done, the three of us met up at the trail head and with Johan filming we made another foray into the tunnels. Continue reading about our underground adventure.
When my friend posted a video of walking through a long, seemingly abandoned tunnel I immediately knew I would have to go there. I asked where it was and he sent me the location. From what I could understand, there was a big network of tunnels down there and I somehow got it into my head that I shouldn't just go there, but I should try to make a map. Despite a few of the tunnel branches being blocked, the place is still so big I had to go there twice to fully explore every part of the system. I did eventually end up with a map. It's not particularly accurate; it's not to scale and I only made some rough estimates of the twists and turns of the different passageways. I also didn't come up with a good way to add in slopes and stairs, so that's not included either. That said, every intersection is included, as is every exit and every dead end. If you go down into these tunnels you should be able to navigate using my map. Check out the map
I’ve previously explored two abandoned hotels near Shimen Reservoir (read about them in Part 1 & Part 2). There is one more abandoned hotel near the reservoir that has been on my list of places to go explore but I haven’t been able to find the time. Last weekend, me and a friend decided to go to Buddha World which I have written about here. When we got there however, we discovered that the place was closed. Neither of us was really up for breaking in to a Buddhist temple, so we had to think of something else. … Read the rest
My favorite Taiwanese film is The Great Buddha + , and in it there is a scene where the main characters go to pray in a temple dedicated to former Taiwanese dictator Chiang Kai-shek. Apparently the scene was filmed in a real temple which has been (mostly) abandoned. Knowing that I like this kind of place, my wife found out where it is (thank you honey) and last weekend we decided to go check it out.
The temple is in rural Miaoli, close to a small village called Baishatun, and is actually marked on Google Maps. The place is … Read the rest