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 a house; this had been a home. What I mean ..read more

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 failing) do describe it, I think it’s ..read more

Last year we explored an old hotel in the abandoned amusement park temple (which I later found out is called Buddha World). When we went there we thought the hotel was the last unexplored building, but we spotted another castle-like structure out in the jungle. That time we weren’t able to go explore it so I had to make do with a couple of pictures taken from a distance.  This weekend we’ve finally taken the time to come back so I could take a closer look. Yini didn’t feel like going into the building so I left her in the main temple square and started walking towards my destination. Afte ..read more

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. It was a pleasant but short hike and as we were coming back ..read more

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 more

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. It was a pleasant but short hike and as we were coming back ..read more

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 facilities like pump stations, equipment sheds and roads between the fish ponds, have fal ..read more

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 more

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 ca ..read more

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 facilities like pump stations, equipment sheds and roads between the fish ponds, have fal ..read more