Month May 2023
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
The rain is beating down so hard the noise drowns out all other sound. Down below preparations are going on for opening the market just like every morning; trucks of all sizes coming and going, boxes of fruit and vegetables being loaded or offloaded, and men shouting to each other over the droning of engines. Normally the sounds from all this would float up to me where I stand but this night they don't, nothing but the whoosh of the water. On a clear night you could see far from here, the lights of apartments on the other side of the city and the faint outline of distant mountains against the pre dawn sky, but tonight the pouring rain obscures everything, making the world seem small. It's like being in a silent bubble, surrounded by a curtain of water.
Every couple of weeks I have a Saturday or Sunday afternoon off to relax by myself without having to worry about my son (my wife gets the same deal). Lately I’ve been trying to turn these afternoons off into little adventures by finding hiking trails that are reasonably challenging yet short enough that you can finish them in a couple of hours. As a busy dad, I find that this kind of hike is a perfect way for me to clear my mind and make my body comfortably tired. So far I’ve been on two such mini adventures
The Xianshan … Read the rest