Sunday, January 3, 2010

Abandoned City San Zhi

On the very northernmost coast of Taiwan lies the spookily bizarre San Zhi resort, which consists entirely of circular, multi-coloured pods stacked on top of one another. Furthermore, these strange habitats have been completely abandoned for a number of years, and are slowly rotting away into nothing.One story says that the project had to be abandoned after several fatal accidents occurred during construction, and according to local rumours, this ghost city is now haunted by those who died building it.There seems to be very little actual information about these buildings available online (at least in English), but they may have been built by the government in the early 80s “in an attempt to position this as a luxurious holiday location for the rich of Taipei”. The concept behind the strange design might have been that they could expand the buildings vertically as required, simply by adding more pods on top. Locals say the area is now haunted by those who died in vain and because they are not remembered, they linger there unable to pass on. These are only rumors as far as i can tell...
This explains one possibility why the area was abandoned. If the site is haunted, no amount of redevelopment is going to bring the masses to that spot. Even demolishing it is out of the question because destroying the homes of spirits and lost souls is a HUGE no-no in Asian culture. There is another version of story about how was it abandoned. Some people beleve it is because the government disallow building a bathing beaches in this area. It became a holiday resort on the coast that can't play on the beach, and soon it was abandoned. From Taipei, head towards Danshui, get on Route 2 and follow the direction for Sanzhi. It will be on the right side of the road, along the coast. You can't miss it.



















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