Have you done that weird vaguely Gaudi-esque house in Taoyuan, the one that the guy apparently run out of money for when it was nearly finished?[/quote]
I’ve never heard of or seen that one. Taoyuan to me is just useful for getting to the airport - I don’t really know much else about it. Do you know where the house is?[/quote]I’ve been driven past it a couple of times but couldn’t direct you there. MJB and Mordeth know where it is, as does probably anyone else who lives in Taoyuan. It’s on the junction of two main roads, and quite noticeable.
Ok thanks. I’ll send them a PM sometime for directions. I know that the most complete remaining Shinto shrine is in Taoyuan - I’ll have to take a trip there somewhere and see what other interesting things are around.
The house is in Longtan, right on a main intersection and directly on provincial highway 3. It’s easy to reach by car, just take freeway 3 and the exit Longtan, turn right and follow that main road, it will turn left after a couple of intersection and you reach the house after about1km or so.
You can go to Longtan with the e-go bus which goes to Xiaorenguo (Window on China) and Leofoo Cun (Leofoo Village). It starts on Zhongshan Airport, goes all the way down on Dunhua, goes over to Yonghe and Zhonghe, passes the Jingan MRT station and than goes on the freeway to Longtan. Depanding on traffic and where you actually get on the bus it’s about a 40min to 1 1/2 hours ride.
With scooter, well get yourself somehow on provincial highway 3, follow it all the way down “south” till you reach Longtan and it’s right there, on a big intersection.
I haven’t been there for almost 2 1/2months now since moving from Longtan to Taipei but at the end it was already partly covers with advertisment stuff.
Yes, it’s at the base of Hutoushan (tiger head mountain 虎頭山), in Taoyuan. It’s an interesting sight.
Then in Jinguashi, there are the ruins of another Shinto shrine, Ogon Jinja (Huangjin Shenshe 黃金神社). It’s up the mountainside from the museum and the No. 5 Mine…go to the museum area and look for the signs to the Gold Temple. Makes for good photos.
I’ve been to both those places mentioned. The one in Taoyuan is very nice although it is mostly reconstructed and not original, the layout is still preserved very well and it’s a very relaxing and well maintained place, let’s just say place like this in Taoyuan are equivalent to finding an ice cream stand in the middle of the sahara desert. It’s not easy to find as there is no clear sign outside it and I don’t think it’s well known to many people (perhaps in purpose), as the poster said it’s pretty much at the bottom of HuTouShan mountain, you can see the steps leading up to it. The temple is notable as it seems to have been dedicated to the aboriginal warriors/solidiers who joined the Japanese army prior to and during World War II as the Chinese surnames are unusual ones given to aboriginals.
The other one in JingGuaShi consists of a few ruined columns and walls, but it is also very scenic and the whole area of JingGuaShi is well worth a visit and hike.
The ‘Crazy House’ in Longtan is still extant.
Some limited angles though, vision wise. Some wicked closeups though. Lots of contrasts.
The lights are on there, but is anyone home?
Does anyone know the real story behind the Longtan site? It’s truly bizarre, and in such a crossroads.
It’s a notable driving landmark, reference-wise.
[quote=“Charlie Jack”]Is this it? therealtaiwan.com/wpg2/?g2_itemId=5552
(Thanks to TheGingerMan for the keywords.)[/quote]
Yup, that’s the crazy house.
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Does anyone know the real story behind the Longtan site? It’s truly bizarre, and in such a crossroads.
It’s a notable driving landmark, reference-wise.[/quote]
I was told a story but I have no idea to which degree this is true.
Basically years ago a quite rich guy decided he wants to build a house there. He was kind of excentric and wanted to build a special house, so he came up with the plans for this strange looking thing. It seems he had a problem with getting it approved or what so ever, at least he had no offical license/allowens/whatever. That alone woulnd be a problem in Taiwan, especially not at that time I guess, the right amount of money in a nice red envelope but the insisting on that house and the “fight against the authorities” caused him bad luck and so his business went down, he lost all his money and just got stuck with the house.
I was told that the guy lived still there (not sure about now, they told me the story 2 years ago) and as he had no official status he had no electricity and nothing. The advertisment on it wasn’t there till about a year or maybe 1 1/2 year ago, guess he could use the money as after they came up with that I even saw light in there sometimes. Again, I never went in there nor could I get much more information. My lack of chinese mixed with the problem that the relatives didn’t want to speak about the “ghost house” prevented me from anything.
I guess there will be at least as much fiction in that story as truth, kind of a bit like with the pod houses in Sanzhi.
This page appears to have some information in Chinese on the UFO Houses/Flying Saucer Houses (飛碟屋): sofree.twbbs.org/blog/2008/01/20 … about-frp/ (This page has a link to an English version; the English version was slow to load for me, and it resembles a machine translation, but it might be helpful.)
Thanks, mingshah, cfimages, and others for all the information and pics.
I was thinking of the houses today as I walked down Jinmei park. All the old squat places are gone. Today, they were demolishing even the old one-story houses on one side of the park.
Guess the guys in the new developments dod not like them. Though, there was a chicken coop that definetively was a bit out of place…
In the news I saw about the UFO houses, they were already demolishing the structures with a backhoe and basically explained that the neighboring developments had complained.
And in other Off Topic developments, I might end up buying one of the apartments they are building on top of the demolished old nice Japanese house I had told you about. The place is looking fine. Might not be able to afford it, though. Anyway, I went to see a sister structure and it was built using the head.
