Mere minutes after setting out from my hotel to explore Chiang Mai I stumbled upon a bizarre building in a mostly empty lot just inside the old city walls. I swear I don’t always go looking for abandoned places—sometimes they find me instead. And in this case I couldn’t very well say no, now could I? I walked up the stairs to take a closer look at this ostentatious ruin, the House of Success.

Huáng Sānyuán Residence (黃三元故居) is a beautiful Western-style house located along a country road in Puxin, a rural township in the heart of Changhua, Taiwan. It was built in 1940 by Huáng Yì 黃義, a wealthy employee (and presumably an executive) of the Japanese colonial era Taiwan Sugar Company (台糖公司). If this government source is to be believed Huang Yi had five wives who bore him five sons—and some unknown number of daughters. No wonder he needed such a large house!

High on the upper slopes of the modest Bagua Mountain Range 八卦山脈 (pinyin: Bāguàshānmài) overlooking Dayeh University (pinyin: Dàyè), on the border between Changhua and Nantou in Taiwan, stands a strange half-abandoned temple. It is peculiar in that temples are almost never left to the elements the way this one has been. Abandoned buildings are commonplace in this land of abundant ruins—but even the most obscure temples receive regular maintenance in the form of incense and offerings, among other things. To neglect the gods and spirits is to curse a place with tremendously bad luck and misfortune. Temples may be formally decommissioned, dismantled, and destroyed—but they are almost never simply abandoned or left to decay like this. What’s going on here?

Tainan Chinatown 臺南中國城 is a half-abandoned and soon to be demolished shopping mall and entertainment complex in Tainan City. Built in 1983, it was designed by C.Y. Lee, a famous architect who later directed the construction of 85 Sky Tower and Taipei 101. I went by to shoot a few photos with some friends one sunny afternoon in January 2014 so I figure I may as well share them here.

Collected here are a series of dreamlike photos from a road trip into the misty mountains of Lugu in Nantou, central Taiwan. I undertook this trip with a friend in July 2014. Our goal was the Lotus Forest 忘憂森林 (pinyin: Wàngyōu Sēnlín), also known as the Misty Forest 迷霧森林, a high mountain bog formed in the aftermath of the catastrophic 921 earthquake when a landslide altered drainage patterns, forming a small lake and drowning part of the existing forest. At an elevation somewhere close to 2,000 meters, the Lotus Forest is often shrouded in thick fog, imbuing it with an eerie mystique that attracts Taiwanese people from all over the island.

I found myself in the seedy port town of Keelung near the end of my round-the-island bicycle tour of Taiwan in 2013. Later on, after dinner was done, I went out wandering the labyrinth of night—and, on the far side of the railway line near Sānkēng Station 三坑車站 I noticed the entrance to a tunnel running beneath the hillside. Curious, I hunched down (the clearance is only around 175 cm) and made my way through. A minute later I emerged on the other side, somewhat disoriented, though I quickly regained my bearings.

I was out riding a scooter from Changhua the hot springs resort town of Guanziling in rural Tainan when I noticed a rundown, seemingly abandoned building by the roadside in the mountains of Zhongpu, Chiayi. Stopping to investigate, I discovered a mínsù 民宿 (essentially a bed and breakfast) in the early stages of decay. Initially I had no luck finding out any information about this place but more recently I uncovered its formal name: Dòngzǐjiǎo Vanilla Garden Minsu 凍仔腳香草園民宿. Dongzijiao, apparently famous for its betel nut crop, is the name of the nearest village.

Founded by Finnish settlers in the late 19th century, Finn Slough is a tiny fishing community located along the marshy banks of the mighty Fraser River in southern Richmond, British Columbia. In the early 20th century the settlers moved the village to its current location, a slough (swamp, pronounced “slew”) at the base of the No. 4 Road on Lulu Island east of Steveston. Most—if not all—of the buildings in Finn Slough were constructed prior to 1950, lack modern plumbing, and rely on wood-burning stoves for heating.

I was off the main road in Gūshān Village 姑山里 in Dashu, a hilly rural district in Kaohsiung, when I noticed a row of old buildings next to a small temple. Stopping to investigate, I unslung my camera and snapped a few shots, not quite realizing what I was looking at. My mind was elsewhere—a consequence of two hard days of riding in the tropical summer sun. I was, at the time, heading south to the railway line after making it to Qishan the night before and touring through Meinong earlier in the day. Only later, when I went to develop the photos, did I notice the faint traces of the Japanese rising sun flag in the top right corner of the building pictured above. At one point these stone flags must have been painted bright red, a reflection of Japanese imperial interests in Taiwan.

The waste flues of Ruifang are an extraordinary sight. The ruins of these massive, crumbling conduits run for miles up the mountainside from the Shuinandong Smelter 水湳洞精鍊廠 and the rest of the abandoned mining complex below. Originally built during the KMT authoritarian era to transport noxious fumes and waste gases away from the refinery—and nearby settlements like Jīnguāshí 金瓜石—these flues are reputedly the longest in the world.