A Journey Through the Ruins of Beitou Pt 2: Youya Road Area Group
This follows straight on from Part 1, which has some more background. In June Eslite featured my work in a video that went viral and as result attention has not been focused on this blog lately. I will try to at least finish this short series but a lot of new projects are diverting my attention for now. Youya is one of the other major roads in the hotspring area. It winds through a lot of tight hairpins and has a many random spur lanes. Like Wenquan Road there are a fair few ruins here too.
Meihua Hotel
The first large ruined resort is next to the Asia Pacific Hotel (itself a destroyed concrete skeleton for many years). This fairly grotty looking building has been well sealed however a good exploration of the interior can be found here . After quite some searching it seems this was the Meihua Hotel. An old picture can be seen here (5th down). Despite having a name for it I haven't managed to find anything else about it. The smaller more modern hotel building next door is used for storage and is guarded by a dog. A rusted gate opposite leads to a site returned to nature for a few decades.
Little more than a concrete shell now is the old Beitou Clinic. For a while ghost stories in the media really honed in on this ruin rather than the other larger ones nearby. This was likely because anywhere with a medical role attracts superstition and stories. In previous reports here you can see the interior contained a lot of interesting details but sadly these have all been stripped out.
On the inside of a tight switchback is the Whispering Pines Resort. This historic building from the 1930's could have easily met the same fate as Xing Nai Tang. It was starting to look a bit worn after a few years closed. Fortunately renovations have started and this won't end up as a ruined pile of wood. Like Xing Nai Tang business declined as facilities became tired and unfashionable. The two historic hotels had trouble with soundproofing and their rustic charm couldn't compete against luxury hotels. A significant portion of the local population has only very recently become more enamored with authentic historical buildings. Xing Nai Tang didn't last until this cultural shift occurred while Whispering Pines fortunately has.
Off a spur of Youya called Fragrant Forest Alley there's a very unusual building. A skeletal concrete structure curves around the cliff side. The walls are blackened with fire damage and the floor is littered with trash and discarded furniture. It ends in a 1950's style building in a horseshoe shape that is covered in cascading vines and flowers. It's definitely one of the more photogenic ruins. Above it on an overhanging concrete platform is a clean working temple. This gives the lower complex a slightly under the Midgar plate vibe to me. (If you get that reference we can be friends haha)
Underneath the Rotting Pizza
To me this place looked mostly unfinished
Access above the second level was blocked with detritus (and I could hear someone hammering up there) so I just moved around the lower interior. In one part there are the remains of a temple ghost money burner with some strange balustrades.
My original guess was that this place was temple and pilgrim accommodation but I have been told by onlyforward.co and seen on this article and this thread that it's likely the old Huanan Hotel. There seems to be a little disagreement on here though with a few people saying it is the old Jiaotong Hotel and a couple of others saying they were just illegal buildings that were never finished. The picture of the Huanan Hotel here doesn't look like the same place, so perhaps something is lost in translation. Many mention that there is a bowling alley somewhere here. The complex is larger than it appears from this street with another 5 floor concrete shell hidden from view. There’s a definite sense that the buildings were not finished. The bowling alley may well be up on the higher levels but they also look unfinished. Someone does actually live there though and apparently does not like guests. The story behind this one still seems a bit of a mystery though I have to admit this does suit its enigmatic appearance.
Fire damaged detritus
Part three will follow later. After exploring these areas I had a look around the beautiful Beitou Museum, housed in the Japanese era Kazan Hotspring Hotel. This is a good example of what resorts like Xing Nai Tang in Part One looked like in their heyday.