Saturday, August 13, 2011

Encore Garden's - Taiwan Abandoned Theme Park

Encore Garden's
I have been on a hunt for a while to find the Legendary Katori's World. An abandoned amusement park in Taiwan. When I mention the name the Taiwanese tell me about horror stories of people being killed there and a girl in a red dress. Truth is an earthquake happened and it never reopened. I searched on the internet to find out its location. After finding it on google we set out to find Kartori's World. 

The first week we spent hours walking around trying to find it, getting way off of the map...everything is in Chinese here and the roads are confusing enough as it is. We ended up way south off our course, eventually getting help from a nice man and his family to guide us on our way home.

The next weekend, I spent some more time on google before we hit the road. I used the special street view technique to help me look for things that I will see on the way to keep me on course.  However things got a little confusing not to far of the start causing us to do a lot of guessing without any guidance from the map.


On the way we found this park called Dakeng Earthquake Park. The sign says no baseball, bikes, fire, or dogs allowed in the park. Right under the sign is 3 dogs and over by the stairs in the blues shirt is a man playing baseball.

Update - This school that was damaged by an earthquake has been torn down.


As we wandered some more. We saw a giant bunny head in the distance. We found a giant bunny head with many other strange objects behind it.
We found this cool bridge with a bunch of little windmill things. The place hosting this display wanted to charge us $100NT ($3) to look at their other paper designs. We opted out and moved along.
We got a little lost. So I asked someone where I was on the map. They pointed us in the direction we needed to go. Finally we found a location (after guessing a few more turns) that was on our map.
When we finally arrived, we noticed all the signs said Encore Garden's, not Katori's World. A minor confusion. After going back home we did a little research and realized we never made it to Katori's World but a different abandoned theme park. All over the internet it appears as if it is still open.

After earthquakes and such places just close down in asia, but are left with rumors of murders. In 1999 Encore Gardens brought over a million guest to Taiwan and now lays in ruins to be forgotten.



After doing a little exploring in a sea of over grown weeds we stumbled upon many of these giant spiders known as the Human Face Spider in chinese. Why? Because its as large as your face...

We left the jungle to a "less bug" inhabited place to Encore Garden's own bug exhibit. Inside the building it was almost pitch black. Only the focus light from my camera allowed us to see. (Someone borrowed the flashlights we borrowed which caused us not to have any flashlights on hand.)

Once full of laughter now grazed with dust.


Once proudly supported by Coca-Cola. (Image Below - Bridge to a tree fort of some kind)




A audience of people use to sit here watching performances and plays.



Update 2016 Feb - One of my photos has been featured in a Redbull article about abandoned theme parks in Asia. RedBull Article

18 comments:

  1. Dale this is awesome!!!!!! It looks a little creepy but super cool!

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  2. Thank you, yeah it is a really cool place, I want to go back again.

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  3. I cannot believe this!! I am South African and I danced at Encore Gardens with x3 other fellow South Africans at Encore Gardens for 5 and a half months!!! I am so sad to see it in the state it is now. It was once such a beautiful place! We were the entertainment at the park for that time and it holds so many awesome memories for me and those who danced with me! Wow, thank you for this...

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  4. Thats really cool. I couldn't find out why it closed but I heard either someone died at a nearby amusement park or it shut down because of earthquakes. But the last time I was there I got kicked out because they were working on something there. Some guy bought he property but I don't know what he is going to use it for. What kind of dances did you do?

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  5. Look awsome. I'm in taichung at The moment and i'm into abandond stuff. Can you give directions or maybe a Googlemap link.

    Cheers jacob.

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  6. What are you doing there in Taichung? Teaching English I'm guessing... Yeah I can tell you where it is but Encore Gardens is now owned by someone and they don't want you doing in there. But Taichung has two other abandoned theme parks. One is Katoli's but that place is torn down, except for the abandoned housing community. Then there is The Refuge. Though every foreigner knows about this place because they play music festivals right next to the place. It is still pretty cool though. Why don't you try to message me on facebook or send me an email and I will get you some directions to some places.

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  7. Hey, there was a group of us who danced there in 2006, it was awesome. cannot believe the state of it!! so sad!! so many memories!!!

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  8. Yeah, it is kinda sad. I wish I could have gone before they closed but it definitely was a cool place to check out after it was closed.

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  9. I always go there with my friends when I was young... a lot of memories..., I got a special place in Keelung Taiwan, you can find it and take some... special photo!
    http://ttt460.pixnet.net/blog/post/140199666

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    1. Awesome, I love checking these kind of things out. Is it possible to get into that building? I won't be back to Taiwan for a while but hopefully will return next year sometime.

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  10. here is another one...
    http://blog.yam.com/nagee/article/3699572

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    1. Yeah this on is called Katoli's I beleive. I've been there, but everything has been torn down. There is absolutely nothing there but a cement slab basically. But there is also some cool abandon failed housing village right next to it. There is always security by the company that built it to try to keep people out for whatever reason. The guy didn't even want me taking pictures of the place from outside the gate it was strange.

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  11. This place is so incredible. We have been searching and are loving the things in Taiwan. There is this incredible mansion outside of Taipei but I don't know if it is there anymore! http://www.abandonedabandoned.com/12-pictures-of-an-abandoned-film-mansion-taiwan/. There are other abandoned places on there in Taiwan and around the world if you are interested in checking it out for wherever you go!

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  12. Would love to see the Google Earth/Map coordinates because Encore’s Garden, Taiwan yields nothing except: 24°10'37.18" N 120°42'46.96" E which is obviously NOT the place.

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  13. ... just a few miles away at 24.174991, 120.756624 are the exact coordinates for Encore's World, Taiwan.

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    1. Glad you found the location! They have begun doing construction on it or tarring it down about 3 years ago. So I wonder how much is really there or has changed.

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  14. Why is it so hard to find? Was it that hard when it was open or just because it was so over grown?

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    1. No Encore Gardens is very easy to find, especially when using Google maps top down view. They problem was we went to the wrong park, we originally were trying to find Katori's World which was torn down making it harder to find the original location.

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