Delving Into the Secret Lives of Old Hong Kong Buildings

“I comply with Sacha on social media, and I see all of the images that she takes of all these stunning deserted locations throughout Hong Kong, so it was sort of thrilling to assume: Where are we going, and what’s it going to be like? And, you already know, what tales will the place inform?” Ms. Chao mentioned. “But I had no thought, and I didn’t know that the meal itself was going to be so fantastically arrange and grand.”

Despite having no operating water and restricted electrical energy on website, Ms. Yasumoto was in a position to work with a French-trained Japanese chef to arrange a high quality eating expertise there: fancy place settings, candlelight, a desk overflowing with roses, all at 3,600 Hong Kong {dollars} ($460) per particular person.

Old Meets New

The members of HK Urbex are additionally pushed by the joys of going locations most individuals don’t get to go. Over the years, they’ve explored deserted cinemas, bomb shelters and subway tunnels.

Recently, a number of members of the group explored an outdated manner station for British troopers, later used as a malaria camp, then became an artists’ commune. The grounds had been overgrown, taken over by the jungle, however two buildings had been nonetheless intact, home windows cracked and coated in a skinny layer of orange and inexperienced lichen.

As they moved by the house, the trio — who declined to be named, as a result of they had been trespassing — examined each element: doorways rotted off hinges, a modern-looking material wall panel that wouldn’t be misplaced in a school classroom, however very misplaced within the Nineteen Twenties construction. There was additionally an odd assortment of issues left behind, together with a big Snorlax Pokémon plushie and a bulbous laptop monitor from the Nineties.

Explorers don’t usually share the placement of those websites, anxious that they could be broken by thrill seekers. The collective adheres to a few commonplace Urbex guidelines: take nothing however footage, kill nothing however time, depart nothing however footprints.