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IamtheUrbex, Hong Kong (2026)

26/04/2026

Club Captain Bear was a 2006 attempt at building a resort in Tai She Wan and is one of the most famous abandoned spots in Hong Kong. It is located on the outskirts of Sai Kung and Tai She Wan translates as big snake bay in Cantonese. This is also the site of what was a village which was over 300 years old until it became abandoned in the 1970s upon the construction of the High Island Reservoir and the ruins of some of these homes are still there.

The idea behind the resort came from a Wan chai Bar owner who wanted to create a secluded retreat for people in Hong Kong and especially expats to relax in nature and isolation. It cost about HK$600 to HK$750 per night in 2006 Hong Kong dollars and would be about HK$971 to HK$1,214 in today's (2026) currency, which is about $124-$155 in USD. Naturally there was a bar which supposedly could accommodate 100 people even though the resort had just 10 guest rooms. It however failed after less than a year because there are no direct roads to this area and the easiest way to get there is by charted boat which obviously made it very inconvenient and expensive for people to travel to and from.

Interestingly it was not the first attempt at building a resort there and a fella called Chan Fat supposedly had tried previously and went as far as trying to create an artificial beach which kept on getting swept away by the sea. Legend has it that a plane crashed in the area in the 1940s after World War 2 with lots of gold and Chan Fat, who worked in the area, managed to find some and hide it from the police who sealed the area. Eventually he used the gold to try and create his resort until the authorities blocked his plans.

Sadly the reality is far less exciting. It turns out Chan Fat thought that the new airport would be built somewhere not too far away from this area so he purchased the village as an investment but sadly he never got the correct permission so he was forced to abandoned his project. Unfortunately this is not such an unusual occurrence in Hong Kong in which it is very easy to buy rural land from people who often do not realize that they do not have permission to sell it in the first place.

This site is most famous for the decaying animatronic animals which were originally from the famous Rainforest Café which used to operate in Kowloon Tong up until 2003. I went back again in 2022 and found some of the animals had totally lost all their fur leaving nothing but horrific terminator style exoskeletons.

Like most famous abandoned sites in Hong Kong there is a long history of ghosts being talked of in relation to this place yet I saw, heard and felt nothing to suggest anything supernatural exists here other than the broken promises of success. The first time I came here an Indonesian worker was clearing out the place and burning rubbish which made me assume that some sort of renovation was about to take place. The chap very kindly gave me permission to explore the site. I think he may have actually lived on site and I have a sneaking suspicion that could have been squatting there though I have no evidence other than a feeling to back this up.

Not surprisingly, almost 9 years on, nothing has changed and the place remains the abandoned "wonderland" it has always been.

These photos were taken in September 2018 with a Nikon D610 28-300mm.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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05/04/2026

In my opinion Pok Wai Public School was one of the best of the 200 or so abandoned school in Hong Kong to visit due to how decayed it was and the horror movie atmosphere it conveyed. Built in 1957, it was initially funded through donation and then expanded in the 1960s due to growing student numbers in the area. This growth soon reversed and the school closed in 1996 due to dwindling numbers which is the reason for the closure of most schools in Hong Kong that have been left abandoned.

Like many abandoned spots in Hong Kong which get a lot of people visiting them, there have been reports of strange sounds being heard at night from the classrooms from both urbexers and locals and even reports of ghosts being sighted over the years. In the 3 times I have visited I saw, heard and felt nothing to suggest that the restless apparitions lurk in and out of the shadows. One interesting thing I did notice upon recently visiting this site is that most of the graffiti that is in these photos had been painted over.

This school was also a place you could rent out from the government as a filming location for the very generous sum of 10,150 for the first month which is a bargain if you ask me though you are not allowed to let off any explosions, fireworks or fires. I do not know of any productions that were filmed there and there is no evidence that any ever took place, which is a missed opportunity in my view and this is a far better place to film a horror film than in the more famous Tat Tak School.

Since the start of March this school is currently in the process of being demolished to make way for a new underground MTR line which will link the soon to be opened Kwu Ting station with the existing Kam Sheung Road station in the south of Yuen Long. The actual line will be underground but land is needed to install ventilation shafts and launching shafts for tunnel boring machines. This new line is called the Northern Link and should be ready in 2034.

These photos were taken in December 2020 with a Nikon D850 24-70mm f/2.8.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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21/03/2026

Maykong Godown Silk Mills is one of the most famous abandoned places in Hong Kong and has been abandoned for over 40 years. It was built in 1966 by a Shanghai industrialist who moved to Hong Kong in 1953 due to no longer being able to operate from his home because of Korean war related economic sanctions and nationalisation. Located in Tsuen Wan this mill specified in the production of silk and rayon and was a central part of the golden age of textile production in Hong Kong due to its focus on high end silk. Textiles at this time were a major part of the Hong Kong economy but like all good things this was not to last partly due to the death of the founder in 1977 which resulted in his family deciding to shut down production because the mill was aging and rising costs led to the firm to relocate production to Guangdong in the 1980s, which is same fate as almost the entire Hong Kong textile industry, as it has been in most places around the world. This trend is now also hitting China as companies there find other places like Bangladesh to be much cheaper to operate in. Lower costs always win in the end.

The factory consists of 2 main buildings which are the famous red brick building which was used for storage and the second which is where production took place. These photos are from the production building though sadly almost all the machinery had long since been removed. It is quite strange that this site which is situated in central Tsuen Wan would have been left abandoned as long as it has but in most of these instances the causes are due the children being unable to agree how to fairly divide the proceeds. I guess fractions & percentages were not taught to these people when they were children if this was indeed the case. It could also be that this company is a global company with factories all over China which perhaps mean that this little old place just got forgotten about though there have been reports that at one time there was a live-in caretaker with a fascinating VCD collection.

All of this has since changed because in September 2025 Billion Development and Project Management Limited bought the site for HK$476 million, which is about 61 million USD. The site has now been secured and sealed as work is about to begin if it has not already. The interesting thing about this purchase is less the time it took for this to finally happen but the fact that is was a court-ordered sale in which the authorities decided that this site has been left vacant for too long and forced the owners to accept sale which means after all these decades the children probably had yet to agreed what to do with the site. At this moment in time no future plans have been announced but the mill will probably be demolished and turned into apartments though there has been some talk of keeping the buildings and turning the site into some high end complex like a luxury car showroom or corporate headquarters though I doubt this will be the case. Just too much money can be made from selling apartments less than 5 minutes walk from Tsuen Wan station.

These photos were taken in December 2021 with a Nikon D850 35mm f1.4.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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12/03/2026

If there is one thing you can say about a lot of people in Hong Kong is that they are chancers who are not afraid to take a risk on the off chance that things may work out. The roots of this could come from a deep belief in luck and fate which runs deeply through traditional Chinese culture or it might lay in the fact that the vast majority of people here are descendants of those who have fled to Hong Kong from the 1930s on wards. This sort of experience can easily create a way of thinking which values resilience and pragmatism in which you will take the chance of building a home even if the government may eventually come and move you along because your structure is illegal.

The ruins of this shack can be found in Kau Lung Hang village in Fanling, Hong Kong and this is a typical example of the type of squatter huts that can still be found throughout Hong Kong in place like Pok Fu Lam village. Though this cluttered example was a lot bigger and more elaborate than most. Gradually these structures are being demolished as the government develops more and more far flung areas of Hong Kong. I have no idea when this was built or even whether the people who lived there left by choice or not.

These photos were taken in February 2023 with a Nikon D850 35mm f1.4
IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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08/03/2026

RAF Tai Mo Shan radar station or as it was designated, Project Cabbage Leaf, was a radar station built on top of Tai Mo Shan in the 1950s and was manned by the 117 signal unit of the Royal Air Force. It was built to provide long-range surveillance and monitoring for British intelligence service during the height of the Cold War. It remained in operation until 1996 and was subsequently taken apart as there would no longer be a need for it after the 1997 hangover. The remaining derelict buildings which are still there were the offices and operation buildings for the base and they have remained abandoned since. I would imagine the effort and money involved in demolishing these buildings is not worth it.

Tai Mo Shan is the highest peak in Hong Kong and stands at 957
meters above sea level which also explains why the Japanese built a radar station close to this one during World War 2 which included anti-aircraft guns. Sadly almost nothing remains of these structures.

I recently returned to this site after almost 6 years and since then the base has been extensively trashed with graffiti everywhere. There is even evidence to suggest that a rave had taken place due to all the bottles of alcohol that were all left behind as well as almost inexplicably, a drum set and generator! If I had to guess rich international high school pupils! It is a long hike back to civilization so I would not like to be doing that either drunk or hungover.

These photos were taken in March 2020 with a Nikon D850 24-70mm f2.8
IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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21/02/2026

For a time Ma Wan fishing village was the most famous abandoned village in Hong Kong due to all the media attention it gained due corruption, its prominent location and the existence of tour groups that would take tourist there.

This village had existed for at least 250 years with the Tin Hau temple that was built in 1857 continuing to be used to this day but there is archeological evidence to suggest that people have inhabited this island for over 5000 years. The most likely reason that the village itself is relatively new is because of the The Great Clearance of 1661–1669 in which the recent Manchu usurpation of the Chinese empire had resulted in large scale Han rebellions against their new rulers and who continued to remain loyal to the previous Ming dynasty. So the plan of the Qing emperor was to move large amounts of people away from the Chinese southern coast line to prevent them from aiding Ming loyalists who were based in Taiwan as well as isolating any potential Ming loyalists in the coastal areas. After this period the people were allowed to return to places like Hong Kong but unfortunately almost every building had been razed to the ground to prevent any rebels sheltering in them.

In 1997 Sun Hung Kai Properties started the process of buying the village in order to clear a path for the massive luxury residential project Park Island which involved the villager people swapping their old homes for new ones in Ma Wan New Village on the island. This effort turned out to be a multi decade process because many of the villagers held out for a long time and even I went there was still at least one house that had someone living in it in 2018. This caused the town to become famous for being a ghost town.

The process was also complicated by what would become known as the 'Trial of the Century' which highlighted the ties between HK property moguls and the government. In this case it turned out that one of the founders of this company had paid HK$19.6 million in bribes to the Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, Rafael Hui, who was the second most powerful politician in the city. This was done to ensure that the government remained "favourably disposed" toward their interest during the complex land-swap negotiations and the long-stalled relocation process, effectively turning the village's abandonment into a central piece of evidence for misconduct in public affairs. Part of this included allegedly being provided insider information on land sales and government projects such as this Ma Wan Park development. This would become a major piece of the evidence during the 2014 trial and this resulted in Hui being fined HK$11.18 million and sent to prison for 7.5 years and one of the brothers was fined half a million and send to prison for 5 years. This verdict sent shock waves through HK elites and was the first time such individuals were sent to the big house for these types of crimes. It also forced the government to be more transparent in subsequent land-swap deals and large-scale redevelopments to avoid accusations of collusion and corruption.

As part of the 1997 land swap deal for Park Island, the developers were legally required to rejuvenate the old village and in March 2025 this happened with the opening of Ma Wan 1868. This has turned the old village buildings into an art and lifestyle hub, whatever a lifestyle hub is. All the buildings have been painted over in artistic ways with mural and vibrant colours by local and international artists and the village is now populated with coffee shops, galleries, shops and creative studios in order to turn the location into a major cultural and tourist hub.

These photos were taken in March 2018 with a Nikon D610.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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31/01/2026

This dark shell of a establishment was a typical example of a type of eateries in Hong Kong known as Cha Chaan Tengs which are cheap restaurants that serve a type of fusion of Cantonese & Western style cuisine with the emphasis being less on quality and more on affordability. People in Hong Kong tend to treat these types of establishment with great nostalgia, especially when famous ones close down though there are still huge numbers of them everywhere.

This restaurant is located on the ground floor of one of the many tenement apartment buildings which are currently in the process of being demolished in Tai Kok Tsui in western Kowloon and is part of a plan to redevelop the whole area with flashy apartments for modern living. This place had been closed for less than 2 years when I went, but the amount of decay and mold suggested that it had been shut down for decades, which is a testament to the humidity of Hong Kong.

There is an interesting dichotomy at work with what is happening here and in other parts of Kowloon such as Sham Shui Po & To Kwa Wan because even though these new developments will be cleaner and far more comfortable places to live in they will invariably lose the what makes these run down areas of Hong Kong special which is character. These Blade Runneresque areas of Hong Kong are brimming with gritty rawness and eclectic possibilities which makes their impending passing sad because of the likely soullessness which will replace them. The ultimate sterile result will be to end up making much of Kowloon feel less like its current self and more like Shenzhen. It is a pity that the powers that be didn't decide to keep at least one of these districts as it was for potential future tourism.

These photos were taken in February 2022 with a Nikon D850 & 35mm f1.4.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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21/01/2026

These apartments were built in 1963 and are located in a very affluent, yet relatively quiet area of Central Hong Kong and were for those who are rich but not super rich. These flats are a rare example of vacant apartments in the Central area of Hong Kong because even though they were acquired in 2021 by compulsory purchase and the last tenant was kicked out in 2020, the apartments have yet to be demolished. Though by all accounts this year could be the year that finally this will happen and luxury condos will be built on this plot and the adjacent one.

The flat themselves were mostly empty because usually expat who live in these types of apartments don't leave behind their personal items, probably because they really do not want to lose their deposit. The one exception was the flat on the top floor which may have not been cleared because the people who lived there perhaps were not able to get back to Hong Kong during the Covid19 era and for whatever reasons had not been able to get back. This actually was not all that unusually and I have been in other apartments which were earmarked for demolition in which other expat had not been able to get to Hong Kong to get their stuff having been trapped in their home countries.

These photos were taken in January 2023 with a Nikon D850 20mm f1.8 & 35mm f1.4
IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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08/01/2026

Tat Tak School in Yuen Long, Hong Kong is not only one of the most famous abandoned place in Hong Kong but is also considered to be one of the most haunted with a multitude of rumours and reports of haunted happenings such as whispers, cries, shadowy figures, feelings of being watched, footsteps, children's laughter, doors slamming and sightings of actual apparitions. However, on both occasions that I went I felt, saw, heard and smelt nothing to suggest that this site is touched in anyway, shape or form by the paranormal. I did get heatstroke the second time I went but that was not because of the ghosts but because I didn't drink enough water and went on the hottest day in September since records began in 2022.

The school was originally founded in 1931 at the nearby Yu Kiu Ancestral Hall and was one of the earliest modern schools in the New Territories of Hong Kong. It moved to this site in 1965 because the original location could no longer accommodate the growing numbers of pupils attending this institution which had reached over 700 by the early 1960s. For a time it was the largest primary school in Yuen Long though fortunes soon reversed and the school closed in 1998 due to falling student numbers.

The haunted reputation of this school lies in the fact that the school is surrounded by graves which may include mass graves of those killed during the 6 Day War of 1899 in which clans in Yuen Long rose up in revolt against the 99 year leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain. The consequences of this conflict still echo and many of the of 'indigenous rights' laws enacted after the conflict continue to exist to this day such as those that give "indigenous" male descendants the right to build a small house without having to pay the land premium if it will be on his families land or at a two third discount if somewhere else. This could very well end in 21 years.

A common theme in most places which are considered haunted in Hong Kong is the presence of the Japanese in Hong Kong during World War 2. Supposedly the Japanese had massacred people in the area and had them buried on what would become the site of this school. There is no actual evidence that this happened but the area did suffer greatly during this time and it is estimated that at least 10,000 civilians were executed by Japanese forces throughout the occupation so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that such an occurrence occurred.

It is from this background that various reports of ghosts have been reported over the decades the most famous being the "Woman in Red" which legend has it that a schoolmistress hung herself in the one of the bathrooms while wearing a red dress which she did after being r***d. There is no evidence that such an event ever took place in this school because if there had it would have been in the newspapers and there would have been police reports. 1965-1998 is within living memory of most of us and such a sensational event would have been plastered on the front page of every tabloid. Which all highlights that none such evidence exists though a famous former pupil did reveal that this rumour most likely grew out of the fact that a fromer headmaster's wife had died at home during his tenure there which would obviously cause this incident to snowball. This is very common, in my own primary school when our teacher left half way through it did not take long for everyone in my class to start believing that she had been sent to prison for murder. How did we know that? I have no idea but we all believed it at the time.

Regardless, multiple sightings have taken reported of seeing the headmistress since. The most famous being of the 2011 'Biting incident" in which a group of 12 students become hysterical after seeing this apparition while exploring the site. Some of the girls fainted, one tried to strangle herself while other bit their friends. This sounds very similar to a 2003 incident in which a group of students also became hysterical after visiting Nam koo Terrace which is another famous "haunted" place in Hong Kong. Of course it is possible that these younglings saw ghosts but the most likely explanation is rooted in the power of suggestion and social contagion. When young people in particular believe that a place is haunted they enter a state of heightened suggestibility. When one person reports seeing something, others are more likely to interpret what they are seeing as paranormal activity which creates a collective feedback loop of illusion.

Almost 30 year since the school closed down it appears that this site has found a new lease life of as a filming location. At least 2 films have been shot their over the last few year and one of them was the Hong Kong movie, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In which was released in 2024 and used the school to help recreate the infamous Walled city of Kowloon.

Tat Tak School continues to captivate and inspire the people of Hong Kong but not necessarily always in a good way as was demonstrated last year when some poor soul ended his own life there.

These photos were taken in October 2018 with a Nikon D610 28-300mm f3.5-5.6.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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26/12/2025

Seaside Mansion was part of a cluster of old school style tenement buildings that used to be in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. Built in 1959 on Pan Hoi Street but demolished in 2024 as part of a revitalization plan to turn QB into a new financial district to rival Central. On this site, along with the surrounding areas two 28 storey buildings are currently in the process of being constructed.

These photos are from 1 of the 6 parts of the building and are from the first time I visited this section having visited all of these sections at least twice because initially I never used to do all that much searching for what is known as "urbex treasures" to document, so of course I had to go back and see what amazing and surprising artifacts had been left behind that I had missed.

These photos were taken in July 2021 with a Nikon D850 20mm f1.8.

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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06/12/2025

These photos were taken in a house in a village called Ho Ka Yuen which was located in Fanling before it was demolished last year in order to allow the widening of the Fanling highway. This was done in part to ease congestion and connectivity between Fanling and the rest of Hong Kong but also as part of the Northern Metropolis project which aims to turn the north of Hong Kong into a technological hub.

This is the first time I have ever come across anything Star Wars related in an abandoned site in Hong Kong, though I do know of a house in a different part of HK which had a very old Star Wars book but the item was no longer there when other urbexers discovered the site. What I find most fascinating about the person who owned this place is that he or she decided to bring all their Star Wars toys yet decided to leave behind all their family photos as well as their extenive collection of erotica.

These photos were taken in May 2024 with a Nikon D850 20mm f1.8 & 35mm f1.4

IG: IamtheUrbex (https://www.instagram.com/iamtheurbex/)

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