Academia Sinica Trails 中央研究院的步道

5/25/2022

Academia Sinica is the top research institution in Taiwan. It also borders a forest and has beautiful hiking trails where you can enjoy nature and see historical military sites. The area is worth a stroll if you have time.

Background:
The trails I will show date back to when the ROC and KMT first retreated to Taiwan. They decided to set up a military compound in Nangang, including training facilities, walls, razor wire, bunkers, towers, etc. Much of this is off limits and secret so I will stop there.
Academia Sinica borders to military compound, and for some reason it has aquired some land that belonged to the former military training compound, and made some trails through it.

Hours:
24/7

Length/Difficulty:
Less than one hour, easy.

How to get there:
By car/scooter: There is paid car parking at Academia Sinica, and scooters must park outside.
By MRT/Bus: Take the blue MRT line to Nangang Exhibition Hall station, then transfer to any number of busses from exit 5 to Academia Sinica.

Map:
Please see below:

Our Journey:

I have been to these trails many times. Academia Sinica's biomedical research center was newly completed in 2019 and is just a beautiful building on land acquired from the military.

They put in a really beautiful retention pond.

You can see the Taipei 101 from here. And walls to the military compoud.

And beautiful sunset in the evening.

Another building with dead end ending at the military compound.

Closeup of the dead end and the 101.

Behind this building are some bunkers. I am not sure if they are still open to the public now.

There are two bunkers here.

Both totally empty.

More photos of the area can be seen above.

On the other side of the buildings is a really sketchy trail that puts you into some military ruins.

The trail runs across an old cement wall that still has razor wire and gun holes.

Do not attempt to climb the wall.

And there is an abandoned guard tower on the hill.

View of the 101 from the tower.

View of the CTBC building.

View of Jiuzhuang.

Looking over at the new buildings.

Isnide the old tower.

Someone tried to clean here.

Another view out the window.

Camouflaged paint pealing off.

More of the wall and an electric tower.

Tree growing on the wall.

The wall extends the entire time. I could vividly imagine a Chinese attack on Taipei that led to guerilla warfare on this hill. It would be a hard fight.