The Chee Guan Chiang House at 25 Grange Rd in Singapore occupies land worth millions yet stubborn owners and protective authorities ensure it remains abandoned.

Home On The Grange

The so-called Chee Guan Chiang House at 25 Grange Rd (corner of Grange and Devonshire) in central Singapore dates back to the late 1930s. It was commissioned by the eponymous Chee Guan Chiang, the first son of Malacca-based banking tycoon Chee Swee Cheng.

Rich Man, Singapore Man

After demolishing an earlier home occupying the plot, the younger Chee hired well-known Singapore architect Ho Kwong Yew to build him a distinctive mansion in the then-current Art Deco style. Ho, recognized today as a leader of the “Modern Movement” in Singapore, incorporated earlier architectural flourishes such as a Roaring Twenties-style grand staircase into the home’s otherwise cutting-edge design.

Leonie Toons

The home was completed in 1938 but Chee Guan Chiang didn’t stay there long – following the end of WW2, the building was renamed the Leonie House and catered to mainly foreign boarders and tourists. New management took over the business in 1964, changing the name to the New Leonie Guest House.

The Other WH

If this isn’t confusing enough, in October of 2013 Yvonne Lee-Khoo (a grand-daughter of Chee Guan Chiang) posted an article at the Singapore URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority) online forum. Ms Lee-Khoo explained that the house was originally named “Wellington House”: the word “well” meaning “good” and sounding like “wealthy”. To this day, wrought iron balustrades both inside and outside of the house prominently feature the “WH” motif.

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Grange Grunge Abandoned Art Deco Mansion In Singapore

The truck stops here… stops serving, that is, and these closed and abandoned food trucks won’t be serving anything soon unless it’s as scrap metal.

Van Green

Visitors to the promenade and beach at Portobello in Edinburgh, Scotland will likely recall The Little Green Van and may have even enjoyed some of the delicacies sold during business hours. Sadly for Flickr members byronv2 and martin Hartland, however, their visits in November 2014 and October of 2017 (respectively) did not occur at the optimum times, leaving them… green with envy?

Woe Canada

This quintessentially (and apologetically) Canadian food truck is surely courting a parking ticket from Toronto’s notoriously industrious parking patrol. Then again, the disturbingly anthropomorphic illustrations on the side of the Steve’s catering truck – not to mention that horrifyingly hot hotdog dog – just might keep the urban revenuers away ’til the owner can cheese it. Flickr member Daniel Lobo snapped the van-glorious vehicle in July of 2017.

No Perchases

Time was, visitors to the Kingsville Ferry pier could score a meal of delicious deep-fried perch from the cringingly stereotypical O’Ryan’s Fish and Chips food truck. That was then, this is… well, let’s just say “Lake Erie gonna be eerie” and leave it at that.

While Irish fries may be smiling, there’s been no actual frying inside the long-park abandoned food truck for ages. According to photographer and Flickr member stephenweir, the converted step van “is now rusting into oblivion”… or should that be “O’Blivion”?

Pastel Imperfect

“Oh Mandy’s, well you came and you gave without taking”… which might explain why this awesome pale pink food truck is parked in back of a gritty Montreal factory instead of serving pricey gourmet salads to working stiffs and stiffettes. Also, does Barry Manilow know you raid his food truck? You mess with the bull, he honks the horn. Flickr member Coastal Elite captured the forlorn yet still blushingly beautiful food truck in late May of 2017.

Checkered Passed

The paint has faded, the lettering’s been stripped and it’s wonder this weathered old former food truck still has its hubcaps – among other things. We’re not saying Templetown is a bad neighborhood, just that life in Philly isn’t exactly a picnic.

Picnics may be coming back in style, however, as students attending nearby Temple University have been known to eat and drink like, er, university students. Seems like a great location for a food truck… just not THIS food truck. Flickr member Ezra Wolfe snapped the seen-better-days food truck in early January of 2009.

It’s Been A Slice

Flickr member Christine und Hagen Graf don’t state exactly (or even inexactly) where this old abandoned food truck is located but if the Mediterranean-looking landscape and the Euro-look of the van itself are any indication, it may be the south of France. By the way, the much-faded “Pizza au Feu de Bois” legend on the truck’s side translates to “Wood Oven Pizza” so you’ll know what you’ve been missing.

Just Desserts

It’s not too late to jump aboard the booming food truck bandwagon, you just need the right food and, of course, the right truck… like this one. Better yet, it just happens to be For Sale according to photographer and Flickr member Paul Sableman, who captured the slightly worse-for-wear step van in July of 2013. OK, yeah, that was over six years ago but what are the odds the snow white van’s still parked out there in Austin, baking away in the Texas sun? Sometimes, “hot” deals DO last this long.

Somewhere over the sea lies the abandoned Hotel La Rainbow, a cracked jewel of Japan’s Bubble Era that failed to attract its target market of bridge geeks.

A Bridge, Too Far

The “Hotel La Rainbow & Tower” (to use its official name) seemed like a great idea at the time. Then again, Japan’s lost and lamented “Bubble Era” saw countless such brainstorms bloom into “what was I thinking – or drinking” white elephants before the Asset Price Bubble economy finally burst in early 1992.

Suspended Belief

Not all of these extravagant mega-projects were busts, mind you. Take the Great Seto Bridge, a four-lane, double-deck, 8-mile-long series of 11 constituent bridges built – at a cost of US$ 7 billion – to connect the islands of Honshu and Shikoku. The Great Seto Bridge took 10 years to construct, saw the loss of 13 workers’ lives in the process, and was considered a true wonder of the world when it opened in 1988.

Ready, Seto, Go!

Surely tourists from across the nation and the world at large would be flocking to Okayama prefecture to take in the jaw-dropping view of the Great Seto Bridge stretching out over the Inland Sea! If only there was a hotel, complete with observation tower, available for these deep-pocketed travelers to rest their bones and spend their yen… and in late-1980s Japan, investors’ dreams all-too-often came true.

Rooms With a View

So it was that in late 1988, a private investment group opened the La Rainbow Hotel & Tower, situated on a prime piece of Okayama real estate overlooking the Inland Sea. The view encompassed the 4,600 ft long Shimotsui-Seto Bridge (the northernmost stage of the Great Seto Bridge) and a number of small islands projected to become a sort of “Japanese Venice” as regional development progressed. Unfortunately, reality set in when the bubble burst and the associated Seto Sea Boom ended with a bang – and more than a few whimpers.

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So Over It Japans Abandoned Hotel La Rainbow

Telltale signs of snowflake-ization are all around if one knows where to look but these 10 “Beware Of” signs prove we really are living in a world of hurt.

This bit of fore-shadowing comes courtesy of Pixabay member aitoff and Charleston, SC golf bag retailer The Elliott Company. The seriously circumspect sign at the Royal North Devon Golf Club in Bideford, UK could relay several different meanings – just ask any “golf widow”. Note that the golf bag, artfully propped beneath the weathered sign, features a miniature replica of said sign. Impressive, even if you’re not Xzibit.

MAXI Driving Excitement

When driving in the UAE, one must expect the unexpected… if you don’t believe us, just read the sign. Flickr member Jerry “Woody” (woody1778a) snapped the er, surprisingly ambiguous sign while on a 2006 road trip through the Emirates.

Subtracters Say…

I was told there would be no math… oh, you mean snakes. That’s umm, NOT better, right Indy? In April of 2009, Flickr member WordRidden was moved to photograph the above warning sign in Goonhilly Downs, which just happens to be located on the UK’s most southerly point of land… The Lizard. Aha, now it’s all adding up.

Fronds in High Places

Don’t stand, don’t stand, don’t stand so close to tree. Just imagine: if Isaac Newton had lived in Hawaii instead of England there would be no gravity today, and therefore, no need for this warning sign. Seriously though, getting conked on your coconut BY a coconut is no laughing matter. Physics can’t be reckoned with, no matter how many palms you grease. Flickr member anokarina snapped this ominously armed & fabulous tree early in 2013.

Panic at the Disc, Oh!

Alien abduction just ahead, hold onto your butts! Flickr member Michel Curi chanced upon this odd – some might say “otherworldly” – warning sign from Largo, Florida in the spring of 2017. Now he spends his days constructing miniature replicas of Devil’s Tower out of mashed potatoes while muttering “This means something. This is important.”

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Beware Y Afraid 10 Weird Unexpected Warning Signs

The iconic ‘HOLLYWOOD’ sign has loomed over La La Land for almost a century, inspiring overseas wannabes to “sign” up with homegrown copies.

Hurray for HOLLYWOOD signs – may they be fruitful and multiply! And multiply they have, though the “original” itself is a shortened version of a “HOLLYWOODLAND” sign erected in 1923 to advertise an under-construction housing development. As time passed and the sign became symbolic of Tinseltown, municipalities far and wide were moved to stick their own monikers on the nearest available mountainside. The “RASNOV” sign above, situated a little too conspicuously in front of a 13th-century fortress in Transylvania, salutes the rugged region’s recent prominence as a major motion picture filming location.

The above images of the RASNOV sign date from between 2008 and 2010, and were photographed by Flickr members Bogdan Morar, Horia Varlan, and Inmobiliaria Lares, respectively.

BRASOV-wood?

Not to be outdone by its upstart next-door neighbor, the much larger town of Brasov erected its own white-block-letter sign celebrating, er, the rugged region’s recent prominence as a major motion picture filming location.

To Brasovians’ credit, their sign doesn’t intrude upon the scenic view of any medieval castles so it’s got that going for it, which is nice. Flickr members Chris Booth (monkeypuzzle) and ccarlstead snapped the snazzy ‘sylvanian sign while visiting Romania a decade ago.

Moratilla of La Mancha

Less than 100 people live in the quaint Castilian village of Moratilla de los Meleros, according to the most recent census taken back in 2004. Size doesn’t matter when it comes to having a “HOLLYWOOD” sign, however.

Captured in 2008 by Flickr member sécolectivoforzoso, the town also boasts streets dubbed “Hollywood Blvd”, “Sunset Blvd” and “Melrose Ave.” All par for the course since Hollywood and Moratilla became Sister Cities in 2008, prompting the latter to play its part by getting the letters out.

Perth Of A Nation

Is a mountain backdrop really necessary for a HOLLYWOOD-style sign? Maybe not – we see you nodding, city of Perth – but it sure doesn’t hurt. The photo above, taken by Flickr member Michael_Spencer in August of 2006, seems to link the sign with a Red Bull air race held over the foreshore of the Western Australian town.

“It’s only a temporary structure,” noted Flickr member David Fisher (Pgd) in November of 2007 but much like the large, block-lettered “3D TORONTO” sign, Perth’s self-titled homage to all things Hollywood may have grown too popular to remove.

Modest Model

Everything may be big in Texas but here in the model village of Bekonscot, things are smaller than life – and that’s by design. Bekonscot was conceived and constructed by Roland Callingham of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK in the pre-war era and Callingham, who passed away in 1961, is buried there. That’s his memorial stone above, overlooked by the model village’s miniature HOLLYWOOD-esque sign, as captured by Flickr member Matt Brown in July of 2018.

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Tinsel Towns 10 International Hollywood Sign Homages