You are looking at the interior of the fifth longest tunnel in the world. It is the tunnel which connects Taipei, to Ilan. Ilan is the first major city on the east coast of Taiwan. The tunnel was designed because the previous two ways to get to the east coast were quite long and dangerous.
The first way was to drive all along the coast which was not only long, but full of traffic. The other option was to drive through the mountains on the tiny mountain roads. This was quite dangerous and many people drove off the road to their death because of traffic accidents, bad weather, and rock slides. In fact a friend told me that when she was young and living on the east coast she would actually fly to taipei on a domestic flight. Which to you might sound reasonable, but that's like flying from Washington DC to Baltimore.
The tunnel is 8 miles long and took over 15 years to build. they mainly blasted a giant hole through the mountain. This tunnel is a big sense of pride for those involved and if you were part of the team that worked on building it, you are treated with a lot of respect in Taiwan.
This tunnel is actually one of a few tunnels on the way from Taipei to Ilan, and in total it cuts down driving time from what used to be well over 3 hours to around 45 minutes. This is really an issue for Taiwan in that while the island is extremely small, it takes much longer to get to places than it should. However they are working hard to make it much easier to get to places. And with Taiwan's desire to be well known, i'm hoping they will try to make the world's first hyperloop.
A few other facts about the tunnel. There was some controversy awhile back because they government had commissioned some art to be in the tunnel. It was objectionable to some people for some reason, and it was taken down or something like that. As you can tell I really don't remember much about it. I do know that the tunnel does need something cause while 8 miles doesn't seem like very long, it's long enough that you start to feel like you're going insane.
Also if you have one of those apps on your computer/tablet/phone that let's you look through various surveillance cameras around the world. you can actually look through and control one of the cameras that is in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Maybe if we're both lucky, you'll catch me on my next trip to the beach!
