The Sky Rest New Muroto (スカイレストニュー室戸) is a prime example of an abandoned place that suffered severly from too much attention – and by too much attention I mean the book “Nippon No Haikyo” (ニッポンの廃墟), which is pretty useless by now since it became victim of its own popularity. Unlike most books about abandoned places Nippon No Haikyo includes maps. Some of them are completely useless, but others are almost as detailed as if it was a GoogleMaps link. Why is the book useless? Because most of the described locations are demolished by now due to the attention the book drew to the respective places from August 2007 on – *Koga Family Land* for example was abandoned for more than 20 years until it was demolished in December of 2008, same for Nagoya Toyo Ball, Nihon Cement Mojiko and the Inagawa Trap Shooting. Other places once easily accessible were boarded up (Hototogisu Ryokan) or severely vandalized (like the ghost town *Mukainokura*).
The Sky Rest New Muroto is one of those places that suffered a lot of damage over the past four years. If you are lucky you can find pictures taken before Nippon No Haikyo was published and see a very unique building with lots of intact (rusty and dusty) interior, but since even blogs about food and flowers posted the exact location on maps (something that 95% of urbex blogs would never do!) the Sky Rest became a ravaged shadow of itself. Pretty much all of the interior was ripped out and shredded to pieces – all that’s left is the impressive concrete structure and piles of scrap everywhere. In addition to that the lighting conditions on the day of the shooting were terrible, so especially the early outdoor pictures turned out to be actually pretty horrible – I apologize for that! (I publish them anyways to give you a better impression of the unique architecture; the building looks like a fortress with three canon towers on top. The video coming with this article isn’t outstanding either, but I present it for the same reason, although I never intended to publish it, like all the other videos I took. But some of them, especially the one taken at the *Shime Coal Mine*, turned out to be quite popular…)
Now surrounded by antennas submitting television and communication signals the Sky Rest still towers Cape Muroto and offers a gorgeous view in all directions. Sadly there is barely anything known about the place – old pictures confirm what you can assume from the name, that the Sky Rest once was a restaurant for people enjoying the stunningly beautiful nature of Cape Muroto. In addition to that some pictures show remains of rusty and broken arcade machines, although they must have been very old given the fact that the Sky Rest was closed in 1978…
Sky Rest New Muroto (スカイレストニュー室戸)
2011/04/19 by Florian / Abandoned Kansai
I feel like you were a bit disappointed by this location 🙂 I actually enjoyed this place a lot. Maybe because it was a misty and silent morning… and this haikyo itself felt somewhat mysterious, located in a sumptuous area, yet far away from everything…
Yeah, to me it was the most disappointing location of our trip (except for the demolished ropeway…), but I always feel dragged down when I see a place completely trashed that was in decent condition only three or four years earlier. Nevertheless it was totally worth diving down there as the architecture of the building was unique and the view from the top was absolutely stunning! I guess it would have been a good exploration if it was a standalone location on a one day trip – but in comparison to the Countryside Clinic, the Healthspa and the upcoming locations to me it just couldn’t keep up.
Hi, tried to reply to your twitter direct but since you weren’t following it wouldn’t let me. Great site, vicariously enjoying your Nara Dreamland adventures. Thanks Bob
Thanks, Bob! There will be more Nara Dreamland soon – I went back in February when it was snowing for the first time in 3 years… Then the sun came out and the snow was mostly gone before I finished shooting.
(And damn you, Twitter! I guess I’ll have to follow more people right away from now on…)
Wow, I never knew about this place, although I’ve cycled to Muroto at least thrice. It looks like quite a climb to get up there, maybe too much of a climb after cycling 140 km from Tokushima (where I live). It looks a little dangerous – don’t get close to the ledge!
Since you know the area it should take you about 10 seconds with GoogleMaps to find the location. It’s quite popular amongst Japanese urban explorers and the main reason it’s not on even more blogs is that it’s quite remote and not really accessible by public transportation. The Sky Rest is actually a quite safe abandoned place – pretty solid concrete, no nosy neighbours…
I’ve stayed in Tokushima both times I went to Shikoku and while I haven’t seen much of the city I think it’s a lovely place; quite a relaxed atmosphere.
It’s quite sad what happens to these places once many people know about them, to be honest.
It is, but there doesn’t seem to be a pattern. Sometimes famous locations get trashed, sometimes people respect them and leave them alone. Sometimes a remote location means less people go there to vandalize, sometimes it means that they don’t worry about being heard, so they destroy what they can. Sometimes certain conditions are not even explainable, unless you expect people climbing roofs or bringing heavy machinery.