Urban exploration is a dangerous hobby. How dangerous it really is I found out at the Daieikaku, a rather big abandoned ryokan south of Osaka. I was literally and figuratively one step away from my demise…
The Daieigaku was the first location Damon and I went to together back in 2010. Later we continued to explore the *Gion Love Hotel*, the Ferris wheel *Igosu 108*, the *K-1 Pachinko Parlor*, the *Tsuchikura Mine* as well as the *Kasuga Mine A* and *Kasuga Mine B* – but first the Daieikaku, a hotel that turned out to be quite hard to get to.
Back then I had done all my explorations using trains, but the Daieikaku was too far away from the closest station to walk to, so we had to take a bus. Which is a hassle in pretty much every country, especially if your command of the local language is… sub-par. Sometimes it’s close to impossible to figure out schedules and stops. When I wanted to get to a place near a university campus in Hokkaido last year it took the local tourist information at JR Sapporo Station 15 minutes to figure out which bus to take – and I knew the name of the bus stop I wanted to go to! Figuring out which bus to take to the Daieikaku wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t the only problem: The Daieikaku was located at a slope on the other side of a river, but the bridge leading to the ryokan was completely overgrown. Even in autumn with weakened flora we weren’t able to get to the other side, especially without being seen by locals and day visitors. So we crossed the river via another bridge, climbed up the slope and got to the back of the Daieikaku at the level of the third floor. Instead of taking some steps down to the ground floor we entered through a smashed in window right where we were. Starting up there was as good as anywhere else we thought…
Big mistake! The first room was one of those tatami party rooms you have in pretty much every hotel in Japan. Thanks to open doors and windows everywhere in the Daieigaku the place was in rather bad condition with leaves all over the place. I went to the side of the building, looking for a staircase. Found it, passed it and opened a door… a restroom. I went inside to have a closer look, but although the floor looked a lot more solid than the one in the tatami room it didn’t feel like it. Halfway into the room I had a very, very bad feeling, so I went back to the hallway, down one floor via the staircase, opened the door to the restroom below the one I just entered and… it was gone! There was no friggin restroom! Only one wall with some urinals hanging mid-air! And the bathroom I was in basically was attached to the rest of the building by its walls. I guess I don’t have to mention that the floors below were gone, too, so if I would have walked further into the restroom two minutes earlier (or probably just would have stayed where I was) there would have been a good chance that I would have crashed through a thin layer of tiles and wood three floors down to my death. After I recovered from that realization I went straight to Damon to warn him about the death trap on the third floor. Luckily he didn’t put himself in danger, so we continued our exploration without further incidents, although we continued to take risks every once in a while – especially Damon, who was exploring the hotel like a honey badger. Through tiny broken windows with shards left, up and down rotting wooden stairs, … Which lead us down to the onsen part of the ryokan, a part of the hotel I probably wouldn’t have gotten to if I would have gone there on my own, especially after that little shock right at the beginning. There we saw some major cracks in the ceiling and the wall, which didn’t exactly help to ease my mind – parts of the Daieigaku already collapsed, so being in the middle of the building with unstable floors above and below wasn’t exactly the place I wanted to be in. But the former lobby didn’t look any better. We first saw it from 2F and looked down – staircases gone, walls caved in… The whole building was in worse than dilapidated condition and I guess every single step could have been our last!
Looking back at the exploration of the Daieikaku I have to say that we were terribly naïve and really lucky. The term “Daieikaku” means big glorious building and it is often used for restaurants serving a charcoal grilled meat dish called yakiniku – and while the ryokan Daieikaku was indeed a big building it was everything but glorious. It was a deathtrap and by far the most dangerous location I have ever explored. It also was rather unspectacular overall, that’s probably the reason why I never wrote about it, almost forgot about. Back then I just did a pre-selection of my photos, deleting only the worst, so I had to go through almost 150 of them to make a final selection for this article – and it actually makes me wanna go back there. Three years ago I shot without a tripod and the Daieikaku was pretty dark in some places, though it was a bright and sunny autumn day. Furthermore several earthquakes hit Kansai since then, including the Tohoku Earthquake that caused the Fukushima Incident and a recent one that struck Awaji Island. Plus Mother Nature had 30 months to do additional damage… Well, we’ll see – if time allows I’ll stop by there again to give you an update on what happened to the Daieikaku. For now I hope you’ll enjoy the photos I took during my visit. I’m sure you are eager to see what the collapsed bathroom looked like… 🙂
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Enjoyed this series a lot. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks a lot for your nice comments, Harrie!
Great shots! I understand all too well the dangers of urban exploring- but what you leave with is a bit of history! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Cynthia. Doing urban exploration for more than 3 years now every once in a while I find out that places I visited were demolished or vandalized beyond recognition – and every time I am happy to have explored them when they were still there / in better condition…
Spectacular!
Thanks! 🙂
If it helps, the pictures look stunning. The floating urinal, the mirror and the cleaning area needing cleaning being my favourites.
Thanks, Silvia, those three are my favorites, too. This is once again a set that isn’t very artsy or spectacular, but it shows a places most people don’t have access to – and that makes it interesting. I wish I had brought my tripod though, the Daieikaku was quite dark overall, hence so many photos shot with high ISO.
This is so cool. You’re so cool!
It was a pretty cool location – I’m just lucky that I got out without getting hurt… 🙂
Love the concept of this blog — go enjoy what’s out there (carefully). 🙂
Luckily Japan has lots of places to enjoy… 🙂
Most of all BE CAREFUL !!!!!
I always am. Never got hurt doing urban exploration, except for little things, like going through thorny bushes.
To this day, I am dumbfounded to see all these elaborate facilities that were once teeming so abandoned. Japanese are known to go overboard on fads and buildings/attractions such as this place are testament to their lifestyle. Did you go to the island that “appears” to look like a battleship?
Hey Koji,
I went to Gunkanjima in spring of 2010 – *you can read all about it here*.
Fascinating…
Another top-notch post! Fantastic! Hashima or “Battleship Island” mentioned by Mustang.Koji would be such a great idea. Even though I have already seen quite a lot of pictures from there.
Thanks a lot! I actually went to Gunkanjima three years ago. I did the tourist tour, so the photos and the video I published differ quite a bit from the usual urbex photos you see taken at Hashima.
Great series! I must confess that I do get “suited up” when I go inside abandoned places – my Kevlar vest is not so much for people – as it is for missing floors! Keep safe and thanks for the post.
Wow, I’ve never heard people wearing Kevlar wests for urban exploration, but in general I go in without much protection. No masks, gloves, goggles, helmet – just solid clothes: leather jacket, jeans, hiking boots. Would a west like that really help much when crashing through a floor or two?
Mostly for punctures – you may still break a bone or two, but your vitals would not be impaled. caution is still your best armor!
Many of us do not have the opportunity or the bravery to do what you do (myself included), so I really appreciate your pictures and the stories behind them. I’m glad you sensed the “very bad feeling” and got out of the bathroom quickly!
The bathroom taught me a valuable lesson: Always explore buildings bottom to top, never the other way around. You always want to know what’s below you…
And thanks, I’d be happy if you would follow my adventures for quite a while since some of the most interesting ones are still to come.
Hotel and Ryokan Management 1968… That hotel has been around a while, though from your photos I don’t think it will be much longer. The urinals hanging in mid-air shot was incredible – glad you guys made it out safely!
The bathroom at the Daieikaku was by far the most dangerous situation I’ve ever been in while doing urban exploration… Sadly usually it’s very tough to find out more about the places I visit. 2.5 years have past since I visited the Daieikaku and I just found out recently that it must have been abandoned since at least the late 90s, because a Japanese dude on some blog claims that him and his friends have been there then. I really should go there again and see if it’s still standing or if more parts collapsed since my first visit…
Glad you survived!
Me too! 🙂
Oh wow what a fascinating story, just so cool to see the photos too. Not so cool that you could hve almost died though!
I didn’t appreciate the place back when I was exploring it, but now I do – most hotels are just trashed, this one though was really falling apart. You don’t get many of those…
Whoa! That bathroom is insane. I can’t believe you didn’t fall through the one above.
Way to go on photographing the old brochure – nice to see what it looked like in it’s heyday.
Love these posts and your photos, but stay safe.
The cover actually shows a different place – it’s just a magazine about ryokan management I found there.
And that bathroom taught me a valuable lesson: Always explore locations bottom to top, never the other way around as you always want to know what’s below the floor you are walking on.
Thanks for exploring and sharing these images!
Thanks for stopping by!