After spending a whole night at Nara Dreamland it dawned at around 5.30am, so Mike and I went straight to the entrance area near the Dreamstation to begin our second round through the park. The atmosphere at Dreamland early in the morning is almost creepier than it is at night. The light was kind of blue-ish, the sky slowly turned to overcast and we could finally have a closer look at the state of this huge abandoned amusement park – it looks horrible! The main street is so fake it would make an Ed Wood movie look cheap(er) and the amount of vandalism and decay is almost shocking considering the place was closed down for good only four years ago. If you want to see pictures of an undamaged Dreamland you’ll have to find some that are at least one or two years old. Pretty much all the windows in the park are smashed in, most of them just for the sake of destroying them – and that’s why places like Doggy Land or the Doctor’s Shack don’t get published with their real names or hints on how to find them… Too late for Dreamland though, the damage is done and I think it will get worse every month. And I totally understand now why the security guard was quite aggressive when he caught me taking pictures in February since it’s impossible to know who’s a vandal and who’s a harmless urban explorer. It would seriously piss me off and I guess even scare me when I’d come to work in the morning only to see doors and windows smashed in!
Mike and I, of course, just minded our own business and took a few pictures here and there – but to be fully honest, I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe it was because at that point we already spent four and a half hours there and of course we were tired and worried that security will show up at any minute, but Nara Dreamland (at daylight) is just a miserable place to be. It’s widespread, it’s run-down, it’s ugly and it’s full of weird items. Like the statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the castle, that doesn’t make sense at all. (Maybe it does – if you know an explanation please drop me a line!) The really shocking part about it is that the place most likely felt weird even when it was still open. I can see the Aska rollercoaster being fun, maybe the water park with the pools and slides, too. But the rest looks like a real embarrassment for everybody involved. Again, love and hate at the same time: It’s a huge amusement park with all the attractions still standing – but at the same time it feels like one of the cheap weird reality shows on TV you don’t really want to watch, but you do it anyways and feel a bit guilty for doing so. So I guess it was no surprise that Mike left after about an hour to wait for me outside and I followed maybe ten minutes later. For some reason the daytime version of Nara Dreamland wasn’t nearly as captivating as I hoped it would be – I defeated my haikyo nemesis, but it was a bitter-sweet victory to find out that “the enemy” didn’t live up to the expectations…
Overall my (most likely) last visit to Nara Dreamland was an ambiguous experience. It was great to hang out with Mike and being at an abandoned amusement park at night is an awesome experience – it just wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as my explorations of other places like the Taga Mine, the Takada Ranch Ruin or the mostly demolished Expoland.
And don’t even get me started on the Zone of Alienation, including Chernobyl and Pripyat! Oh… well… now that I think about it: Maybe it’s time to write up a couple of stories about radioactivity, gas masks and some of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to!
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*. And since this article is quite popular: You can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIeBW2SYBg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIeBW2SYBg
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- Nara Dreamland
Abandoned Kansai 
It really sucks that Nara closed so soon after building “Aska”, which looked to be a really good wooden coaster [unlike nameless others like White Cyclone..oops ;)]. It also reminds me of the strange little parks Florida had in the 60s and early 70s.
I assume building Aska was an “all or nothing” move that failed miserably. And that’s not Aska’s fault. The location of the park is just too remote (no train station really close by, rather small streets leading to it) and all the other attractions looked abysmal even when Nara Dreamland was still open.
DL may harbor bad memories for you, but the pictures still look great. Trying to think why theme parks have such appeal as haikyo, maybe it’s because usually they’re supposed to be teeming with people, or maybe it’s that they’re built as a kind of escape from reality, like a dream – and in being abandoned, it’s like a dream gone wrong, maybe even a nightmare…food for thought.
I’m a Kansai local and interested in checking out haikyo locations but I’ll admit I have no experience – any suggestions on where to start (from a research or from a location point of view)?
Hey Tim,
thanks for your kind words – I have to admit the Nara Dreamland Daytime picture set is still one of my least favorite photo sets I’ve published, but I guess I’m indeed not objective about that topic…
Theme parks are supposed to be all about shiny, worriless fun – seeing them all rusty and overgrown, having access to the parts that are usually “employees only” is something that completely contradicts the image most people have about amusement parks. And usually they get demolished when closed down, so they are a quite rare sight, too.
As for getting started on urban exploration… Do internet research. Even without maps you can find out about the exact locations of (most) places quite easily – some more, some less. I found them, so everybody can find them with a certain amount of dedication. When you have a decent selection start with those that are quite remote (no nosy neighbours…) and don’t feel too dangerous – the Atago Cable Car for example is way less dangerous to explore than the Iimori Mine.
I got into Dreamland 3 times in 2 days just last week. Wow, Security is tight. I’ve never been so paranoid. I got away with it though:)
Yeah, it looks like NDL became one of the most popular urbex places in Japan… I’m sure it’ll appear on a lot of blogs in late summer / early autumn – and then I will post a unique set of pictures: Nara Dreamland covered in snow!
Hi again,
I was just wondering if you have any tips for entering. I’m a 20 year old female and I’m going to be traveling with a 20 year old male friend (I’m thinking that my gender might be on my side here in terms of getting out of trouble?). Where’s the best point of entry, what time of day and do you have any other tips? Thank you! 🙂
Chay
Sorry, I don’t have any advice on entering Nara Dreamland except be careful as security is there and quite a few people ripped clothing on barbed wire. (Not myself, some Japanese guys I talked to.) And I don’t think your gender will be an advantage with that guard. I’ve heard he tries to pin vandalism damages on people he catches nowadays, so it seems like he’s more interested in making an example than letting people off the hook. Good luck!
I’m looking for pictures of undamaged version Nara Dreamland that have been abandoned 1-2 years. Do you know of any websites that have (especially Japanese websites)?
I don’t think I have ever seen photos of a completely undamaged abandoned Nara Dreamland. To my knowledge I was actually one of the first urban explorers to go there when I started to explore Nara Dreamland in late 2009. By now explorers from all over Japan, all over the world, go to Nara Dreamland. But photos from the early days of abandonment are rather rare…