Asahi beer is popular all over the world, the Asahi Shimbun is a famous Japanese newspaper and Asahi TV is a somewhat known TV station – but the Asahi Sports Center nobody seems to know. Or seemed to know at the time my buddy Dan and I explored the place in October 2012. (If you google the term you will find tons of fitness clubs in Germany and Japan, despite the fact that I use the real name of the place here.)
Japanese summers are hot, humid, full of insects… and they drag on forever, especially in the Kansai region. While back home in Germany friends and family start to complain about grey days and having to wear windbreakers, I spend most late autumn days wearing T-shirts – and risking sunburns. Last year October was no different when Dan and I were approaching the Asahi Sports Center somewhere in the Japanese mountains. Despite wearing a T-shirt I was sweating like a hog, the vegetation still lush, green and thick. Before going to the sports center I only had seen a handful of bad photos on a Japanese blog, the satellite view on GoogleMaps basically useless due to its blurriness. With only a vague idea of what to expect the sheer size of the Asahi Sports Center took us by surprise, making it an all-time favorite at the time of its exploration.
After paying some serious amount of money for highway fees and driving for half an hour through tiniest towns and past forgotten fields we finally reached the Asahi Sports Center – being kilometers away from the next living soul we just parked the car in front of the first building we saw and headed in. It seemed like this was some kind of service center / administrative building. The kitchen on the ground floor was half unrigged, half ripped apart, the restrooms were dark and gloomy, vandalism everywhere; not exactly a warm welcome. The first floor, too, had not been spared by vandals and mould, but at least there we found some flyers and posters including maps, giving us an idea how big the sports center really was – the answer: about 450 by 200 meters. Pretty friggin big!
Two things on the map caught our eyes immediately: the huge swimming pool and the tennis courts. To our misfortune the combination of a drawn map (including artistic freedom…) and rampant nature didn’t make it easy to navigate, so it took a while until we found our way south via several flights of steps and an overpass – across a now completely overgrown kart track!
It was actually this outdoor area that made the Asahi Sports Center so spectacular. The service center was vandalized, but the sports area was just abandoned and overgrown. This part looked like people just didn’t show up anymore and nature took over again – natural decay at its best.
You should think that an abandoned tennis court wouldn’t be very interesting. The ones I saw on *Okunoshima* and near an abandoned retirement home in Germany (yet to come…) were actually quite dull places, but these courts here… amazing! They were located down a slope, lower than the visitor center, and the fences were almost completely overgrown, while the courts including the nets were… well… withered and rusted, but overall in decent condition. Somebody dragged the rusty umpire chairs away, but other than that everything looked eerily normal. The atmosphere was just wonderful, with the sun shining and birds singing; a perfect place to go to for reading a book without getting disturbed.
The huge pool west of the tennis courts was even spookier, thanks to a couple of little buildings surrounding the place, most vandalized and / or overgrown. A perfect place to shoot a horror movie on a grey hazy day… The dark green water looked like you could dump a body there without it ever being seen again once it sank down half a meter or so – a strong contrast to the white painted edge surrounding the creatively shaped pool. Just in sight of the pool we found about half a dozen wooden huts the sports center called Swiss Chalets. (The first video shows a walking tour of both the chalets and the pool.)
Shimmering through the profuse vegetation were some metal constructions, most likely part of the amusement park like rides visible on the posters and tickets at the visitor center. Sadly there was no way to get through, the undergrowth was just still too thick.
Dan and I went back up to the main road and followed it for a while. There we found another set of bungalows and some other buildings. Sadly they were completely vandalized and I had no motivation to take any photos there after enjoying the gorgeous sports area – but I kept the video camera rolling while I was going through the buildings for the first time. Usually I do the walking tours after I have seen everything, so this is a rare opportunity to explore live with me. To see what I saw when I actually saw it for the first time. After about 3 hours on the premises I didn’t expect any trouble anymore, exploring a building for the first time nevertheless is an exciting experience, even if the building is far from being spectacular!
In the neighborhood we also found the so-called convention center – basically a party space with an open fireplace on the ground floor and some rooms with tons of bunk beds upstairs. The Christmas party photos I found at the visitor center were clearly taken here.
Last but not least we followed a road down the mountain to what once was the goal of a summer ski slope – but this area was also completely overgrown, making it rather likely that I will revisit the sports center again one winter; before it starts to snow, but after the vegetation is weakened… 🙂
(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)
Abandoned Kansai 
This looks like it was a pretty elite, high-class getaway. The modern style must have been quite impressive at one time.
There I saw old photos from when the resort was brand-new – it looked amazing! Makes me wonder even more why they built it in such a remote area…
As always, I love your still photos, but these videos are wonderful insight into your discovery. The sounds that are recorded are fantastic… but how do you manage to not verbalize while filming? I’d have trouble keeping myself from reacting to that lovely snake, the eery green water, or the hand lettering on (what appeared to be) changing rooms by the pool. Well done!
Hey Helen,
The main reason why I don’t talk over my videos is that I want to give people the feeling that they are there. When I explore I don’t talk to myself, even when I am with a friend we barely talk. I take in what I see, enjoy the atmosphere – the sounds of nature, the light, the strange beauty of those abandoned places. If I think something needs to be said I write it in the article. Some videos contain minor bloopers, for example if I bang my head somewhere 10 minutes into a video I don’t start shooting from the beginning… Which, I guess, also adds to the feeling of being there, because sometimes you bang your head somewhere, it’s hard to avoid. 🙂
Great – especially like the pool and light shots.
Hey Robert,
Thanks, that pool was amazing! I spent at least half an hour there shooting it from different angles. The green of the water was such a fascinating color.
I’m sure that getting just the right shot was not easy, but you did it with the ones you posted.
A little too imaginative as it may sound, the abandoned building would’ve made a nice resort, with a horror twist to it … 😉 Thanks for sharing!
Have a look at the *Maya Hotel* – that one would be perfect to convert it into a haunted house!
Long time! Thank you for visiting my blog.
One of your photos shows Tomogashima – there are military ruins on that island… 🙂
Thanks for the write up and photos. I found the photograph of the 4 photos the most interesting. Juxtaposed with the other photos give the contrast of opening day to the decay found today. One has to wonder why open such a place in a remote location with limited access to begin with.
Hey Mark,
Maybe I should have uploaded the walking tour of that building, given that it’s on six photos… I might add it tomorrow!
I can only assume that land was cheap and available in that part of Japan, so the people who created the Asahi Sports Center decided that a remote location wouldn’t hurt the project – history proved them wrong. Well, their loss is our gain; and in autumn it’s still a wonderful place to be!
Very interesting. Great post. As a side note, I liked Asahi beer when I tried one. 🙂
Hi Silvia,
Thanks a lot, I am happy to hear that you liked the Asahi Sports Center.
As a side note, I don’t drink beer. Some people remember me as “the German who doesn’t drink beer”. I guess I am one of three… in history. 😉
I would call it a dream that once was. The pool was beautifully designed. Funny I never imagined anything would be abandoned in Japan. I guess its because my experience with Japanese places and spaces is that they are extremely well-kept. Thanks for dropping by my site,
Oh, there are tons of amazing places abandoned in Japan – it’s a high price country and a country that is always after the next new thing. Best example are eateries, even donut shops. Some shops have lines of 4 hours upon opening, 2 months later they are normal shops and half a year later they are broke and another store moves in. I’ve seen it several times…
Guess I will find out all about it as I keep up with your posts. Waving at you from The States
This is really neat. I have a fascination with this kind of thing though I really haven’t taken any Urbex photos. Is there much risk for getting in trouble going to these places?
Hi Andy,
There are plenty of risk doing urban exploration, but it really depends on the location. The general risk is health trouble – asbestos, brittle wood, rusty metal. Everything from scratches to death. Legal trouble depends on the country you live in. Other risks include homeless people, drug users, gun owners – you have none of those in Japan, but I guess Texas is a different beast. I’m rather carefree doing urbex in Japan, I am not sure how often I would do it in the States. You should definitely do some research before entering a place – is it really abandoned? Does the police have an eye on it? Will you look at the barrel of the owner’s shotgun after climbing through a window?