If you are a regular reader of Abandoned Kansai, then you know that sometimes it takes me years to write articles about locations I explored – and I apologize for that! Today I’ll try to change it up again and write about my trip to Tohoku before it even ends; “Instant Article”, so to say.
Currently I am sitting on a Nozomi Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka, and what better way to use those quiet moments than to reflect a little bit on the past five days? (Sleep! But who needs that?) I also realized that I haven’t written yet an article for this week’s update, and since the photos of this trip are basically all I have with me currently… here we go! 🙂
It’s been a while that my old *haikyo* buddy Michael and I went urbexing in *Hokkaido* together, 1.5 years to be specific, and we were talking about going on the road again for quite some time now. Since we are both living busy lifes in Japan, it was a matter of coordinating and allocating days – and the period of choice became the second half of Golden Week, the most miserable travel period in Japan as even the laziest couch potatoe decides to help clogging up trains and highways, if for no other reason than because everybody else is doing it. As for where were to go: Michael suggested Tohoku, to which I hesitantly agreed – since Tohoku is a pain to get to from Kansai, I basically only knew the most famous urbex locations there, and I was aware that there was a lot of driving involved. Michael was, too – one of many reasons to bring his friend Ben on board, another interesting fella from the UK, who was a great addition to our former team of two!
The plan was to visit Kejonuma Leisure Land and the Wagakawa Water Power Plant on the way north, where we wanted to explore the three big Tohoku mines Matsuo, Osarizawa and Taro – plus some minor places along the way. While the Leisure Land was nothing but amazing, the water power plant turned out to be a colossal waste of time; to get inside you have to cross one of two nearby rivers on foot, which can be done rather easily in late summer… but not in spring, when the melting waters of the surrounding mountains rush through. The three mines on the other hand were extremely interesting and quite different from each other. Each one of them deserves at least an own article, maybe even more. Sadly most of the additional side locations were cut for different reasons, except for the Naganeyama Ski Jump, for which my fellow explorers didn’t even want to leave the car, and a locked up school in Fukushima prefecture. What made this trip real special though, was the fact that we were able to visit one of the few remaining open sex museums in Japan, which was quite an interesting experience after exploring two abandoned ones in the *south* and in the *north* of Japan.
Living in Osaka and being spoiled by the incredibly high level of food quality there (Osaka is usually referred to as Japan’s kitchen, while Kansai in general is considered Japan’s birthplace) I was surprised to experience that the Tohoku area doesn’t even come close to that. While I only had less than five bad meals in more than seven years living in Kansai, I don’t think I had a really good one during the whole trip; except maybe lunch near the sex museum, which is in Tochigi prefecture and threrfore not Tohoku anymore. At the Osarizawa Mine, mostly a tourist attraction now, I had a tonkatsu burger (deep fried pork chop burger) with gold leaves… and even that was barely eatable despite the allmighty „even a bad burger is still good food“ rule. Most restaurants on the way though were serious disappointments.
Overall it was an exhausting trip with up to 7 hours of driving per day (altogether Mike and Ben drove 1946 kilometers, most of it on days 1 and 4, when we were getting to and from Tohoku) and less than 6 hours of sleep per night in average; which isn’t that bad, but not enough when doing a dangerous hobby like urban exploration. Although we were very careful, all three of us had more or less minor accidents – luckily we all got away again without any serious damage. (Except the one to the wallet, as everything gets super expensive in Japan during Golden Week…)
Sadly I won’t be able to publish these lines from the Shinkansen, so there will be a gap of at least about an hour between me writing and you reading this article, but I hope you’ll enjoy this quick write-up nevertheless. In the upcoming weeks I’ll publish half a dozen more detailed articles about this road trip – and I am sure some of them will blow your mind! I saw only a handful locations in the past five days, but almost all of them were spectacular must sees. Here’s an alphabetical list, followed by some photos:
Abandoned Japanese Cinema
Kejonuma Leisure Land
Kinugawa Onsen Sex Museum
Kuimaru Elementary School
Matsuo Mine
Naganeyama Ski Jump
Osarizawa Mine
Taro Mine
Wagakawa Water Power Plant
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Looks like you had a great time.
I did indeed! 🙂
Amazingly quick as always!
Usually it takes me years to write up locations, I thought I’ll try hours for a change – and you were right in the car: I only had the trip’s photos with me and a long train ride to kill…
The mine looks great, look forward to seeing more images 🙂
The Osarizawa article is online now, the other two mines will take a little longer…
So glad to see you made it to the Wagagawa power plant! Did you walk through the tunnel in the mountain? And how were the bats on the second floor? When I was there last year, I scared up a huge bat colony upstairs while trying to reach the overlook above the main room. 🙂
Well, me made it to the other side of the river and couldn’t get inside as both rivers were way too deep and way too fast at this time of the year. But thanks for the bat warning! 🙂
Yeah, those rivers were pretty deep and fast even in late June! If you ever hear that they’re draining the reservoir of the Yuda dam upstream, it might be worth revisiting. The original dam and intake tunnel are submerged under the reservoir, but apparently can be accessed when they drain it for maintenance.
Thanks a lot for the advice – I will keep it in mind should I ever return to the area!
Nice. I look forward to the rest of the articles. Thanks again for an awesome trip…
I will keep those articles coming… 🙂
That trip was quite something! Thanks again for being a part of it – and I am looking forward to the sequel!
Amazing photos. I was interested in the projector because I used to be a projectionist at my hometown movie theatre, many years ago. Our projector was similar to the one in your picture.
Thanks – I took more photos of that projector, but the room was pitch black, so I hope they turned out to be sharp and well lit. The location definitely deserves its own article, so there will be more about that cinema / theater / community center soon!
Another great one from you. Yay instant post! 🙂
Really enjoyed “beautiful but out of reach” “matsuo mine revisited” and the kuimaru elementary school. Enjoyable pictures and read all around.
Thank you very much!
Sadly that one location was really out of reach, but there will be plenty of more stuff about the other two soon. Until then I hope you will enjoy the article about the Osarizawa Mine. 🙂
Haha, the wax figure diorama from the sex museum takes multi-tasking to a whole new level!
Ha, ha – definitely. Too bad it will be closed soon, leaving the sex museum in Atami as the last of its kind in Japan… 😦