Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for July, 2016

Crossbow Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Love Hotel, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/26| Leave a Comment »

I’ve seen my share of “unusual” Japanese architecture over the past ten years, but never had I seen a hotel shaped like a crossbow; especially not an abandoned one! What a fascinating place – at least from a bird’s eye view…

GoogleMaps and its satellite view have been invaluable tools ever since I picked up urban exploration as a hobby almost seven years ago. Despite the fact that most of the used satellite pictures are several months (or years…) old, it’s still a great way to find and pre-scout abandoned places. The Crossbow Hotel looked absolutely fascinating from above… like a giant crossbow with some kind of greenhouse in the lower part of the stock. Hardly ever was I that excited to explore an abandoned hotel! Sadly it turned out to be another vandalized piece of crap…
I knew that I was in for a disappointment the moment that I saw the busted open entrance of the hotel and gigantic piles of plastic cable sheathing – metal thieves had ripped apart ceilings, bathrooms and some walls, graffiti “artists” started to take over some of the rooms still in acceptable condition (leaving behind candy bars with a Best Before date several months in the future!), and your average run-of-the-mill vandal had been there, too. And while the architecture looked really intriguing from above, it was rather confusing on location, featuring some unexpected turns and narrow hallways. Especially the stock part was kind of strange and tough to explain – I recommend watching the walkthrough video at the end of this article to get a better impression.
Sadly there is little to nothing known about the hotel and it features. Located on a small hill in walking distance of a sandy beach, it once probably was quite a nice place to stay at. And while the latest signs implied that the Crossbow Hotel was used as a love hotel (“rest” and “stay” rates…), the whole setup differed greatly from regular love hotels – so I am sure that it was a conversion after the initial regular hotel failed. Why did it fail? I can only make assumptions, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with the not yet mentioned bypass along the beach, built in the 1990s; a source of massive amount of noise and a serious eyesore. It’s easy to imagine how that can ruin a hotel within a season or two – unless you keep the windows and blinds closed, because you only came there to… fornicate. And even then success obviously wasn’t a given thing…

Overall the Crossbow Hotel was just another average hotel exploration with quite a bit of vandalism. No risks like decay, security or mold – but also not much to get excited about…

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Read Full Post »

Ye Olde Inn

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/19| 2 Comments »

One of the few things I just don’t get tired of is the aesthetics of Japanese architecture. And by that I mean the beautiful countryside architecture using lots of wood! Regular Japanese cities with their rundown grey buildings or modern skyscrapers are as ugly as it gets, especially on a rainy day. Ye Olde Inn though was one of those buildings you just won’t find anywhere outside of Japan, especially not in that condition…

You might remember *Ye Olde Tea Factory* I’ve written about a couple of weeks ago – and the remote area near Kowada Station on the eastern bank of the Tenryu River, completely cut off from the road network after the Sakuma Dam cause said river to rise. The abandoned 2-storey building right next to the factory is usually ignored by explorers, probably because the upper floor is completely locked, but of course I found a way in on the lower floor… in the back. I’ve never read anything reliable about it anywhere, so I assume that it was built and closed around the same time as the factory (1950 / early 1980s) – probably a restaurant or an inn… or the home of a rather rich family. Who knows?
Like pretty much everything else in the area, Ye Olde Inn was built on a slope, which means that there was a smaller lower floor and a bigger upper floor. The lower floor was basically a storage room with a rather big wooden machine in one corner, most likely also related to tea production. Wooden stairs lead up to the (indoor) toilet – and since the upper floor was completely locked, it was the only way to currently get up there. The other staircase near the entrance, leading to the kitchen area, was made of concrete – and right next to the exit outside was some kind of outhouse; not a toilet, but a small room with a bathtub. Upstairs was rather dark and gloomy, and I didn’t trust many of the floors of this metal-clad wooden building, so I tried to stay in the parts I assumed were on solid ground. Everything here was magnificently old-fashioned, from the brick-built cooking place to the slightly radio. With supplies still on shelves, this house could have been a private house, a restaurant, or an inn… or maybe it was used for changing purposes. In any case, the interior kept what the exterior promised, and so I actually had to postpone my return to civilization as I didn’t want to rush things. Overall a great exploration well worth the really long journey there…

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Read Full Post »

My Second Solo Exhibition – DPRK / North Korea

Posted in Asia, DPRK, North Korea, Photography, Travel, Visited in 2013 on 2016/07/14| 3 Comments »

My trips to the Democratic People’s Republic Korea a.k.a. North Korea have been some of the most memorable vacations I’ve ever been on – and the *North Korea Special* here on *Abandoned Kansai* is still one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written.
During my summer vacation in 2015 I did a solo exhibition about urbex photography in the city hall of my hometown of Bürstadt, Germany; quite a popular one, with enthusiastic reviews by several local media outlets. So when I decided on my 2016 summer vacation, planning another photo exhibition was kind of a natural thing to do – especially since I was able to get the precious time slot that includes the international gymnastics festival “Gymastica”, which attracts hundreds of amateur athletes from all over the world. The perfect opportunity to show some of the pictures I took in North Korea, famous for its own and “slightly bigger” gymnastics festival, the Arirang Mass Games.
The exhibition takes place at the city hall in Bürstadt, Germany – Rathausstraße 2; that’s about 45 minutes south of Frankfurt. It’s accessible free of charge on Mondays / Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Tuesdays / Wednesdays / Fridays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. till August 5th 2015. If you are lucky you can catch me there, but even if you don’t, you’ll find handouts with some explanatory lines about each of the 26 photo in both German and English. Oh, and please leave a comment in the guest book if you can make it! 🙂

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Read Full Post »

Shuuhen Temple Revisited

Posted in Asia, Haikyo, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/12| 2 Comments »

I genuinely care about the places I explore – not just when I am there by following the “Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints” rule (I actually try to avoid leaving footprints…), but also afterwards. That’s why I tend to keep an eye on more or less all of the locations I’ve been to. Most of the time it ends with them being demolished, but the story of the *Shuuhen Temple* took a different route…

It was a beautiful autumn day in November of 2011 when I first headed out to the Shuuhen Temple in the countryside of Hyogo prefecture. Abandoned temples are rather rare, even in a country like Japan, where you can barely throw a stone without hitting one. But this historic site dating back to the year 651 fell into disrepair after the local monk left his house (whether on foot or on a stretcher is unknown), and it apparently got even worse when a landslide damaged the road leading up to the temple. I on the other hand enjoyed a gorgeous, serene afternoon during the height of momijigari, the little brother of looking at cherry blossoms – looking at the changing colors of the maple leaves.
About four years later I found out that the Shuuhen Temple had been under renovation or reconstruction, without getting to know any specifics. I have to admit that revisits are not really high on my priority list as I rather explore locations I haven’t been to before (especially since nothing had changed according to GoogleMaps), but during Golden Week of 2016 I finally had the opportunity to go back to this rather unique location.
To get to the Shuuhen Temple, it’s about about a 45 to 60 minute walk from the next train station – a local one, with about one connection in each direction per hour. The last stretch is up a hill. Not too steep, but a total height difference of about 160 meters. The first major change to 4.5 years prior? A brandnew sign at the main road, so this abandoned place has become *a tourist attraction*! The second major difference? About a dozen warning signs making you aware that the place is now under camera surveillance – and there was indeed a solar-powered, motion-activated camera along the road! Of course they repaired and improved the dirt road once leading up the hill… but that was not all! The rough rocks on the mostly overgrown slope leading up the final meters to Shuuhen Temple were replaced by real stairs made from cut stone, the whole area was gardened, and a new entrance was created, including a slightly rewritten info sign – as neither were part of the *previous article*, I added a 2011 flashback photo. The temple area itself underwent quite a few changes, too. First of all: The monk’s house has been demolished and is nothing more than a gravel covered piece of land now. The bell tower has been rebuilt and the gorgeous split tree trunk used to clang the bell is a brand-new piece of wood now. Everything has been cleaned up and a new rest house has been placed on the edge of the slope – the view was still gorgeous, but the new wood and concrete construction felt completely out of place. The mix of old and new was strangely odd. Although I had the place all to myself again, the atmosphere was totally different than before. I tremendously enjoyed *my first visit to the Shuuhen Temple*, but this second trip… was missing the serenity – and when a religious place feels like the magic has gone, it was probably not a good idea to have the area renovated. Some places are just destined to fade away – and I feel like the Shuuhen Temple was one of them. (Hopefully the place will recover over time. If I am still in Japan in 10 years, I’ll let you know!)

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Read Full Post »

German Countryside Retirement Home

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Germany, Photography, Rhineland-Palatinate, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2015 on 2016/07/05| 10 Comments »

If everything would have gone according to plan, I would have never been able to explore this abandoned nursing home somewhere in the mountains of Germany…

Japan is a great country for urbex, because of the general “out of sight, out of mind” and dodging responsibility attitude – plenty of buildings demolished a long time ago in other countries survive for years that way; places like *Nara Dreamland* wouldn’t happen there as a liquidator would step in and squeeze out every cent possible.
Germany on the other hand has a problem with bureaucracy and too much paperwork in general. Things that are clearly regulated and should take weeks or months to take care of take forever to approve – and then everything grinds to a stop, because somebody though he saw a rare frog nearby…
I guess something similar happened to the abandoned retirement home my sister Sabine and I were exploring during my trip to Germany in 2015. The facility was run by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO, „Workers‘ Welfare Association“), who replaced it with a new one in 2005. The local city administration was aware of those plans, which required some planning, and decided in March 2004 to rezone the property from Gemeinbedarf (“public good”) to Wohnbaufläche (“general residential building area”), making it possible to build single-family houses with gardens that are so characteristic for this town. Sadly there is not much else known about the history of this retirement home – when it was built, how many rooms it had, what happened after it was closed…
When Sabine and I explored this location in summer 2015, almost all external walls were reinforced with iron lattice fence, and it took us a while to find a way in. The solid brick-built square construction was in decent condition, except for the fact that it was pretty much gutted and rather vandalized. Here and there we found small piles of cables, metal or fluorescent tubes, every other window still had little images on them children created for their grandparents. The former dining was still decorated with a piece of art hanging on the wall, a wheelchair standing in front of it. But overall it was a pretty empty building with a slightly creepy atmosphere. In it’s heyday though I am sure it was quite a sight, especially thanks to the large inner courtyard and the beautiful location in a Palatinate valley.

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Read Full Post »