Abandoned Kansai

Last week I wrote about Nara Dreamland, one of the best abandoned places in the world. This week I write about the Toyama Mountain Hotel, one of the most miserable places I’ve ever explored…

I have to admit that this spring day didn’t start well in general. The hospital my buddy Hamish and I intended to explore turned out not be abandoned (a car with license plates parked in front of it, a motion detector activated camera at the entrance, most likely somebody still living in the same building…), same with the skiing area we went too next… and another one that was probably already demolished; in any case, we couldn’t find any signs of it. Meanwhile it started to rain, which is pretty much always a downer on urbex days. Sure, SOME photos benefit from rain, but most don’t and the overall experience severely suffers. It’s just not fun being wet all the time while worrying about your camera equipment. And wet disgusting stuff tends to smell worse than dry disgusting stuff, too…

The Toyama Mountain Hotel was built on a slope and after trying a couple of doors, it became pretty quickly apparent that we would have to enter through the lowest floor; through a tiny emergency door, maybe half or even less the size of a regular door. But at least we found one that was unlocked. But that didn’t mean that we reached dry ground. Thanks to a lot of flat roofs and ongoing rain, the Toyama Mountain Hotel was probably the wettest place I’ve ever explored; water dripping everywhere. To a degree that I felt like it was actually raining inside the building! Because it kinda was…
Anyway, Hamish and I had to make our way up through the dark, wet underbelly of the hotel. The boiler room, storage rooms, empty rooms. After a while we found a staircase leading up to level B1 (we obviously entered via B2…) where we found the Chalet, a “drink corner” a.k.a. a bar. (Though in daily Japanese life “drink corners” are just vending machines; and not necessarily at a corner.) A dirty, wet bar with parts of the ceiling tiles already on the ground. Why three photos? Because I already had a hunch that this hotel wouldn’t be very photogenic and that I would need every single photo I could get at the end of the day… Around the corner were the shared baths that are so typical for Japanese hotels. Again, nothing special. Yes, rather clean and all the shower heads were still there, but nothing I haven’t seen bigger / better / with more character several times before (and after!).
The main floor with the front desk and the restaurant was one wet, moldy, slippery, smelly nightmare. The kind of places you only spend time at if you run an urbex blog. Standard tables, standard chairs, standard everything. Not a single area with anything special.
What followed were four floors (2F, 3F, 4F, 5F) with a total of 22 guest rooms – some Japanese style with tatami mats and a futon, some Western style with carpet and a bed; some in pretty decent condition, some vandalized, but all equipped with only standard items.

Looking back at the photos of the Toyama Mountain Hotel, it probably wasn’t the worst hotel I’ve ever explored, but it was definitely a contender for the most boring one. Decent standard, but just standard. Everything felt damp and cold, outside were still some patches of snow. The end of a horrible day of explorations. We even returned the car two hours early as we decided to call it a day after this more than underwhelming experience. But, well, that’s urbex. The locations, especially the hotels, can’t be all spectacular – if you want to see some of those, I recommend the *Silent Hill Hotel*, the *Hachijo Royal Hotel*, the *Wakayama Beach Hotel*, and the *Nakagusuku Hotel*. Enjoy!

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