Abandoned Kansai

Never judge a book by its cover or an abandoned building by its exterior – the content might surprise you…

Even after more than eight years of exploring abandoned structures in Japan I am still in the lucky position that I know many more locations than I am able to check out – so I choose which places to explore depending on factors like distance, accessibility, weather, co-explorer(s) and several more. Since I am getting tired of mold and emptied fire extinguishers I tend to prefer rather clean abandoned places… which almost resulted in a big mistake recently, when my old urbex buddy Michael excitedly tried to convince me to check out that really rundown concrete shack halfway up a hill – because of some painted fusuma (you know, those sliding Japanese room dividers). A decade ago I enjoyed hiking much more than I do now… and when it’s uphill, it usually kills my urge to take photos, but Mike was excited like a young dog, so I dragged myself through a bamboo grove and up the hill to a rundown concrete building in miserable condition. Smashed windows, doors and shoji (you know, those sliding Japanese room dividers with the thin rice paper), dirt and rust everywhere, a missing outdoor staircase – a place so unattractive I wouldn’t even stop if I saw it on the roadside… or take my camera out… or take photos even if the camera was mounted on a tripod and ready to shoot. The lower floor was cluttered with all kinds of items, leaving just enough space to move around and get to the staircase – and my first impression of the upper floor wasn’t any better until I stepped into the tatami room and it seemed like a choir of angels started to sing. There it was, the daruma painting! Across the whole wall! Four fusuma in total! What a glorious sight! It was the first urbex photo I’ve taken in nine or ten weeks, so maybe I was a little bit extra excited, but seeing this work of art in the middle of rot and decay was just amazing! And then it got better… On the other side of the fusuma was a tatami room of the same size – and of course that side of the four fusuma was painted, too. With a large dragon! What a sight! I’ve been positively surprised before in rundown hellholes, but this brought it to a whole new level. Sometimes I take hundreds of photos at a single location and none of them are very memorable. And then I stepped into that dump and was rewarded with not one, but two absolutely gorgeous paintings! Needless to say that the rest was still a crappy building I couldn’t get out of quickly enough, so I took some quick shots upstairs, some more downstairs and one more focused one in the room with the three abandoned chandeliers, despite the stench in there. Sometimes I wish there was smell photography to immerse you even more… just imagine you average train station toilet, then you have a good impression, I guess.

So, yeah, long story short: rundown place, two good photos I’ll probably publish again and again for the rest of my life, Florian happy. Small gallery and short video this time, probably next week, too – then we’ll get to bigger locations again, promised!

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