Abandoned Kansai

Little is more exciting than exploring original finds, places you spotted by chance and haven’t seen on pictures in detail before – it even makes abandoned hotels exciting!

Whenever I have a couple of minutes and access to GoogleMaps I love to randomly have a look around via satellite view. It’s a bit like playing the lottery – you could spend your time (money) better and usually it’s a total waste, but… I’m in Japan and pretty good at it, so I guess it’s more like playing poker. Still risky, but entertaining and often rewarding, because I know what I’m doing, though there are no guarantees. It’s also one of the few ways to stand and be able to do something most other people can’t do – so I guess it’s more like a prize draw with stuff you can’t buy. Whatever it is, it’s kind of necessary to stand out an urbex blog and to avoid doing the exact same locations everybody else does. And as much as I love the *Kejonuma Leisure Land*, the *Matsuo Mine Apartments* and the *Maya Tourist Hotel* – it’s boring as heck to see the same photos of the same locations over and over and over again, because people are too lazy or unable to go for uncommon places and find some of their own. So while the Demon Warrior Hotel was just another abandoned hotel and not a large theme park or mine – at least it still felt like an exploration and the pictures you’ll see in the gallery below are some you haven’t seen dozens of times all over the internet.
There are plenty of reasons why I love urbex, the thrill of the legal grey zone isn’t one of them, which is why original finds are especially nerve-wrecking to me. When you have seen a place a gazillion times you can be pretty sure that there are neither alarms nor security or other unusual risks involved; you also can be sure that access is rather easy as so many people trampled through there before. At original finds though you know nothing, so even if inaccessibility isn’t a problem (which it often is – and one of the reasons why a location hasn’t appeared on the internet yet), there still could be alarms, caretakers, homeless people (rather unlikely in Japan) or druggies (even more unlikely in Japan!). Fortunately the Demon Warrior Hotel was really abandoned – and though the front door was still locked, access was easy via an annex. And while my friend Gen, his son, and I were probably the first or among the first urban explorers there, we clearly weren’t the first visitors after the hotel was closed about half a decade ago. Metal thieves had been there for (as the shared baths showed), so were vandals and at least one arsonist who caused major damage to the gift shop, the bar and the area between. The gender separated baths were still nice, though somewhat unspectacular. The rooms, both Western and Japanese style, were pretty much standard. The bar and some hallways were kinda spooky, but overall the Demon Warrior Hotel turned out to be a rather unspectacular exploration. My favorite room in the whole hotel was unremarkable at first sight, it looked like the typical tatami party room you have in pretty much every Japanese accommodation. One of the cabinets though featured a hotel shrine, including a kami mirror and prayer beads also known as juzu. None of the items appeared to be of high value or craftsmanship, but they were nice to look at and made this exploration at least somewhat special.

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