Abandoned Kansai

If you are eager to make / explore original finds, abandoned hotels are probably your best chance as they tend to be rather easy to spot. You drive past an accommodation that has a “Do not enter!” sign? Most likely closed / abandoned, because it contradicts their business model. You have a look at GoogleMaps and see a large building with a green pool and / or an empty, partly overgrown parking lot? Most likely closed / abandoned, because nobody likes to bath in green water or can park on overgrown lots. No guarantee that those places are really abandoned or even accessible, but your chances are much higher than at places with the lights still on…

In late spring of 2017 I boarded several trains and buses with my buddy Mat to travel to a rather rundown resort area in Japan and check out a couple of abandoned looking places. It took us almost four hours and quite a chunk of money each way, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, especially when you want to get yourself off the beaten paths.

Unfortunately the Vandalized Resort Hotel didn’t live up the expectations… at all. Hence the nickname. The outdoor pool was quite cool – and the hotel, overgrown as it was, looked pretty impressive from down there. But the inside was just bad. A bit rundown, seriously vandalized, dangerously rotten in some places, including some of the hallways. While even the worst accommodations usually impress with a nice bar or an indoor bath with a view, this one only had the outdoor pool – yes, even the indoor bath was so unimpressive that not even the metal thieves could be bothered to steal the tapware! The rest was just a large, rotten, mostly empty building… Probably one of my least favorite hotel explorations, nevertheless totally worth it just for the outdoor pool.

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