Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for March, 2021

Silent Hill School Revisited

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex on 2021/03/30| 3 Comments »

Interior shots and a completely new area (the outdoor swimming pool!) – this revisit almost felt like a completely new exploration!

Yes, I admit: I don’t like revisits, usually I don’t do them. When I explore a location I do it either until I’m satisfied or until I run out of time; the latter happens, but usually after I’m satisfied, because if I can guestimate that I won’t be able to explore a place properly, I usually don’t start. Another reason is: revisit articles usually don’t do well, except for maybe *Nara Dreamland* BEFORE it was demolished. Other than those revisit articles performed exceptionally poor in the past.
This case is a bit different though. First of all, *the original article about the Silent Hill School* did rather well. Both the location and the write-up were quite atmospheric, so I look back on that fondly in many ways. And then there is the fact at my revisit I had access to areas not accessible during my first exploration.
Unfortunately I still didn’t find a way into the school. It was still tightly locked and even had “24h SECURITY CAMERAS” signs in some windows. Whether or not that claim was true I didn’t test, but I’ve never broken into a place anyway. But probably the same person responsible for the signs also opened up some of the curtains, so I was able to get some interior shots, which in my book is almost as good. Sure, no artistic angles, but at least y’all now know what the Silent Hill School looks like inside.
As for the outdoor pool – it was fully accessible this time and I could move around freely, only limited by some shrubs. Why now and not last time? Because last time I went there in autumn, the time of the year when Japan is the bushiest. The staircase to the pool and the area leading up to it was just so overgrown that it would have required some serious gardening before access would have been possible. In late winter on the other hand everything laid bare and ready to access.
Revisiting the Silent Hill School didn’t feel like a revisit, but more like a continuation. Sure, the shrubby vegetation changed, but the surrounding trees were the same, the school was basically the same… and most important of all: the weather was exactly the same; even the time of day was! So unlike previous re-explorations this one was actually great fun, despite the fact that I didn’t have my tripod with me; but shooting freehand made everything more flexible and dynamic – and I really hope that you like the new photo set! *If you have forgotten about the abandoned Silent Hill School or need just a quick reminder of what happened the first time, just click here on this sentence!*

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or *follow us on Twitter* 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 »

Roadside Restaurant

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Food, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Restaurant, Travel, Urbex on 2021/03/23| 2 Comments »

An abandoned Roadside Restaurant might not sound like the most exciting location, but sometimes it offers a good opportunity for a little rant… 🙂

I’ve been in a bit of an exploration slump since 2019 – quality I’m still very pleased with, but quantity has been suffered due to empty promises, wives, kids, and / or pets; (un?)fortunately none of them were mine, which makes the whole thing even more disappointing. And as y’all can imagine, Covid-19 didn’t exactly help. Though it did offer new opportunities, to be frank. In recent years Japan has become much more popular among tourists from overseas – to a point where overtourism had become a problem. Personally I stopped going to places neighboring places like Kyoto or Himeji for leisure around 2014 or 2015, but even at sightseeing spots off the beaten Shinkansen tracks it happened more and more often that I’ve heard more Chinese or Spanish at tourist spots than Japanese – which is a real atmosphere killer to me. (And yes, my reaction would be same hearing predominantly Russian at the Coliseum, Italian at the Louvre, French at the remains of the Berlin Wall or German at the Red Square.) Since Japanese people traditionally lived a life of social distancing (Do you know the Japanese term for ghosting? It’s “regular communication”…) and are used to wearing masks, their country was hit by Covid-19 much less than most other countries, so the imposed restrictions were much less… restrictive. Especially travel restrictions within the country. During infection peaks it was recommended not to travel, and I followed all those recommendations, but when it was allowed, I used the opportunity – and saw Matsue Castle with nobody else around, the snow monkeys with maybe 20 other people, and on a six day trip to Hokkaido I didn’t see another Caucasian except for at New Chitose Airport. So instead of lamenting about having fewer people to urbex with I used my new won spare time to visit some places I considered lost forever to the Eurasian hordes (don’t let that get to your heads, people from Eastasia, Oceania, or the Disputed Territories – all animals are equal…). Now, when I travel not for urbex I prefer to travel light – no tripod, sometimes even just one instead of two lenses. I also obviously don’t plan around abandoned places, but look for interesting museums, local food, unusual experiences, and beautiful scenery. But at this point it seems like I don’t have to look for abandoned places anymore, they tend to find me – whether I’m prepared or not. And if I’m not prepared, I either have to ignore the place or make the best of it…

In the case of the Roadside Restaurant I tried to make the best of it. It was a rainy day, I didn’t have my tripod with me, and to be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood for a solo exploration. But the place was a bit out of sight and easy to access, so I played the cards that I was dealt and went inside. Congratulations, another abandoned restaurant – well, not all abandoned places in Japan can look like *Nara Dreamland* or the *Hachijo Royal Hotel*, otherwise even Japan wouldn’t have several millions of them. Most abandoned places in Japan actually look like this one here and not like the average one on Abandoned Kansai! After all I’m doing my best to find “beautiful” / interesting abandoned places and take pictures to make them look “attractive”, but sometime the amount of abandoned places in Japan surprises even me – not counting the dilapidated buildings that are still in use!
Anyway, there’s not much to say about the Roadside Restaurant. It was there, I went inside, I took some pictures freehand at crazy high ISO, prepared them for this blog and wrote this rant.
So here we are… Another Tuesday… Confronted with mediocrity… Hoping for something better next week… Just like in real life! But please keep showing your support… or one week there might not be a next week…

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or *follow us on Twitter* 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 »

Coastal Wedding Venue

Posted in Abandoned on 2021/03/16| 7 Comments »

The abandoned Coastal Wedding Venue is one of my favorite explorations of 2019 – and one of my favorite solo explorations of the past few years.

When I started Abandoned Kansai more than 11 years ago I named it that on purpose. Abandoned Kansai. Not Abandoned Honshu or Abandoned Japan. Abandoned Kansai. Because back then I had no intention to explore outside of Mie, Shiga, Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama, Osaka, and Hyogo. Heck, even Mie and most of Wakayama seemed so far away and inaccessible. Hundreds of explorations in all 47 Japanese prefectures later I just hope that it is not too far away when a new and extraordinary looking location pops up on the internet, because… usually it is. And of course the Coastal Wedding Venue was no exception. First it took me a while to find it, then it took me a while to get there, because not only was the wedding venue far away from Kansai, it also was on top of a mountain in a rather remote tiny little town – easy to access is different, especially when flying solo and therefore relying on public transportation. But thanks to a serious amount of patience and tons of dedication I finally made it there one a sunny autumn day as beautiful as the view from the main balcony of the venue.

Unfortunately there is little know about the Coastal Wedding Venue, which consists of about half a dozen buildings, including a chapel, a hotel and a restaurant for the main reception, as well as a swimming pool and several outdoor areas of various sizes, now mostly overgrown. It seems like the place opened in the late 1980s and closed about 25 years later – despite or because it’s kitschy design with countless white European style statues outdoors and gigantic Asian style vases and sculptures indoors.
After more than half a decade of neglect and vandalism the venue already was in rather pitiful condition when I explored it 1.5 years ago. The buildings were ransacked and in parts severely damaged, the outdoor areas were hard to navigate due to uncontrolled growth – it wasn’t a fun exploration, but it was a gorgeous one, high above the sea at one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline I’ve ever seen in Japan. The predominantly white venue was very easy on the eyes, despite the dilapidated condition it was in. A lot of shots were hard to take, especially the one of the chapel and the pool from the balcony along the main street – but like my frontal shot of the *Hachijo Royal Hotel* it turned out to be one of my favorite photos ever. I had high expectations for the abandoned Coastal Wedding Venue… and they were fulfilled overall. Unfortunately both vandalism and decay seem to progress at record speed, so it’s only a matter of time until this place will only continue to live in the memories of the few who had the opportunity to document it at the right time.

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or *follow us on Twitter* 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 »

Cat Paw Hotel

Posted in Abandoned on 2021/03/02| 8 Comments »

There are two or three styles of hotel rooms in Japan – if you know those, you basically know them all. Yet (almost) every abandoned Japanese hotel has something special. A rooftop bar, an interesting shared bath, an indoor shrine, a pool area with slides, a vast garden… or a room filled with boxes containing cut off cat paws!

The Cat Paw Hotel was an original find I made at the height of my exploration career in 2017. At first it was just a mark on a map in the outskirts of an onsen town, far away from the StreetView cars. The grey spot also could have been an apartment building… or worse: still in use. But after so many years of exploring you at least have a good gut feeling whether or not a place is abandoned, so when I had the opportunity to visit the area a year later on my last big exploration trip with my buddy Hamish of course I took advantage of it.
At first sight the Cat Paw Hotel was just a random abandoned hotel like so many others. Large lobby, vandalized rooms that looked the same, big party rooms that only differed in size, a somewhat boring bar with a stage and a jukebox, an emptied souvenir shop – even the yellow, green, and black shared bath (where somebody took a dump in the sauna; at least go outside, you animals!) wasn’t that spectacular. What set the Cat Paw Hotel apart from every other abandoned hotel I’ve explored was a room Hamish called me to. “You have to see this!” is something I’ve heard quite often, but barely ever was it that true. In the back of the hotel, at the end of a corridor with guest rooms, were two storage rooms for the gift shop. One where all the cheaply made plastic junk was once stored (not anymore; ransacked, too). And another one filled with boxes upon boxes of what looked like cat paws to me. Now, I’m not an animal expert, so cat paw is / was my best guess. And when I posted a photo a while ago on *Facebook* nobody had a better suggestion. Which is curios, because to the best of my knowledge cat paws are not a good look charm like… for example… rabbit’s feet. Especially in Japan, where cats are really, really loved! And while rabbit’s feet can be rather easily harvested as their meat is quite popular in some parts of the world, hardly anybody eats cats unless they have to. There also were no signs of them in the gift shop, so why would this hotel would store countless boxes with probably thousands of paws? Paws that didn’t have attachments for key rings… or even packaging for that matter. Really, really strange…

But memorable, and when it comes to explorations, that’s an important factor. I for sure won’t forget the Cat Paw Hotel – and you probably neither. We’ll all forget the dump in the sauna, the weird shared bath and the large dining room… but the cat paws we’ll remember. And tell our friends about it. And hope, that the next exploration will be as memorable!

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or *follow us on Twitter* 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 »