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Archive for May, 2022

Onomichi Castle

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiroshima, Japan, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2012 on 2022/05/24| 1 Comment »

Onomichi is famous for the being the starting point of the Shimanami Kaido, a popular car expressway and bike trail stretching from Honshu to Shikoku across several islands… but abandoned places?!

I loved Japanese castles ever since I watched the mini-series “Shogun” with my dad as a little boy – and of course I’ve been to the most famous ones (Hikone, Himeji, Inuyama, Matsue, and Matsumoto) and then some dozens. What I dislike with a passion are fake castles built in the 20th century as tourist attractions – the most famous one probably being the one in Osaka. Great castle park with amazing moats, but the castle itself is one step away from being some Disney crap – at least they went all in and even included elevators, so it’s one of the few wheelchair accessible castles in Japan. The latest of those abominations was erected in 2018/19 – and all it needed was a rich idiot on an ego trip and some local politicians who thought that they can turn an industrial bedroom community into a tourist attraction. “Let’s check out the underrated city of Amagasaki, I’ve heard they have an amazing castle there!” is something nobody ever said. Heck, I live near Amagasucky and I’ve never been to the castle, not even to take some photos and rant about it.
50 years earlier, a couple hundred kilometers southwest. Onomichi, Hiroshima prefecture. An important trade harbor from the mid-12th to the mid-17th century, the town lost quite a bit of its former glory during the Tokugawa period as international trade was mostly limited to Nagasaki’s Dejima. After WW2 the movies Tokyo Story and The Naked Island reignited interest in Onomichi, so in 1964 the local chamber of commerce and industry had the glorious idea to attract the fun hungry post-war workers with a three-story watchtower, modeled after the castle tower of Hirosaki Castle, but without any historical background. It was in business for a few decades (as “National Museum of Castles, Onomichi Castle”), but closed in 1990 or 1992 – it probably fell victim to the asset price bubble of the late 80s, when investors decided to make the Seto Inland Sea THE new tourist destination in Japan and pumped insane amounts of money into the area, resulting in plenty of abandoned places still visible today (like the famous *La Rainbow Hotel & Tower*, where the Japanese police caught 30 urbexers and airsoft players since the start of the pandemic alone)! Located on a hill just behind Onomichi Station and surrounded by hotels, the castle saw quite a bit of foot traffic and therefore hardly any vandalism. At the time of my visit in 2012 most of the premises were overgrown, entrance impossible. I took a few photos and deemed the location not interesting enough to publish… until I found out recently that Onomichi castle (which really wasn’t a castle, just a glorified watchtower) had been donated to the city in 2018 and was demolished between December 2019 and January 2021. On March 11th 2022 the site was reopened to the public as Senkoji Park Viewpoint Hall, after the city spent 200 million Yen on the project.

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Sumitomo Ponbetsu Coal Mine

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, Japan, Mine, Photography, Transportation, Urbex, Visited in 2017 on 2022/05/11| 4 Comments »

The Sumitomo Ponbetsu Coal Mine in Hokkaido is one of the most famous abandoned industrial sites in Japan – and kind of a tourist attraction, too…
I’ve been traveling to Hokkaido since 2012… the first few trips for urbex only, with a couple of touristy exceptions to kill time, like a tram tour of Sapporo to visit Mount Moiwa. It wasn’t until 2019 that I did my first real mini vacation there during Golden Week – wonderful because of places like the Shakotan Peninsula and Kushiro, annoying as heck because of… well… the insane amount of constantly yapping tourists that completely ruined the atmosphere of places like Otaru. A year later that problem had solved itself and in autumn of 2020 I did my first pandemic trip… to see the autumn leaves in Hokkaido – and I totally fell in love with Japan’s most northern prefecture. It was the perfect trip… food, atmosphere, weather, urbex, touristy places. There’s so much to see and do in Hokkaido, especially if you are a history buff with a strong interest in social history and the age of industry, as the prefecture is basically what the Ruhr area is for Germany or the Rust Belt is for the United States – and unlike Osucka the seasons actually feel really different. So I came back four more times since then, another trip is planned, raising the count to six in something like one and a half years – more than in my first 14 years of living in Japan…
Unfortunately more and more train lines in Hokkaido get shut down, making navigating the island much more complicated when relying on public transportation – which has nothing to do with Covid, no matter how much certain overseas tourists like to see themselves as the saviors of the Japanese economy; the partial closure of the Hidaka Main Line was decided in the late 2010s (at the height of tourism to Japan!), the closure of the Yubari Branch Line was announced on August 17th 2016 for March 31st 2019; not to mention the 25 individual stations on various lines closed between March 2021 and March 22 alone! At the same time, Hokkaido seems to remember and hold on to its industrial past – you can find hundreds of sites big and small all over the prefecture. From recently abandoned train stations to whole mining towns deserted decades ago. Some places are completely abandoned, others have been turned into museums… so many museums! Not just in cities like Sapporo and Otaru, but even in small towns hardly anybody ever visits anymore – more about two of those in the future!
Today I’d like to talk about a place in-between… a large complex that looks completely abandoned, but is roped off and features large bilingual signs in Japanese and English, illustrated with photos and maps – so they want visitors there… but not really. 🙂

The Sumitomo Ponbetsu Coal Mine (or Old Pombetsu Coal Mine as it is called on the sign) opened as the Nara Coal Mine in 1900, though Wikipedia lists 1902 as start of mining – if you are really interested in the mine’s history I recommend reading the information on the last photo and doing your own research – long story short: The still visible tower was built in 1959 and operated till the mine’s closure in 1971. When they tried to dismantle the mine and the headframe an explosion resulted in the death of five people, stopping the demolition of the mine. Decades later the perception of the mine remains changed from eyesore to asset, so the area was cleaned up a bit to make it save for visitors. It’s still technically off limits, but there seem to be guided tours (in Japanese) that even allow access to the headframe structure since something like 2007.
In 2017, during an urbex road trip to Hokkaido, I was lucky enough to spend two and a half hours on the premises, including in the hopper building in the background, which dates back to before the spectacular headframe. Since neither guards nor guides showed up it was a very relaxed exploration – mostly outdoors, rust, steel, concrete, natural decay, a rather dramatic sky… my kind of exploration! You could almost feel the history, despite the fact that 90% or so of the mine had been demolished decades ago. And while there are several similar places all over *Hokkaido*, the Sumitomo Ponbetsu Coal Mine is probably the most famous one, thanks to the gorgeous shaft turret.

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