Abandoned Kansai

For quite a while now the first article of the year on Abandoned Kansai has been about an abandoned shrine, because pretty much the first thing Japanese people do in the new year, some even at midnight, is visiting a shrine or temple, a tradition called hatsumode. And we can’t change that now, can we?

There are about 100 000 shinto shrines and 80 000 Buddhist temples in Japan – quite a few cities and towns have their tourism based on them, and the vast majority of those temples and shrines are in remarkably good condition. Thanks to the continuing urbanization in Japan more and more temples and shrines become abandoned though, because there is NOBODY around anymore; but even in still populated areas you can find one here or there. The abandoned Onsen Town Shrine is one of those… Another location with a rather descriptive name as it was located in the outskirts of a dying onsen town. Even though I know the real name of the shrine and it was marked still active on GoogleMaps I wasn’t able to find out much about it. I guess there are just too many temples and shrines in Japan to keep track of all of them. Which is a great opportunity to keep this article short and wish you lots of fun with the gallery at the end – the atmosphere was amazing, with the overgrown long staircase and nobody else around, paint flaking off the rusty building materials. On a rainy day this place would be perfect as the setting for a horror movie!

(*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…)