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Archive for February, 2026

Kitakitsune Farm (Non-Urbex)

Posted in Animals, Asia, Hokkaido, Japan, Photography, Snow, Travel on 2026/02/17| 1 Comment »

Despite their often more than questionable reputation, Japanese animal cafés. aquariums, zoos, and other animal parks are super popular – some of them have cartoonishly long lines that can rival those of branded theme parks. One of the most bizarre stories I’ve heard in recent years was when a high school classmate told me at a reunion that their daughter has been to Japan recently and that her favorite place was a capybara café in Tokyo, because, as we all know, nothing says Japan like large South American rodents that are hunted for their meat… I’m not really a fan of animal prisons (or animal ownership, for that matter – and if you unironically refer to yourself as the mommy of a fur baby, you don’t want to know what I refer to you… not to be mean, but to keep the terminology consistent!) and even after 20 years of living in Osaka I’ve never made it to the local and super famous aquarium, let alone any of those animal cafés, but during an urbex trip in late 2018 I basically passed by one of the more unusual and “off the beaten path” parks that is actually rather mainstream by now – the Zao Fox Village near Sendai. So I had a look. *And you can read all about it here.*
Three years later, during the best time to “explore” Japan (Covid…) I spent a spectacular week in Hokkaido. On route from Abashiri (to see the drift ice and the prison museum) to Asahikawa I made a stop in Kitami (for the mint museum – not coins, peppermint!) and took a bus from there with an overnight stop in Sounkyo Onsen, which held its annual ice waterfall festival, despite being mostly shut down at the time. The bus ran 3 or 4 times per day back then, so I decided to get off and on again in Onneyu Onsen to check out the local Michi no Eki, the freshwater aquarium and the Kitakitsune Farm.
Like I said, I usually avoid animal prisons, so I’m in no way qualified to judge how good or bad the Kitakitsune Farm is run. To me the foxes looked healthy and peaceful. But in comparison to my visit at the Zao Fox Village the weather was sunnier, it was colder outside, the ground was snow covered, I was there earlier in the day, the variety of foxes was much lower (1 VS 6), there was a lot less fighting among the foxes (none that I can remember half a decade later…). I spent an hour there and had a good time. Nothing I would travel to Hokkaido for, but it was a nice way to break up the day, considering that there were also other things to do in Onneyu Onsen. On GoogleMaps the Kitakitsune Farm has a rating of 3.9 after almost 2000 reviews, the Zao Fox Village is at 3.8 after more than 7000 reviews – predominantly in English… 500 Yen and open every day (Farm) VS 1500 Yen and closed on Wednesdays (Village) are important differences though you might want to keep in mind, As for the photo gallery – most of the pictures were, of course, taken at the Kitakitsune Farm, but I also added some bonus snapshots of the other locations I mentioned in this article. The next one will be all urbex again… and following few most likely, too. (That being said: My favorite animal place in Japan is still Barbacoa. Just kidding! It’s the *poison gas / rabbit island Okunoshima*. 🙂 )

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Green Plaza Akakura

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Nagano, Snow, Travel on 2026/02/05| 4 Comments »

The first location of the Nagano day trip I mentioned before was in a somewhat well-known and still active skiing town. Unfortunately nobody told me ahead of time, because otherwise I probably would have questioned the idea of going to a ski resort for urban exploration in early April for obvious reasons. In case it’s not obvious enough: snow. It wasn’t obvious enough for my co-explorers and so I stared into 5 Pikachu faces. Obviously nobody considered this: Just because we already had +20°C in Osaka doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be two meters of snow in other places of Japan (or three or four…). Like a skiing town in the Japanese Alps. It only shows that common sense is far from common. And while accommodations still in business are easily accessible even in winter, guess what – abandoned lodges are not, because nobody removes the snow. Second round of Pikachu faces…
I tried to be a good sport about it, but the thing is: I’m on the taller and wider end as far as humans go. On the one hand, it makes me a rather careful explorer, which is a good thing in my book. Hardly any urbex injuries, because I rather don’t climb a rusty or brittle staircase – sometimes to the frustration… or amusement… of my co-explorers. The latter in this case. I still think it’s stupid to cross an untouched snow-covered surface when you have no idea how solid it is and what’s underneath it. But I guess it’s much easier to cross when you weigh less than my dinner. So I hurled my grumpy fat ass up that wall of snow and towards the abandoned hotel my dear friends picked out first (I actually didn’t know half of the people, and I think my main purpose that day was seat warmer and gas money / highway fee sharer…). Years prior I explored the *Matsuo Mine Apartment Buildings* with another group of friends, and when going from one building to another one of my legs sank into the snow balls deep. Not a pleasant memory – and with that in mind I approached that rundown looking hotel. Screw my life, I could have stayed at home and watch anime with a Strong Zero. All. Weekend. Long! On the other hand: I never did that, so why start now? So I kept walking toward the dilapidated hotel on unstable ground, much to the entertainment of half a dozen half-heights, sinking into various depths with every stop, sometimes involuntarily voicing my concerns about what’s happening with sounds, if you know what I mean. Ha, ha, ha, the fat foreigner is scared doing something extremely stupid…
Well, I made it across and into the building, which was… okay-ish, I guess? One of those fake timber constructions non-Alps people build when they create their fake version of the real deal. But with a shared gender-separated bath. All bitterness of the moment aside, as far as abandoned hotels go, this was actually one of the better ones. The looks were unusual by Japanese standards, the rooms all had two floors, the melting snow looked nice once you were inside and the floors indoors were actually solid, despite being abandoned for 20 year. (The Tudor style hotel was opened around 1980, was renamed in the late 90s and closed after about 20 years in business – rather short, even by Japanese standards.)
Was it worth the long trip and the effort to get inside? Probably not, this one was a tough one overall. But hey, I don’t do many snow explorations and February is perfect for a set like that, so I hope you’ll enjoy it and maybe have a look at the *Canadian World Park* afterwards – a snowed in themed park modeled after Anne of Green Gables by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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