Abandoned Kansai

Most neighbourhood playgrounds / parks in Japan are a disgrace! Some compacted dirt ground, possibly a small patch of gras, with good fortune a tree or two, maybe a swing and a climbing frame – on the compacted ground, not the gras! In most of Europe they would probably be considered a health hazard and closed for good. Of course there are plenty of good ones, too, usually as part of rest stops or sightseeing spots. But the vast majority of them are shite and not even worth going to for reading a book! Once a fee is charged, they can be downright spectacular though!

The Forest Playground was part of the latter category, though I’m not sure if it was a direct or an indirect fee. I had seen the park on social media once or twice and thought it looked interesting, so whenever I randomly looked at GoogleMaps, I kept looking for what could be an abandoned outdoor playground on a forested slope. The thing is: Japan is a large country that mostly consists of forested slopes. The needle in a haystack comparison is a joke when put next to my chances of finding that playground! But… abandoned places in Japan seem to have the wonderful ability to find me, so after a few sessions on GoogleMaps a small miracle happened and I spotted what looked like a large playground on a forested slope. It was in the outskirts of a resort consisting of a hotel, a dozen holiday houses of various sizes for rent, an indoor sports center, a gateball hall, an athletic field, some tennis courts, a town hall, and three museums – all tied together by a large park. And the best of all: It was in day trip range!
The road leading up to the parking lot of the Forest Playground was blocked off by one of those accordion gates, a really low one, but there was plenty of parking in the vicinity. And most of the playground parking lot was actually covered with tree debris – looked like somebody was cleaning up the surrounding and probably stopped due to Covid. The whole thing was actually much larger than expected (since I’ve only seen a few photos of one small area), so we spent more than 3 hours exploring and documenting the place.
Next stop after the parking lot was the lower playground – a really nice, rather big playground at the bottom of the forested slope. From there were followed a nice path up to the goal of the Adventure Coaster… which wasn’t a (roller) coaster at all, but a dry toboggan run – or Sommerrodelbahn, as we say in German, a summer luge track. Right next to it: A small cable car for those too lazy to walk up the slope to the mountaintop area. Well, mountaintop… The height difference was maybe 60 meters. And we didn’t have a choice anyway, for obvious reasons. So we continued to follow the regular path, sometimes cobbled, sometimes asphalted. Next stop was the event square or rather event area, because nothing there was square – the area was actually a really nice and rather flowy brutalist outdoor… place, apparently for events, and with a nice view down into the “valley”. I love structures like that, so I very much enjoyed that part, despite the brutal humidity and rising heat of an overcast early summer / late rainy season day. Then we finally reached the mountaintop area with the start of the toboggan run, the upper cable car station, a rest house selling snacks at ridiculously low prices by today’s standards (softcream for 200 Yen, kakigori for 300 Yen, chicken pilaf for 400 Yen). Looks like the park was opened in the early 1990s and closed in 2003 – almost 20 years before I took some photos there. Well… some. I actually liked the place so much and it is that rare that I decided to publish a gallery consisting of 75 photos. By far the largest ever in Abandoned Kansai history – but history has shown that nobody cares about second parts and hardly anybody cares about revisits, so I can as well publish them all at once. Which brings us to the final part: The descent along the gigantic climbing contraption on the slope. Hardly ever was I that heartbroken to see something abandoned, because that thing was a work of art! As a kid I would have gone crazy, but even as an adult and despite its condition after 20 years without maintenance, I tremendously enjoyed the careful descent back to the entrance area.
The Forest Playground is without the shadow of a doubt one of my all-time favorite locations. Rare, unique, natural decay, great company, outdoors. It doesn’t get much better than that. Basically the *Viewpoint Playground* on steroids… but in a good way! 🙂

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