This exploration had it all: Spectacular views, hard to enter, fascinating background story, an original find… and monkeys going apeshit!
One rainy weekend afternoon back in 2015 is was once again skimming GoogleMaps looking for abandoned places, when a large dome like structure caught my eye – the bright white roof had some rusty spots, the slightly overgrown nearby parking lot was deserted; good sign that the place was really abandoned. Unfortunately it was located several hours away from Osaka, rather inconvenient to go to by public transportation, so it took me almost a year to check it out.
First half of 2016. After a day of other explorations I arrived at the dome with my buddy Dan – it was raining heavily, it was getting dark already… and a sign at the entrance to the parking lot warned trespassers about entering. We went back and forth on what to do, but in the end decided to call it quits and leave. For most other locations this would have been the end of it, mainly because I don’t like “abandoned” locations with a sort of active owner, but…
Second half of 2016. After a day of other explorations I arrived at the dome with my buddy Dan and his wife Kyoko. It was a sunny day, we had at about two hours of daylight left… and the laminated piece of paper at the entrance was gone. So… we jumped a fence and entered the parking lot. A quick run across up the hill and out of sight of the main road, but not all neighbors. Some kind of administrative building at the peripheral of the parking lot was shut tight – no open windows, no open doors, but built above a ledge, which was additionally encouraging. But we didn’t come for office space anyway – we came to find out what this mysterious dome was! Unfortunately all possible entrances were closed and locked, including the roller gates (for deliveries?), some were even enhanced by solid pieces of metal and wood – and once pried open door in the back, accessible only through thick brush, was tied shut again from the inside with metal wires. A storage room right next to the dome was accessible, but only shared walls with the main attraction, not doors. After about 20 minutes of trying all kinds of entrances we almost gave up, when I spotted some metal stairs leading up to the dome from a lower area. The problem with that: The vast majority of each step and the handrail were almost completely rusted, leaving maybe 5 centimeters of decent metal as well as another 5 of rusted one… and of course there was no guarantee that the door at the top was unlocked. Even worse: The area was in perfect sight of half a dozen houses, so any cautious neighbor could have called the police without us even knowing…
Fortunately Dan volunteered as a scout and made it up the stairs safely – and against all odds found the door unlocked. Kyoko and I followed as quick as we could and in we were. And by in, I mean inside the building. In what turned out to be a dim-lit changing area for former employees – as step closer to the dome, but still not inside. A couple of minutes and a misstep into water later our guide Dan, chosen by destiny, finally lead us into the dome. Kind of. What we entered was the ring around the dome, a 360° degrees radial run-out – some areas close to completely dark, others decently lit by skylights – but there always was that constant pressure / uncertainty due to nosy neighbors and the possibility of an owner showing up. Still not 100% sure what the dome was, we finally found an entrance to the main hall – oh wonder, oh glory, what an amazing sight!
Things became spookier by the minute though. As the sun was setting, it was getting darker outside, when we first heard strange noises from the roof, where shadows seemed to appear and disappear randomly. A person? No… a wild monkey! (We named him Shinzo Ape, a joke that unfortunately works even three years later as Japanese people are pretty much as bad at voting as people from the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, the Philippines, …) I’ve ran into monkeys several times in the mountains before, but not in a rather populated area like this! Next there were loud banging noises from the back entrance, as if somebody was trying to open the large doors violently. Police? Neighbors? The owner? Then we heard loud laughing, as if a bunch of young teenagers had great fun giving us a scare. The banging and laughing continued for a few minutes, but nobody came…
At that point daylight was fading really fast, so we cautiously left the main hall, where we finally found out what caused those banging noises and laughter: monkeys. About a dozen of the little f#ckers used their own bodies to shake parts of a metal frame in front of the back exit back and forth – and the rascals clearly enjoyed themselves! All of a sudden I realized that some of the headlights in the outer ring were broken. What if the monkeys were able to get in and attack us? Not likely, but I wasn’t eager to have my face teared to shreds by some insane primates! We quickly made our way out the way we came in, hoping that the monkey bunch would leave us alone. And so we left via the large parking lot under the curtain of night… still surprised that monkeys can laugh like humans.
The abandoned Monkey Dome is without the shadow of a doubt one of my favorite explorations of all time. It was an original find, it took me months to get there, two attempts and quite some effort to get in, it was a spectacular location with a fascinating background story we truly explored step by step – and the more or less real threat by a dozen wild monkeys made it all more exciting. “What fascinating background story?”, I hear you say. “And what was that place anyway?”, that you also say. Well, it’s a long story. Come closer, and I’ll tell you. Another time. Because more than two years later, in late 2018, I was able to revisit the Monkey Dome – and revealing too much about the place’s history would reveal too much about the place’s exact location. So enjoy the photos below… and look forward to a revisit article with one of the strangest background stories you’ll ever hear, photos of areas I had to omit this time… as well as two walkthrough videos!
(*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…)
Abandoned Kansai 