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Archive for the ‘Amusement Park’ Category

Shidaka Utopia

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Kyushu, Oita, Photography, Race Track, Sports, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2014/04/03| 12 Comments »

The Shidaka Utopia was a well-kept secret for many years – until about three or four years ago, when explorers gave away its full name and with it its exact location. I visited this often overlooked abandoned amusement park in spring of 2012, but kept it to myself until now. What better time to present it on Abandoned Kansai than right after the little April Fools’ joke involving *Nara Dreamland*?

Shidaka Utopia started business in 1968 in competition to the nearby Rakutenchi, one of Japan’s oldest existing amusement parks, opened in 1929! 35 years later it closed its doors due to the usual lack of customers. Sadly there is not much known about the park, probably because it’s a little bit off the beaten track. The next train station is more than 10 kilometers away and Kyushu in general is not exactly a super popular tourist destination, though I have to say that I love Japan’s third largest island as I had some great times there!

20 years ago it was a lot easier to get to the Shidaka Utopia as there was a gondola / lift combination leading right to its entrance, but now you have to take a bus that runs about five times a day to this thinly populated mountainous area.
Upon arrival I checked out the Utopia’s entrance (more or less thoroughly barricaded, including some kind of locked door…) and had a look down at the park’s former go kart track – where a fox was patrolling what I think he thought was his. I had seen my share of Japanese wildlife over the years (monkey, boars, spiders, snakes, maybe a bear, not sure about that one…), but the fox was a first. Sadly I wasn’t only completely taken by surprise, I also had my ultra wide-angle lens mounted on my camera, so by the time I was able to take a picture, it was a pretty bad one. But still a photo of a wild fox! At a place I was about to explore…

A couple of minutes later I figured out a way to get in and the fox was out of sight, so what the heck! I didn’t travel 500 kilometers to be stopped by a small dog with red fur and big ears!
Instead I was stopped by two mid-aged Japanese dudes about an hour into my exploration. They were definitely neither security nor urban explorers, but made it pretty clear that I should better leave – with a certain authority, as if they were in a position to actually be in charge there. I politely asked them to let me finish taking photos of the collapsed wooden maze and although I am pretty sure they had no idea what I said, they granted my wish and continued to walk towards the huge building that once was a restaurant / gift shop / rest house, making gestures that lead me to the conclusion that they might have had plans with the property. I on the other hand had no interest in the big building at all, neither short term nor long term, as I had seen photos of it before; and it looked like the typical empty and vandalized abandoned Japanese restaurant / gift shop / rest house that you can find by the dozen in the countryside… just bigger. Anyway, I continued as if our conversation never happened and when I heard them coming back, I hid in what I would call the rest room area. And there I found THEM, the two most awesome rest room signs ever created. Probably the two most awesome signs ever created overall! I took pictures of them, so you can look at them yourself, but what made them so awesome was the Japanese writing on them. The male version said “オチンチンのあるひと“ and even with my limited command of Japanese I instantly understood what that meant: „(for) people with a penis”. And the female version of course said “オチンチンのないひと“ – „(for) people without a penis”! Bathroom signs… at an amusement park! In public! Only in Japan…

It turned out though that those two signs were the absolute highlights of the exploration. A good decade after being abandoned, the Shidaka Utopia had suffered from the forces of nature, was partly demolished, severely vandalized and in great parts overgrown even in spring. What I loved about it though were the countless items left behind. The roller skates, the kiddy rides, the gum display, the handwritten signs – wherever I let my eyes wander, I had my feet follow. There were so many small things to explore and to discover that I totally forgot that it was basically a pretty rundown place. But it was big and it was abandoned and it was an amusement park and it was a gorgeous spring day in the mountains and it was in Japan, so it was awesome!
After two and a half hours I left Shidaka Utopia to get some lunch and to check out a few other locations in the area, before I returned in the afternoon to have a look at the fox hideout a.k.a. go kart track, where I found more items: a fire distinguisher on wheels, Dunlop tires, racing helmets, a Japanese Mercedes Benz 300E ad – in the end I had to hurry back to the bus stop to catch the last ride back to civilization, just before the sun was setting.

The whole day in the Oita countryside will have a special place in my heart – but it’s the bathroom signs that will stick out with their glorious epicness for all eternity! (Epicness is a word, right? If it isn’t it should be!)

(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

オチンチンのあるひと
オチンチンのないひと

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I hate April Fools’ Jokes!

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Closed, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Kyushu, Nara, Photography, Store, Travel, Uncategorized, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011 on 2014/04/02| 2 Comments »

Believe it or not, I am really not a fan of April Fools’ jokes – probably because I equally don’t like lying and being being lied to, which is really tough sometimes in a country that glorifies being a two-faced bastard with the term “honne and tatemae”. Nevertheless I couldn’t resist coming up with my own April Fools’ joke yesterday… 🙂

It all began in late 2013 when I was writing and scheduling the articles about my *second trip to North Korea*. I had to spread them out in a way so I would be able to publish the next regular urbex article on a Tuesday, because I pretty much always update Abandoned Kansai on Tuesdays – and that’s when I realized that April 1st would be on a Tuesday in 2014, too. At around the same time I found out that *Igosu 108* had been dismantled in autumn of 2013 and that it was shipped to Vietnam to be rebuilt there. But… what if it would have been *Nara Dreamland* instead of Vietnam? So I wrote the first draft of my April Fools’ joke story.
The piece was resting for months until coincidence helped me bringing it to a whole new level. Some weeks ago I found out that on January 31st the Nara Shimbun wrote a story about Nara Dreamland being foreclosed, because the current owner “Dreamland” owed the city 650 million Yen in taxes, that negotiations about tax reductions failed and that neighbors opposed the city’s idea to buy the property and build a crematorium. All of this is actually true – it’s just that Dreamland still owes the money as the auction hasn’t happened yet. So I updated the article by incorporating those new facts.
Since I tend to write or at least polish articles last minute, I went over it again just before I published it, adding some details you might have or have not found interesting. The company’s name for example, Nara Dreamland: The New, is a reference to “Biohazard: The Real” a.k.a. “Resident Evil: The Real” – a haunted house style attraction at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. Not only is it extremely bad use of English in both cases, but USJ is one of the reasons why Nara Dreamland had to close. The CEO’s name, Katsuhiro Yuenchi, is a combination of the real first name Katsuhiro and the Japanese term for amusement park, Yuenchi. Japanese business years indeed usually start on April 1st and most outdoor water parks here are in fact open for only two months, completely ignoring that it is hot enough to make money from at least June till late September. Of course I really asked Japanese friends to write letters to the owners of Nara Dreamland to get permission to take photos there, maybe even to interview somebody – still no answer though… Oh, and the article ends with a quote from Vanilla Sky, one of the few Hollywood remakes I liked better than the original.

As you can see, most of the article is true, and I guess that’s one of the reasons why so many people believed it. I am actually quite flattered by that fact, because it makes me believe that I enjoy quite a bit of credibility out there on the interwebz. And I hope I didn’t jeopardize it with my little joke. (I even waited till 10 p.m. Japanese time to publish yesterday’s the article, to make sure that it would be April 1st in most countries in the world – I could have posted it at 0.01 a.m. Japanese time, still March 31st in most Asian countries and in all of Europe, Africa and America…)
On the other hand I have to say that the April Fools’ joke about Nara Dreamland turned out to be one of the most read articles I have ever written – because people happily spread the word. *My posting on Facebook* was seen by three times as many people as I have subscribers there! Usually about 40% of my subscribers see my postings, which already is a lot more than the 6% Facebook average that we all read about in the media recently. 300% vs. 40% vs. 6% – so please keep Liking and Sharing stuff, if you think Abandoned Kansai is worth supporting! On Facebook and Twitter, by posting links on forums, in comment sections or by sending them to friends. I really appreciate it – and I really don’t like making up big stories to get attention…
By the way: April 1st will be a Tuesday again in 2025… so be careful when reading Abandoned Kansai in 11 years! 🙂

Oh, and since the sour was actually the April Fools’ joke, I’ll give you lots of sweet this week! The gallery below consists of previously unpublished photos I took at Nara Dreamland plus an exclusive one photo preview at tomorrow’s article about another abandoned Japanese amusement park you probably haven’t heard about yet!

(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the *Nara Dreamland Special*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Perfect Toilet Sign (Not At Nara Dreamland!)

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Nara Dreamland Re-Opening!

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Nara, Non-Urbex, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2014 on 2014/04/01| 33 Comments »

Nara Dreamland soon to be reopened – all the details exclusively on Abandoned Kansai! (Unless you speak Japanese…)

For almost eight years people were wondering: Why do the owners of *Nara Dreamland* pay for a nasty security guard to keep intruders away? Some thought they had too much money while others claimed that they wanted to avoid vandalism, so they could rent out the place as a movie set – Japanese horror movies are famous all over the world, or at least they were for a while, before they were beaten by the descendants of their common Korean ancestors. For years I tried to get in contact with the owners (first Daiei, then a company called “Dreamland”, represented by “L.A. Investment” in Nara) to get official permission to shoot there, just to run into a wall of silence. On January 31st 2014 the Nara Shimbun reported that the city of Nara foreclosed Nara Dreamland and put it up to auction as Dreamland owed about 650 Million Yen (currently 4.6 million EUR or 6.3 million USD) in taxes; previous negotiations about tax reductions failed – and local residents opposed the city’s idea of buying the property to build a crematorium (no kidding!).

The new owner, a company called “Nara Dreamland: The New” (Japanese people and English, always good for a laugh!), went to work quickly. Not only did they finally answer  the letters I wrote months ago to their predecessors, they also invited me and a couple of well-known Japanese urban explorers over to Nara on Sunday, March 30th, as they appreciated “the support of our most devoted fans”, so CEO Katsuhiro Yuenchi. I went to Nara with a bilingual friend and the story embargo was just lifted seconds before this article went online… it will probably hit the mainstream news tomorrow. And news they had for us, unexpected big news! (In case you wonder about the timing: In Japan most companies start their business years on the first day of the second quarter.)

As you already know from the headline, Nara Dreamland is about to re-open soon! Renovations began right after the acquisition in January to make a ridiculously tight deadline: April 26th, just in time for Golden Week, one of the most important vacation periods in Japan. Mainstreet USA and the Cinderella Castle are already almost completely renovated, dozens of experienced woodworkers and technicians currently make sure that the Aska roller-coaster will be ready to go, while the park’s other famous ride, the Screw Coaster… is getting screwed. After almost a decade of negligence the coaster was so rusted and overgrown that new management decided to demolish and replace it. The merry-go-rounds and other small rides in the back of the park are under repair as we speak, so are the BBQ area and the monorail, for which brand-new trains will be imported from the States, hopefully arriving on time for the grand reopening. New attractions include a freefall tower and a Ferris wheel – although the latter one will actually be an old friend! A couple of months ago the giant wheel *Igosu 108* disappeared from Shiga prefecture *as I mentioned on Facebook a while ago*. Structurally sound and completely repainted it now makes Nara Dreamland visible from far away. At least one major attraction like that will be added every year, according to the new management of Nara Dreamland. Sadly they guys were also a bit stuck up and told us to leave our cameras behind in the bus before they gave us the grand tour. Well, most of the attractions and buildings were under construction and partly or completely scaffolded anyway, but I am sure official promo photos will be released soon.

To stick with the park’s tradition and to stand out from the competitors, the new Nara Dreamland will be a pay-as-you-go amusement park, which means that the entrance fee will be only 500 Yen (free during Golden Week 2014!) and that you’ll have to pay for every ride – between 200 and 800 Yen. Dreamland’s water park is currently fenced off and will open completely overhauled  from early July till late August / early September, like most other water parks in Japan, too.

Personally I am very excited about this news! I’ve been to Nara Dreamland at least once a year since 2009 and I am happy that I can finally enter for a small fee without sneaking around. Sure, it is a loss for the whole Japanese urbex community – but at the same time it is such a big win for Nara and all of Kansai! (Sorry, no “new” abandoned location today. Just remember: The sweet is never as sweet without the sour!)

(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the *Nara Dreamland Special*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)

CNN Loved This Photo So Much, They Put It On Their Front Page (Archive Photo)

CNN Loved This Photo So Much, They Put It On Their Front Page (Archive Photo)

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North Korea Revisited: Epilog

Posted in Airport, Amusement Park, Animals, Asia, Beijing, China, Chongjin, Dandong, DPRK, Food, Hiking, Hoeryong, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kaesong, Korea, Kyongsong, Map, Military, Monument, Mount Chilbo, Museum, Nampo, Night, Non-Urbex, North Hamgyong, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Rason, Restaurant, Russia, School, Store, Transportation, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013, Yanji, Zombies on 2014/02/21| 6 Comments »

“What kind of place did I just leave that entering China feels like gaining freedom?!”
That’s what I was thinking upon leaving North Korea for the second time – because leaving the second time definitely felt different.

When I crossed the border at Dandong a few months prior I felt a bit wistful. Something was dragging me back instantly, I was mesmerized by my experiences. Dandong felt very surreal, like a completely different world. And although I wasn’t 100% serious that I would visit the DPRK again when I promised to do so to my Pyongyang guides, I somehow had a feeling that it wasn’t totally out of question.
When I was leaving North Korea for the second time I was actually glad to get out of there. The trip had been way too interesting to be considered a bad one, but this time was much more intense, I witnessed and found out things that would take me much longer to process than the lifetime worth of experiences I made in Pyongyang.

After Pyongyang I started writing right away. I went there ignorant on purpose, I wanted to enjoy the show and embrace the deception – which is so not me as I hate being lied to, but I figured it would be easier to go with the flow when visiting North Korea. (It’s definitely tough going against it when living in Japan…)
After the Northeastern Adventure I took a lot more time, hoping that I would be able to use it to process and structure my thoughts – to make sense of what I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, felt. In hindsight probably not a good idea as I don’t think it helped much, but I started to forget details. Details that weren’t essential, but details nonetheless. At least it gave me the confidence to write everything as I remembered it, because after my return to Japan (and seeing how messed up in its own way this country here is) it took me less than a week until the urge to go back rose. I wasn’t lying awake night after night trying to find a way to “go back to the island”, but North Korea is a decent size country that is opening up to tourism more and more, which is great for the half dozen travel agencies offering trips, because they can lure customers back easily. “You’ve been to Pyongyang, Kaesong, North Hamgyong and Rason, but… XYZ is open now – and you can be part of the first tourist group to get there!” And that is one of the selling points of North Korea, to boldly go where hardly any man has gone before.

Do I want to go back to North Korea? Heck yeah! I’m a sucker for remote and unusual places that offer photo opportunities, that’s what this blog is all about! Of course I would love to go back to North Korea, despite the fact that I was really angry (and happy to leave!) last time.
Will I go back to North Korea? Most likely not. Not under the current regime.
Why? Because I have the ability to remember. I remember Robocop and how he treated that boy at the market in Rason, I remember how I felt being ratted out by that old woman in Rason, I remember looking at GoogleMaps, realizing how close we came to some of the death camps – which hopefully will be remembered as a stain on the history of humankind once this ridiculous regime dissolves and all Koreans enjoy (relative) freedom.

There are some voices out there on the internet who are convinced that North Korea can be opened little by little if more and more tourists visit the country – sadly most of those voices are actually either fooled Pyongyang tourists or western tour guides to the DPRK. And I am not sure what to think of the idea. North Korea is so full of contradictions, yet the system survived for so long – can a couple of thousand tourists driven around in busses with tinted windows really make a difference? After thousands of tourists before didn’t make a difference?
When visiting Pyongyang you kind of get the image that the DPRK is a misunderstood country which is struggling to survive and doesn’t want no harm to nobody in the world; but that’s the microcosm Pyongyang, where only the elite is allowed to live and where resources from all over the country get concentrated. In North Hamgyong and even in the comparatively rich Rason I felt transported 20 or 30 years back in time – and I started to wonder why North Korea even allows those tourist tours, because like so many things in the country, the tours don’t really make sense. I don’t think it’s about the money, because there are not nearly enough tourists to the DPRK to justify the effort. In Pyongyang I can see it being about changing foreigners’ minds. The regime will never win over the western media, but they can create positive word of mouth. But why allowing western tourists to North Hamgyong and Rason? Korean is not the most common language in the world, but there are always one or two people in each group who are able to speak it – and if not, people know people who know the language. Sure, while at the clothing factory in Rason I didn’t know that one of the slogans on a pillar said “Ideology First”, but it didn’t matter, because I knew a few days later, so congratulations to the factory management, you fooled me for a couple of days! But that didn’t keep me from telling a couple of thousand readers that, while you seem to treat your workers well, you also bombard them with propaganda music and propaganda slogans – and that you use “Made in China” labels. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg as you know, since I mentioned all the little things in the previous eight articles.
So why is North Korea allowing foreign tourists in the country, when it fails to deceive them and continues to indoctrinate its citizens. When things like the electric fence are continuously brought up (or maybe even revealed) by tourists? Why allowing small scale foreign aid that doesn’t get mass media attention, when Juche, Korea’s autarky, is the state’s ideology and most important goal?
The answer is: I don’t know. North Korea is full of contradictions, almost everything there is tied to a contradiction. The more you know about North Korea, the less it makes sense. And I’ve spend a lot of time in 2013 talking about North Korea and actually being there…

That being said I am very glad that I did those two trips. I made a lifetime worth of experiences, good and bad, met some extraordinary people (also good and bad…), saw and did things I wouldn’t have thought of in my wildest dreams. First I went there during the political crisis of 2013 and then again just weeks before Merrill Newman was arrested and Kim Jong-un had his uncle executed – and in-between I could understand very well why some friends and my whole family were worried about my security.
If you are interested in visiting North Korea, I hope my two travel reports were helpful to you. If you are just interesting in North Korea, I hope I was able to show you a different, a neutral side of what it is like to be a tourist there. And if you are mostly interested in urban exploration, I hope you enjoyed both series nonetheless – thanks for sticking with Abandoned Kansai, I promise I will make it up to you on Tuesday with a mind-blowingly amazing deserted hotel! (There will be two or three more articles about North Korea in the future, but none of them will put my urbex articles on hold for weeks…)
Since I came back from my second trip I’ve been asked a lot of times where I will go next, by both friends and strangers. Where can I go next after I went to North Korea? For a while I didn’t have an answer, I was considering Siberia or Alaska, but now I can tell you what the main event this year will be: I will go back home to Germany for almost three weeks (a.k.a. annual leave) to celebrate the wedding of one of my best friends – and I can’t wait to do so!

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. *Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* 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…)

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People’s Park, Yanji

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Animals, Asia, China, Demolished, Ferris Wheel, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013, Yanji on 2013/11/05| 32 Comments »

Urban exploration in China is something I thought I would never do – and actually only did by chance. In October of 2013 I was on my way to a second trip to North Korea; not *Pyongyang and the southern parts* again, but North Hamgyong province and the Special City Rason in the north of the DPRK. To reach those areas you don’t fly into Pyongyang via Beijing, but you enter and exit by land. Meeting point for those trips is the Chinese city Yanji, an up and coming 400.000 people town quite close to Russia and less than an hour away from the North Korean border. The tour to Korea ended on a Monday evening… and since Korean Air doesn’t offer any flights on Tuesdays I was stuck in Yanji for a whole day. My buddy Nikolai, who spent a couple of months learning Korean in this town without any tourist attractions at all, told me about a half-abandoned amusement park in the city center. “Half-abandoned” sounded like a dying amusement park to me, one with fewer visitors than necessary, one that is supposed to close soon. Little did I know that he meant an amusement park where literally half of the attractions were abandoned. And that’s not even the weirdest thing about it!

The People’s Park (人民公園) in Yanji looks like a normal public park when entering from the south – a big pond full of water plants, a couple of peddlers selling food and plastic toys, some sculptures (including tasteful nudes), a few benches, and senior citizens playing games at tables. After a couple of minutes you’ll reach animal cages and stalls filled with all kind of more or less exotic animals… as the People’s Park features a free public zoo. But that’s not all! Right where the zoo ends is a small dump area with a couple of abandoned seats, small stands and parts of carnival rides – and at first I thought that was what Nikolai meant when talking about the half-abandoned park. Boy, was I wrong!

Within earshot of the rusty remains I spotted small Ferris wheel, blasting some music into the silence of this sunny Tuesday noon. Customers? None. Potential customers? Only a few more.
The (not so) big wheel was surrounded by 15 to 20 other carnival rides. Two or three of them were also open and running, half a dozen others looked more or less well maintained – and the rest of them were actually abandoned, except for the single demolished one; paint flaking off, weeds growing through a mini roller coaster, seats weathering, concrete crumbling.
This place was so friggin weird! It looked like an abandoned pay-as-you-go amusement park, but it wasn’t, because every other minute you would run into some sweethearts looking for entertainment, and there was music playing in the background all the time; some of it being karaoke sung by a few senior citizens further up the hill. It was so creepy and bizarre – and calming yet very exciting at the same time! Usually I have to sneak around and jump some fences, especially when exploring abandoned theme parks… but not this time! Relaxed I made my way from attraction to attraction and took pictures of whatever I wanted at my own speed, not worrying about anything. When I thought it couldn’t get any better (except for being there on a misty day!) I hit the weirdo jackpot!
I’ve seen a haunted house or two in my lifetime, but none with a naked female torso breaking through the wall on the upper floor, a big hand trying to hold her back, partly covering one boob – next to a monstrous mutant face. But that’s not all! To the left and mid-air was a nude couple (male and female) in a grotesque pose, attacked by two gigantic green snakes – the guy’s face full of panic, the girl’s face barely visible, but clearly in agony, one of the snakes biting into her left shoulder and half of the exposed torso.
The back of the abandoned haunted house wasn’t a tiny bit less bizarre and probably my favorite area in the whole park. There I found a couple of concrete or gypsum animals lying on the ground and standing around, the greyish material spalling off in huge chunks, revealing steel wires underneath. Next to a path nearby was a huge Buddha statue rotting away, made of a Styrofoam looking material – accompanied by the concrete statue of a naked Chinese fairy, right in front of a white rabbit with red eyes carrying a gigantic mushroom… which at this point I felt I must have smoked earlier!

The *second abandoned Japanese sex museum* meets *Nara Dreamland*… with no security standards whatsoever. One of the remaining running rides was a monorail through half of the park. It’s height? About two meters – and no protection at all. I was able to touch the rail at any time and even smaller people carelessly stretching could get hurt seriously by one of the monowheel looking cars. Trash, broken glass and mirrors, rusty metal, brittle animal figures – everything was scattered in the woods around the park and nobody seemed to care about it.
The carnival section of the People’s Park in Yanji was one long bizarre exploration and one of my favorite abandoned amusement parks overall. Deserted theme parks are generally creepy, but the fact that this one was only half-abandoned took it to a whole new level!

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Yanji People’s Park

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Festivalgate

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Demolished, Haikyo, Japan, Map, Osaka, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2010, Visited in 2011, Visited in 2012, Visited in 2013 on 2013/10/15| 17 Comments »

Festivalgate was a post real estate bubble amusement park in the city center of Osaka, just down the street of the famous Tennoji Zoo and right next to a transportation hub combining two railway lines at Shin-Imamiya Station with the tramway stop Minamikasumicho and the subway station Dobutsuen-mae (literally “in front of the animal park”) on the city’s main line Midosuji – although “amusement park” doesn’t really nail it, since the park part was missing. Festival Gate was more like an amusement building with all kinds of arcades, shops, a cinema, restaurants and a rollercoaster on eight floors with a total floor space of more than 5700 m². Though located in a densely populated area with perfect connection to public transportation Festivalgate offered parking space for 380 cars and 120 bikes. Nevertheless it failed twice within 10 years…

I guess the planning of Festivalgate started during the bubble (1986-1991), when the Osaka Municipal Transportation Bureau got rid of the Tennoji Streetcar Garage (大阪市電天王寺車庫). The then leveled lot was split into two parts, A and B – A was the location of the now demolished Festivalgate, on lot B the still operative Spa World was built (a spa wonderland with saunas, waterslides, a gym and themed areas from all around the world). For that the city founded a joint venture with the Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation and the Chuo Mitsui Trust and Banking Co. (two of Japan’s biggest companies) to raise 50 billion Yen, back then about 290 million Euro / 350 million US$, nowadays 400 million Euro / 532 million US$ (not adjusted for inflation).

Festivalgate opened together with Spa World on July 18th 1997 with an underwater / Atlantis theme – little did they know that they would drown in debt soon…

The opening hours were rather long – 10:00 to 20:00 for stores, 10:00 to 22:00 for amusement facilities, 10:00 to 23:00 for eateries. To give Festivalgate a financial identity you were able to buy discount tickets at vending machines; for 1000 Yen you received a 1100 Yen card, for 3000 Yen you got a 3400 Yen card and for 5000 Yen you were able to enjoy 5800 Yen worth of fun. This was what the floor plan looked liked:
B1 – Underground walkway to Shin-Imamiya Station and Dobutsuen-mae Station.
1F – Miracle Gate: Entrance and main floor.
2F – Plaza Festa: Eateries and shopping.
3F – Festival Pier: Eateries and shopping with a West Coast theme.
4F – Oriental Festa: Eateries and shopping with a Marco Polo theme.
5F – Festa Mosque: Eateries and shopping with a Bazaar theme.
6F – Festa Lab: Arcade game zone (Sega World) with a Jules Verne theme.
7F – Cine Festival: Cinema complex with 4 screens for up to 600 guests total.
8F – View Festa: Restaurant area with a stunning view.

Since Festival was considered an amusement park (no entrance fee though!), of course there were pay as you go attractions scattered all over the floors 2 to 6 – for example 2F had the Mermaid Carousel, 3F had the entrance the parachute tower “Tower of Teos”, 4F had a cat petting zoo and a Chinese Ghost house, 5F had a kid’s land, an airgun museum and the entrance for the iconic rollercoaster and 6F was full of arcade machines run by Sega.

At the beginning Festivalgate was a huge success – in the first year (1997/98) 8.31 million visitors had a look, but in the following year the Asian Financial Crisis hit Japan and numbers dropped significantly. Four years later, which is one year after Universal Studios Japan opened in the south of Osaka, Festivalgate had only 3 million visitors – none of which paid an entrance fee… Shops and restaurants started to drop out and the downwards spiral could not be stopped – in January of 2004 the banks withdrew from the project, driving the Festival Gate Corporation into bankruptcy and leaving the city of Osaka with 20 billion Yen of debt. Orix, a financial service provider most famous for owning and sponsoring the baseball team Orix Buffaloes, stepped up in 2005, but dropped out when it became clear that Festivalgate was a bottomless pit. In January of 2007 the city of Osaka concluded that Festivalgate would cost 200 million Yen per year for maintenance and decided to get over with this unfortunate and highly unprofitable project – the remaining businesses were given notice and Festivalgate closed officially July 31st of the same year. After some back and forth with potential Korean investors the Japanese entertainment giant Maruhan (bets, pachinko parlors) bought Festivalgate in a third auction on January 30th 2009 with a winning bid of 1.4 billion Yen, announcing reconstruction plans soon after. The demolition of Festivalgate began in 2010 and it turned out to be a surprisingly time-consuming process given that Japanese wrecking crews usually are faster than a bunch of piranhas dealing with a chicken…
When I first went to Festivalgate on November 3rd 2010 there was little to nothing to explore, although it seems like the building was still accessible from 2007 till 2009, despite all shops and restaurants being closed. Demolition had already begun, but at least the underground passage and the entrance area on 1F was still accessible with signs announcing that this would change December 17th. Active Japanese construction sites usually are fortified – solid high fences all around, guards in front of every exit, sometimes with small lightsabers to stop pedestrians when vehicles are getting in or out. The Festivalgate deconstruction site was no exception. All potential entrances (including windows) were locked solidly, security was patrolling (probably to keep homeless people away since Festivalgate was in an area that has a rather bad reputation… by Japanese standards), fences were even higher than usual – 3.5 to 4 meters, not the normal 2.5 meters high ones. But not high enough to block the view from the elevated Osaka Loop Line! So I took a couple of photos… and again when I was visiting a friend for a Christmas party later that year. And again whenever I passed by – which wasn’t that often, but still enough to give you a general idea how things progressed. To my surprise it took more than two years to get rid of the ill-fortuned Festivalgate. Good for me (and you) as this article was only possible thanks to that… BTW: Sorry for the quality of the photos – they are not artistic at all, shot from crowded, moving trains, but I think they nevertheless are interesting.

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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Nara Dreamland – Third Time Lucky

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Nara, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012, Zombies on 2013/09/24| 22 Comments »

Nara Dreamland (NDL) has been a constant companion ever since I picked up urbex as a hobby in late 2009. Exploring this gigantic and barely touched abandoned amusement park I had the best of times, I had the worst of times, I definitely started with no wisdom and was quite foolish when entering on a Saturday morning, because I didn’t belief in the security guard there as it was indeed the epoch of incredulity, later I saw Nara Dreamland in the season of light and in the season of darkness, though spring didn’t bring hope and there was as much despair in winter as there was ecstasy.
After I explored Nara Dreamland *overnight for seven hours* in early autumn of 2010 I decided that I would retire the place, never going back there again. Half a year prior to that visit I ran into a security guard on the premises, so I had to come back to settle the matter properly; but after my nighttime adventure, I had seen almost all of the park, so I didn’t feel I had to prove anything anymore – neither to myself nor to anybody else. Till this very day, three years later, I turn(ed) down every requests from friends and strangers to go to Nara Dreamland. Except for that one time…

Oliver from the UK dropped me a couple of lines with “a slightly unusual request” in mid-October of 2011, pretty much a year after what I thought was my final exploration of Nara Dreamland. He was about to get married in Osaka to his fellow Briton Ava and asked very politely if there was a way to include Nara Dreamland somehow. Since smuggling in a whole wedding party was way too risky, the three of us decided to go to the publicly accesible *Eastern Parking Lot* to take some wedding photos and then decide spontaneously what to do next. Of course things didn’t go as planned…

Oliver and Ava just finished changing into their amazing tweed kimonos (no kidding!) when we had an encounter with some locals and decided that we might be better off shooting inside NDL that day. Since climbing barb-wired fences is not a thing you want to do tweed-clad or wearing a kimono (let alone both!) my new friends had to change back, enter the park and put on their unique apparel again. While Ava and Oliver were dressing up in the abandoned Cinderella castle, I took the opportunity to take some daytime photos and videos of areas I actually missed the previous time – only to find out that the soon to be newlyweds realized in my absence that tweed kimonos are not exactly practical in case security shows up and we had to hop it. None of us was looking for trouble, so we decided to just take some light-hearted photos of the engaged couple in normal clothing. On the wooden Aska rollercoaster, the fake Mainstreet USA and some other places all over the park. What a fun and unique way to spend time at an abandoned amusement park!

In addition to some wonderful photos of Ava and Oliver I took tons of pictures of Nara Dreamland as well as half a dozen videos. In the future I will post an additional article or two based on this visit, but for now I hope you will enjoy this never before seen footage – and if you are reading Abandoned Kansai for less than two years I strongly recommend checking out the *Nara Dreamland Special* with links to all previous NDL articles, including some of the most interesting photos I have ever taken!

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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New HDR Photos

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Chugoku, Chūbu, Gifu, Haikyo, HDR, Hiking, Japan, Kansai, Mie, Museum, Nara, New Zealand, Okayama, Photography, School, Taxidermy, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2010, Visited in 2011, Visited in 2012, Yamaguchi on 2013/09/21| 2 Comments »

All of the photos I publish with articles on Abandoned Kansai are without any form of enhancing post-production – I don’t even crop them; they either look good or they don’t. Every once in a while I like to play with an HDR tool or two. I wouldn’t call those photos enhanced or improved, I would barely call them photos anymore. That’s why I created a sub-page for them in the background. Today I added ten more of those little artworks to that page. *Please click here to have a look!*

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North Korea – Pyongyang, Kaeson Youth Park

Posted in Amusement Park, Asia, DPRK, Korea, Map, Night, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/14| 3 Comments »

The Kaeson Youth Park was the exciting final destination of my trip to North Korea. Visiting the most modern amusement park in Pyongyang’s city center was on our schedule almost every day, but every time it had to be pushed back; the first time it rained, the second time was “foreigners’ night” (which defeated the purpose of mingling with locals), the third time we were out of town overnight, …
After getting back from *Kaesong* and having dinner at the famous *duck restaurant in Pyongyang* we finally went to the Kaeson Youth Park on our last night – with the *Arch of Triumph* right across the street our tour basically ended where it began.

Originally opened in 1984, the 40 ha big park fell into disrepair quickly, giving all of North Korea’s theme parks a bad reputation. Being an avid urban explorer I was actually looking forward to seeing some quasi abandoned amusement parks, but it turned out that the ones we saw were all modernized recently. The Kaeson Youth Park for example received a whopping ten new attractions from Italy in April 2010, including a rollercoaster, bumper cars and a freefall tower. It wouldn’t be able to compete with elaborate theme parks like Universal Studios or Disneyland, but it’s attractions would be popular at any funfair in world – hence the place’s nickname Kaeson Funfair, because that’s what it basically is; a non-travelling funfair.
In an article by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun I’ve read that enjoying all ten rides costs locals 1600 won, more than half of what the average person in Pyongyang earns per month (3000 won) – two things about that:
1.) According to their article 1600 won were about 40 US cents in 2011, according to currency converters it was about 12 dollars back then! (A little less today… Maybe there is a different black market exchange rate?)
2.) What the article fails to mention is the fact that most people in Pyongyang don’t have to live off their 3000 won income, it’s kind of an allowance since the state provides accommodation and their place of work provides meals (though I am not sure if it’s just lunch or three meals a day).
So yes, visiting the Kaeson Youth Park is very expensive for locals (a ride on the subway costs 2 won…), but it is possible for them to enjoy an evening there. Not a whole day though, because the funfair opens at 7 p.m. and closes at midnight or 1 a.m., depending on which guide you asked… 😉

At the *Taesongsan Park & Funfair* we didn’t go on any rides, so our group was set loose and we were able to explore on our own – at the Kaeson Youth Park we had to stick together, nevertheless I was able to take an almost foreigner free video since the group stretched quite a bit. We basically walked to the end of the park and made our way back to the entrance, people hopping on the rides in mini groups; with VIP treatment, i.e. skipping the queue – which came at a price: 1.5 to 3 Euros per ride, according to a guide more than 30 times of what locals pay, which means that the whole exchange rate thing is off completely…
Despite the fact that we arrived past 9 p.m. there were still quite few children around (usually in groups), but overall it was a good mix of locals again (youth groups, couples, families, soldiers), so it felt kind of natural being there, despite the fact that clothing usually was less individual than what you are used to from amusement parks in Europe or the States. We even witnessed a heated argument between two guys, most likely military – much to the embarrassment of our Korean guides. Personally I enjoyed seeing that, it gave the experience quite a human touch.
The Kaeson Youth Park was another hint that things in the DPRK are changing. Like I said, amusement parks in North Korea have a horrible reputation and most articles on the net make fun of them, but all three parks I saw had been renovated since Kim Jong-un became the leader of the country. The KYP looked like a modern funfair and it seems like that the powers that be intend to keep it that way. An estimated half of the park’s staff was busy cleaning and swiping, contributing to the image that I had during my whole trip to the DPRK – a struggling but upcoming country that is trying extremely hard to make the best of a bad situation.

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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North Korea – Pyongyang, Taesongsan Park & Funfair

Posted in Amusement Park, Asia, DPRK, Korea, Map, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/06/27| 4 Comments »

The human side of North Korea.
That’s what the title of this article should be, but I guess I’ll stick with the naming conventions I decided weeks ago – nevertheless the trip to the Taesongsan Park & Funfair was hands down my favorite part of the eight days / seven nights I spent in North Korea – although I most likely contracted food poisoning there…

After finishing the first ever *Fun Run* in the DPRK everybody went back to the *Yanggakdo Hotel* for a quick shower and some hearty breakfast. From there we drove to the Mansudae Memorial for a deep bow in front of two gigantic statues and a couple of photos of the area with a great view at the city, directly down to the *Workers Party Foundation Monument*; nice, but not interesting enough to deserve its own article.

The Taesongsan Park & Funfair are in the north eastern outskirts of Pyongyang, near the Pyongyang Zoo and the *Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery*, basically right next to Rakwon Station, the final stop on the Hyoksin Line of the *Pyongyang Metro* – nevertheless they are not marked on *GoogleMaps*.
People always say that there are barely any cars in Pyongyang, that the city feels deserted – not on May 1st near Mount Taesong! As soon as we got closer, traffic became quite heavy. Still nothing in comparison to any bigger in an industrialized country, but the traffic policemen were pretty busy and we actually had to wait at intersections. (BTW: Contrary to the internet phenomenon most of the traffic police are male, not female… about 2:1 or even 3:1 of what I saw!) There even was a taxi among the cars. Yes, a taxi! They have taxis in North Korea… The most crowded area was around Rakwon Station, where a constant stream of people left the metro system. Sadly most of the traffic and people photos turned out to be blurry or had window reflections in them, nevertheless I’ll include a couple of them to show you that there are people actually living in Pyongyang and that it is not a ghost town populated by a couple of actors who play “perfect country” for the handful of tourists who visit the DPRK every year…

The Taesongsan Park & Funfair is exactly what the name says – a huge park with lots of funfair rides. We drove about 1/3 into the park and when we left the bus our guides told us to everybody’s surprise that we could explore on our own and that we would meet about 40 minutes later. The announcement was borderline shocking since nobody expected anything like that. Yeah, we were told that we would be able to mingle with the locals on May Day, but everybody thought it would be a group experience. People bolted off in all directions, but I stuck with Jeff, Ben and Jimmie; having a feeling that this could be a great experience if I was able to keep up with Jeff (who had no intentions to shake anybody off!). But first the three decided it was time for a bathroom break, so all of a sudden there I was on my own, in a park in North Korea… completely unprepared, to be honest.
If this isn’t your first visit to Abandoned Kansai you know that I am not much of a street photographer – I take pictures of buildings, abandoned ones usually, to be more specific; not of people. And we were told not to take photos of people directly anyway. Which I ignored right away by taking a photo of one of those tent like food stands that spread all over the park and Pyongyang in general. (Privately operated, BTW! You have to apply for a license to run one, but that’s pretty much all I found out about them.) The woman running the tent immediately waved me over and I thought I was in deep trouble, but instead of yelling at me she had a big smile on her face. Before I knew what was going on I had a cold bottle of water in my free hand – and I had no idea how to manage the situation, because as I told you, we weren’t prepared for that. Was it a gift? Did she expect payment? But how could I pay without having any local money on me? (Foreigners are not allowed to have local currency, although they sell you notes fresh from the press on your last day at the Yanggakdo Hotel, at a ridiculous exchange rate though.) After a quite confusing (not to say panicking) moment I remembered that I had some sweets from Japan in my backpack, so I opened it and gave her some green tea chocolate – and everybody was happy. (It must sound trivial if you weren’t there, but it was a truly amazing situation to me…) Seconds later my fellow travelers showed up again and we continued our tour through the park. (And I found out that we can buy stuff from the tent stands with Chinese Yuan, although I thought it was forbidden for them to accept foreign currencies.)
I knew that it would be impossible to shoot a decent video with the whole group, so a minute later I went on a stroll by myself again, still trying to reflect what just happened. So I walked around for about 10 minutes and as you can see in the video – just a normal park with normal people enjoying themselves.
By the time I got back to my new friends from the States, Canada and Australia the next big thing was going on already. I saw Ben and Jimmie, but Jeff was nowhere to be seen, just some dozen local kids crawling over a table… and Jeff. While I was gone my American buddy sat down, took out his tablet and started to play a flight simulator; much to the interest of almost every Korean coming by, especially the kids. It was amazing! I’ve never seen that many smiling and curious kids at the same time, even a couple of adults stopped by to find out what was going on. Including Mr. Yu, who kind of broke off the spectacle… which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Mr. Yu was clearly uneasy about the situation, so I talked to him for a minute or two while Jeff headed deeper into the park – I followed shortly after and reunited with the rest of our mini group.

As I mentioned in a previous article, the Taesongsan Park is a popular spot for BBQs. A blanket, a gas heated pan plus lots of food and alcohol. Fun for the whole family. Dozens, probably hundreds of groups were spread all over the park, enjoying the blessing of a late spring under still blooming cherry trees. It kind of looked like home (which currently is Osaka, Japan), it felt like home. We were passing by quite a few groups when Jeff decided to approach one of them, us three still in tow. Almost instantly Jeff was offered a seat and before we knew what was happening all four of us sat down. Jeff gave me 20 Yuan and asked me to get some beer – I tried to find some at the food tents, but since I don’t drink beer I didn’t even knew what it looked like; of course nobody there spoke English. Except for Mr. Yu, whom I met again, but only for long enough to find out that we would meet half an hour later than planned since everybody enjoyed themselves so much.
With good news (but without alcohol) I returned to the group and sent Jimmie on the beer mission. By that time Juliette came by and was invited to join everybody, too.
The group we joined was a big family, at least three generations from toddlers to grandma. Jeff was in his element, showing pictures on his tablet to our hosts, introducing everybody, translating parts of the conversations – and what got lost was made up with nice gestures and big smiles. By the time our bottoms hit the ground we had chopsticks in one hand and a paper cup of soju in the other. Meat was sizzling in the pans and the scarf wearing grandma next to Juliette was cutting up delicious baechu kimchi; from a big plastic bag, the napa cabbages still in wholes.
Those 10 to 15 minutes we sat with that group of locals was the best time I had in the DPRK and I still don’t know how to describe the way I felt. (Not only myself, but everybody involved – we talked about this experience for the rest of our trip.) I grew up with a certain image of North Koreans, which is probably pretty similar to yours. Partly based on North Korean material (like parades, official news reports, interviews with average people after Kim Jong-il died), partly based on Western media portrayals – and here I was eating and drinking with (random!) locals on a sunny day in a beautiful park in Pyongyang; sharing THEIR food after THEY invited us. The nicest, most open-minded people I’ve ever met. Not a single negative word, not even a single negative vibe. Jeff, him being American by definition an oppressor and arch enemy, was actually the most popular one of us. Those people were nothing like the image I had of North Koreans before the trip! There was no way they could have been nicer or could have made us felt more welcome…
(Of course we didn’t take advantage of the situation and contributed some bottles of beer as well as sweets we brought from our countries to the feast. BTW: When our Austrian group members Anton and Veronika passed by halfway through our time there, our hosts invited them over, too – nobody was left out, everybody was welcome!)

All good things must come to an end, so after a while we had to leave to get back to the bus, but not without Jeff chatting up some more people on the way, all of them reacting very friendly and interested. Sadly I didn’t get a good end, but a rather bad one. I was feeling a little bit under the weather all day, but it got worse on the bus ride to the city center, where we had lunch on a boat. By the time we sat down I was freezing and sweating at the same time, feeling seriously sick. With Jeff’s help I was able to lie down in the cabin of a crew member and when I got up again I almost fed the fishes across the ship’s rail – luckily my stomach was almost empty and my body seemed to appreciate the gesture. I was feeling a bit better, nevertheless I stayed in the (boiling hot) bus while the others explored Moranbong Park for more interaction with locals; afterwards everybody said Taesongsan Park was way better since this time it indeed was a group experience again. I guess I picked up an undercooked piece of bulgogi and contracted food poising, which I literally sweat out for two hours or so. Which was another blessing in disguise as the evening bus ride to Nampo was the shakiest and bounciest you can imagine, but that’s a story for another time. (Oh, and just in case you wonder – although I could have done without the food poisoning, it was totally worth the experience at Taesongsan Park! No regrets whatsoever…)

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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