About 15 months ago I went on my first multi-day urban exploration trip: 3 days to Kyushu with my buddy Enric. A trip with lots of up and downs, visiting some amazing locations – Gunkanjima, the Katashima Suicide Training School and the winding tower of the Shime Coal Mine, now known to some people as the Anti-Zombie Fortress. But March was kinda cold, last year as well as this year. So when Golden Week came up (late April / early May) and my company forced me to take two of my paid vacation days to install a new AC I took the lemon and made lemonade – it was time to go back to Kyushu!
Since Enric left Japan and returned to Spain a couple of months ago, I went on my own this time. Remembering the best burger I’ve ever had I set up my base in Sasebo after a long day of exploring an abandoned shipyard and the abandoned leftovers of the dock of a mine close to it. The next day I explored one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to: an almost abandoned island, once the home of several thousand people – and as exciting as that day was as disappointing was the next one when I walked through drizzle for hours without an umbrella to look for remains of a mine and its workers’ housing-estate; but they were gone forever – as research after my return confirmed… Luckily the weather turned around on my last day, so I was able to visit an abandoned amusement park on my way back home. Thank heavens for sunscreen, because without it the harsh Kyushu sun would have burned me crisp within half an hour…
Exploring all day I spent my three evenings in Sasebo at Base Street to enjoy some burgers. While the regular sized ones are good I’ll definitely recommend the so-called “Special Size” – this 15 centimeters in diameter monster is a classic Sasebo style burger that will fill you up with pure deliciousness; if you ever wanna spend 1100 Yen (yep, that’s 9.50 Euros or 13.60 Dollars!) on a single burger without even considering regretting it then this is the place to go! I just hope I’ll find more abandoned places close to Sasebo so I can have a good reason to go back there once more…
(Oh, and greetings to the tourist office in the Sasebo! It sells a variety of souvenirs, but not the awesome huge plush hamburgers that fill half of their display window. To get one of those you have to ride a bus for about half an hour to get to a small store at a shopping mall in the middle of nowhere. And since I had to wait 45 minutes for the next bus they lost a customer who would have happily paid 200 Yen more to avoid the hassle of a 2.5 hour long round trip to get a cute present for his even cuter niece. A no-win situation… and pretty much the worst sales strategy ever!)
Archive for the ‘Amusement Park’ Category
Back From The Island(s) – Again…
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Demolished, Factory, Haikyo, House, Japan, Kyushu, Mine, Nagasaki, Shipyard, Transportation, Urbex, Visited in 2011 on 2011/06/02| 4 Comments »
The Tokushima Countryside Healthspa (お水荘ヘルスピア)
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Shikoku, Spa / Onsen, Sports, Tokushima, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zombies on 2011/04/06| 8 Comments »
Bathing is a very important aspect of Japanese culture, deeply rooted in centuries-old traditions. Although most apartments and houses have their own baths nowadays (unlike 30 years ago), public bath houses are still popular even in residential areas of big Japanese cities. Onsen and sentō are gender-separated places of tranquility where people enjoy a relaxing hot bath (usually around 40°C) after a hard day of work or an intense workout. Onsen towns in the middle of nowhere are popular vacation destinations for the Japanese domestic tourism and a must see / do for many foreign visitors.
Waterparks with slides and wave pools on the other hand are not nearly as popular in Japan as they are in the States or Europe. Most of the time they are considered one amongst many attractions of amusement parks (like at Nara Dreamland) – and indoor waterparks are even more rare.
From what I was able to find out the Tokushima Countryside Healthspa (お水荘ヘルスピア), an indoor water park with some hotel rooms, was opened in 1975 (under a different name) to complement a countryside farm, attracting visitors with millions of flowers. It was renovated and expanded in 1994 to be re-opened under its current name – making dance shows and karaoke new selling points. Due to its remote location (35 minutes by bus from the next train station) and the economic crisis the number of guests decreased while the debt piled up to 800 million Yen – and lowering the entry fee from reasonable 1700 Yen per day (10 a.m. to 10 p.m.) with special promotions (Ladies Day on Thursdays for 850 Yen and Friends Day on Fridays for 1000 Yen) didn’t help either – at the end they reportedly sold tickets for as low as 100 Yen… So in 2002, after 27 years, the lights went out at Tokushima Countryside Healthspa.
I have to admit: I love indoor waterparks. It’s one of the few leisure activities I really miss living in Japan. Back home in Germany you can find quite a few abandoned public swimming pools, indoor and outdoor, but no abandoned waterparks. So I enjoyed every minute of the two hours I spent there. The hotel part was quite vandalized and rather boring, so I left it rather quickly to go over to the swimming pools and the waterslide. On the way I passed a kitchen and some functional rooms. In two of them quite a few goods and training equipment were lined up, here and there I found price tags scattered all over the place – it seems like the owner tried to sell as much as possible before closing for good. The now empty main pool looked pretty much like a rather local indoor water park in Germany and I loved how red and green leafed plants were growing inside; if there ever was a zombie attack you know where to go to if the Shime Coal Mine is already occupied – if you know what I mean…
The outside waterslide at the bold cliff looked absolutely amazing, the weather just contributing to the atmosphere, so please have a look at the videos, too. Next to the waterslide was a staircase leading down to a pool, now filled with moldy brackish water, two dead greenish doves lying at the pool edge. Again, amazing atmosphere – kinda spooky, but not dangerous at all; neither physically nor in the form of security or other “guests” thanks to the remote location.
Like pretty much all of the previous and upcoming locations of my Haikyo Road Trip To Shikoku the Tokushima Countryside Healthspa was a unique, relaxed and fascinating place to explore. Shikoku, an urbex heaven!
Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Amusement Park
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Europe, Map, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/01/16| 20 Comments »
Did you ever wonder why the famous Pripyat amusement park is almost always about the ferris wheel? Well, the answer is simple: There is not a lot more to see.
The amusement park actually barely deserves that title, since it wasn’t a Disneyland or Universal Studios type of theme park, but more like a travelling, temporary kind of old-style amusement park. It was set up in celebration of May Day 1986, but the tragedy happening on April 26th was cause for a change of plans: The park was opened for one day to distract people from what was happening only a few kilometers away at the nuclear power plant. When the city of Pripyat was abandoned on April 27th so was the amusement park. (This is a fact widely unknown – most sources state that the park was never opened, but there are pictures in existence showing people standing in line in front of the rides.)
Now the (actually not so big, but nevertheless beautiful) ferris wheels rusts away next to a small and simple merry-go-round, a boat swing and a bumper car – hard to imagine that this small collection of rides was once considered an attraction for 50,000 people…
Another fact people usually don’t know about the amusement park: It’s one of the most contaminated areas in Pripyat. Parts of it are perfectly clean, but others are still highly radioactive. While the concrete parts are mostly safe nowadays, the surrounding moss can be as high as 25 µSv/h (microsievert per hour) – the radioactive particles were simply washed into the soil. Walking across such a spot like that won’t harm you instantly, but you don’t wanna build a house there as it is about 400 times the normal terrestrial radiation…
The amusement park is one of the standard locations included in pretty much every Pripyat tour – especially since it gained massive popularity after it was rebuilt in video games like “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl” and “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare”.
Before you start looking at the pictures below I hope you will enjoy an Abandoned Kansai first: I uploaded a short video of about 75 seconds to Youtube. Unedited, 720p. I hope it’s a worthy addition to this article…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* and *follow this blog on Twitter* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)
Nara Dreamland Revisited: Daytime
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/11| 10 Comments »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIeBW2SYBg
- Nara Dreamland
Nara Dreamland Revisited: Nighttime
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Night, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/03| 21 Comments »
For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*.)
- Nara Dreamland
Location Teaser 2
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Chūbu, Europe, Factory, Gifu, Haikyo, Hospital, Hotel / Ryokan, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Luxembourg, Map, Nara, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2010/09/28| 4 Comments »
Looking at my urban exploration log I realized that I had a pretty good run lately.
It all started when I met Michael of Gakuranman fame in late July – he was in Kansai and suggested to take on the famous Maya Hotel together. Since I already scouted the surrounding, but never went in, it was a fun exploration of an impressive location; followed by a revisit of the Takada Ranch Ruin. Two weeks later I started my summer vacation to Europe which included a side trip to the Zone of Alienation with its famous cities Chernobyl and Pripyat. Back to Germany I went to Luxembourg for two more explorations with a kindergarden friend of mine.
Soon after I got back to Japan I received an e-mail from Michael John Grist who planned to come to Kansai to tackle my haikyo nemesis, Nara Dreamland. I wanted to meet the guy more than I wanted to avoid the Dreamland, so we went there on a warm late summer night and for the first time I got in and out without spotting security… And finally I went on a little trip myself again to visit the Gakuranman in the Nagoya area to take pictures of the mysterious Doctor’s Shack, one of the few haikyo that are kept a real secret in Japan – even if it appears somewhere on the net or in a book there are barely any hints about its location and I’m really grateful Michael took me there; another awesome exploration, punished with about 30 mosquito bites!
Maya Hotel, Pripyat, Luxembourg, Nara Dreamland and the Doctor’s Shack in a row… it’s hard to do better than that! Now it’s time to write up the stories and show you some really, really interesting pictures!
(You can find all the articles related to Chernobyl and Pripyat by *clicking here* – the picture was taken *here*.)
Expoland Revisited
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Osaka, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/09/16| 6 Comments »
Location Teaser
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Europe, Haikyo, Map, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/09/01| 18 Comments »
Recently I’ve been on a trip to Europe and of course I couldn’t resist to do some urban exploration outside of Japan for the first time. This posting is just a teaser, but there will be more pictures soon. Lots of them. Maybe you can guess where I went?
(Or you can find out where the picture was taken by *clicking here*.)
Nara Dreamland – Hotel
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/08/20| 8 Comments »
I don’t know why, but people exploring Nara Dreamland seem to be so drawn to the roller-coasters and merry-go-rounds that they totally ignore the not so hidden gem that is dominating the northern part of the Eastern Parking Lot: I’m talking about the building with the strange observation tower. And a strange building it was… A hotel, according to a Japanese hompage. But I found out about that fact weeks after I explored the building as I still was a bit unsure about its purpose.
Although the Nara Dreamland Hotel looks like a fortress (with its broken and boarded-up windows) there are actually at least two ways to get in. Mine was a quite surprising one: Through an unlocked door I closed behind me – a slightly stupid move at first sight, but it might have saved me from getting arrested as I should experience a few hours later.
The first room I entered must have been a meeting room once, followed by a service counter for ice skate rentals and probably other things. Next to it was one of two former main entrances to the building and a quite impressive staircase leading up to the other floors.
Roaming through the three floors I found a strange mix of all kinds of places: Offices, meeting rooms, private rooms, bath rooms, dormitory rooms, small and huge kitchens (several ones actually!), washing rooms, storage rooms, staircases, dark hallways, machinery rooms – a few of them locked, most of them accessible. Probably the most surprising room was a huge auditorium with a stage on the third floor. My most favorite floor of course was the observation tower. The view up there was absolutely stunning – luckily it didn’t paralyze me, because as I was enjoying the great view I saw a security guard on a scooter driving onto the parking lot! I found cover on the stairs leading down, giving me a good look at what was happening: The guard parked in front of the parking garage and went inside for a couples of minutes. After that he got back on his scooter again and drove the 30 meters right towards me to the hotel building. Now ten very, very long minutes began… until I saw the guy again, leaving. Luckily. I’m pretty sure he would have searched the building way more thoroughly if I had left the door on the ground floor open. Luckily he didn’t lock it when he left either, so I escaped with nothing more than a fright. That was in December of 2009 – a couple of weeks later I wasn’t that lucky when I entered the park itself and got caught by the guard only half an hour after I started taking pictures…
The Nara Dreamland Hotel is a massive haikyo that offers lots of diversity. It took me about 3 hours to explore and shoot the building and due to the arrival of the guard I got way more excitement than I was hoping for. As far as hotels go it was definitely one of the most interesting ones, way better than the One Dragon Hotel, the Koga CC House and the Kasagi Tourist Hotel – the lack of history was compensated by the relative absence of vandalism and the amount of items present. I have very, very fond memories of this exploration…
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*. *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…)
Addendum 2015-07-01:
“Kyoto Waterland”
Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Kyoto, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/08/08| 4 Comments »
Stumbling across “new” (to the internet) haikyo is always a special pleasure.
In mid-May, right after Golden Week, I was walking around Kyoto to find an abandoned art museum (which I found and will write about in the weeks to come) when a big waterslide caught my eye. I got closer and, to my surprise, found the place abandoned. Since it was the sixth haikyo I went to in just eight days I was pretty exhausted and not at all in the mood to enter the place, although I think it is possible to do so without taking too much effort. Instead I circled it and took some nice pictures from the outside.
“Waterland” wasn’t that big, only the pretty decent water slide and three pools, but it nevertheless looked like a nice place to hang out at on a hot, humid summer day – judging by the disgusting water colors it seems the place was closed down quite a while ago and nobody even took an effort to leave it in a clean state. On the bright side: At least from the distance there weren’t any signs of vandalism, making it a place worth going back to. So don’t be surprised to see “Kyoto Waterland Revisited” in a few months…
(For people who prefer to have a look at the pictures in sequence: Please click here!)










































































































