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Archive for the ‘House’ Category

The Tokushima Countryside Clinic (徳島田舎診療所)

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hospital, House, Japan, Shikoku, Tokushima, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/12/24| 12 Comments »

Doing urban exploration it’s hard not step into the trap of chasing only after the famous locations like Gunkanjima or Nara Dreamland – everybody has them (for good reasons), so you kind of gotta have them, too. But it’s important to stay open minded and not just look for the big ones when doing research. Because if you are really dedicated and incredibly lucky every once in a while you will stumble across a hidden gem that will blow your mind unexpectedly. Ladies and gentlemen: The Tokushima Countryside Clinic…
I saw the Tokushima Countryside Clinic (徳島田舎診療所) on a small Japanese travel blog about half a year ago. Although its location is quite remote I was able to pin it down. Jordy knew about the place, too, and was even more eager than myself to see the place (I was actually only moderately excited about it beforehand), so we decided to go there first thing on the second day of our road trip to Shikoku – abandoned hospitals are hard to find, but Japanese countryside clinics are almost unknown. Up till now the secret Doctor’s Shack was the benchmark for that type of haikyo, but over the last couple of years it lost quite a bit of its former attraction as it’s not that secret anymore and suffered a lot from vandalism. With the discovery of the Tokushima Countryside Clinic I’m sure its reputation will go down in no time…
I’ve been to several famous locations in Japan and I enjoyed most of them, but this really unknown find came with almost no expectations and therefore captured my heart in no time. Big but quite unremarkable from the outside I entered the TCC through the only room of the building partly collapsed, the former front desk. While Jordy instinctively went to the pharmacy part to the right (which had a sign that straight-up said “If you want medicine you have to pay cash!”) I had a look around on the first floor and finally settled in the treatment room. Abandoned about 32 years ago (as Jordy found out later talking to some locals) the TCC offered an almost endless amount of items and angles. There was so much to see it didn’t get boring for a second, from syringes and rusty needles over patient files to medical books and instruments – and since the partly boarded-up place had hardly any visitors during the last few decades the atmosphere there was just amazing.
I thought maybe 20 minutes had passed when Jordy suggested after 1.5 hours (!) that we should switch rooms. So I went over to the pharmacy, wondering if it was really a good idea to take pictures in a room filled with all kinds of odors. I was setting up my tripod in the narrow pharmacy, but it took me another 10 minutes or so to realize that there was another tiny room behind it, filled with hundreds of bottles, flasks and cardboard boxes full of more medicine and chemicals. Whenever I thought I’ve seen everything there was more. Like when Jordy asked me half an hour later if I had seen the study room behind the examination room – of course I hadn’t! I shot in that room for more than one and a half hours and didn’t even realize there was another (opened) door… So I made my way over to the study room and took some more pictures of books, test tubes and other stuff.
The rest of the TCC was a mansion-like estate with a beautiful huge living room set in complete darkness (harboring a gorgeous house shrine) and a spacious kitchen including a brick-built oven. The sleeping rooms must have been on the second floor and in another building that was also used as a storage.
Overall the Tokushima Countryside Clinic is a haikyoist’s dream and I have to admit it totally blew my mind – it’s unique, it’s in great condition, it’s virtually unknown and I had almost no expectations when going there. I spent about four hours shooting (due to the difficult but interesting lighting conditions exposure times went as high as 30 seconds) and I guess I could have spent another four if there wouldn’t have been other locations on the schedule for that day. The TCC is without a doubt my favorite location in Japan so far and I guess it’s the perfect opportunity to finally present you my favorite location worldwide – so next week I’ll finally start the long overdue series about Pripyat and Chernobyl…
I decided to publish the photo set of this location in black and white to stress its unique atmosphere; finally a simple form of post-production – *please have a look at the color version here*.

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The Doctor’s Neighbours

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chūbu, Gifu, Haikyo, House, Japan, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/11/05| 4 Comments »

After Michael and I finished shooting the Doctor’s Shack we walked about 30 meters along a small, dusty street to get to an abandoned house he found during his first visit to the Doctor’s Shack; Michael ran out of time back then and therefore didn’t have the opportunity to explore it.

The place looked like a typical Japanese countryside house built maybe in 70s and abandoned in the 90s, although both dates are pure guessing on my side. One floor, no basement, wooden floor and tatami mats, plastic lamps and chandeliers, walls you can punch through with your fist, and most important of all: quite spacious. Judging by how (hardly) known it is on the internet I guess it attracts way less visitors although it’s actually easier to find. But if it isn’t in a book and doesn’t have special things (like many bottles with chemicals in them…) I guess most people consider it uninteresting. And while the house of the doctor’s neighbours really wasn’t a haikyo highlight by any means it was interesting to go through a “normal” abandoned building, especially since it was already getting dark (thanks to an approaching rainstorm) and therefore shooting the place became kind of a challenge since neither of us had a (working) tripod. Luckily there were lots of places to put down the camera and I learned quite a bit about shooting under bad lighting conditions at Nara Dreamland, so I got at least a couple of decent shots. Decent, not spectacular, since it seems like the place was inhabited by normal people – there was nothing special to shoot, although somebody brought over some medicine vials from the Doctor’s Shack.

Next to the main building was a smaller one, most likely used for storage. And while Michael still had the patience to play around with some boxes and his headlight I got the heck out of there trying to finally escape the mosquitos…

(Michael combined both locations into one posting and you can read all about it here.)

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The Doctor’s Shack

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chūbu, Gifu, Haikyo, Hospital, House, Japan, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/21| 10 Comments »

When I started with urban exploration in November of 2009 it was “my” hobby – I did the research alone, I planned the trips and I explored alone. After about a dozen photo shootings my colleague Enric accompanied me once in a while and we became good friends in the process. I still did the research and planned the trips, but it makes a huge difference if you explore a place alone or with a friend. It took another six months until I met somebody for the first time with the purpose of exploring an abandoned place – Michael “Gakuranman” passed through Kansai on a trip and suggested to go to the Maya Hotel. I wanted to meet the guy for quite a while, so I agreed and since we had a blast exploring the most famous abandoned hotel in Japan I took him to one of my favorite places afterwards, the Takada Ranch Ruin. (Both the Maya Hotel and the Takada Ranch Ruin Revisited will be part of future postings.)
A couple of weeks later Michael told me that he wants to revisit the famous Doctor’s Shack and if I was interested in joining him – of course I was! Hanging out with Michael was a pleasure and the Shack is one of the best kept secrets amongst Japanese urban explorers (known to them as S診療所). While other places get published with full name and sometimes even maps the Doctor’s Shack is protected by a wall of silence and vague hints at best. So for the first time ever I didn’t do any research and my only planning was getting a Shinkansen ticket from Osaka to Nagoya. Michael took care of the rest and I didn’t even ask him about where we would go, just how much the several train tickets were.
The Doctor’s Shack is a small country doctor’s clinic somewhere in the middle of nowhere, hidden behind a hedge in a small town in Gifu prefecture. At first glance the place is totally unspectacular and quite vandalized, although the location is supposed to be a secret. Nevertheless Michael noticed a whole lot of differences to when he visited the place first earlier this year – objects were moved around or even stolen, items were destroyed and a wall collapsed. How big the damage was I only realized when I looked up the place on Japanese homepages, for example Team Haikyo.
The first floor obviously was the clinic part of the building with an examination room and a smaller one used as a pharmacy – bottles with chemicals still left on some shelves. Sadly most of the medical books and magazines were covering the floor now, a radio in the hallway (as seen on the Team Haikyo page) was smashed. The examination room looked a little bit better, but it was pretty much chaos there, too. And the mosquitos were nasty! At least 15 of them were swarming around us, no matter how many we killed. The situation in the private rooms on the second floor was a little bit better, but even there the rooms were either mostly empty or quite vandalized. One rather interesting thing I didn’t even noticed until Michael told me about was a footprint – on the ceiling! A really weird discovery that sparked our imagination… (Another neat detail was the fact that some of the medicine and magazines in the building used German terms as Prussia helped Japan in that area during the Meiji period, making German the second  language for doctors in Japan until the 1960s and 70s.)
When I explored the Doctor’s Shack I wasn’t nearly as impressed as I though I would be. The place is small, overgrown and quite vandalized – not beyond recognition, but it’s not nearly in the state anymore that contributed to its fame a couple of years ago. When I came home and looked at the pictures I took I kind of fell in love with the place. Abandoned country doctor clinics are not exactly a common thing and I was able to take some unique photos that I couldn’t have taken at any other place I’ve been to so far. Then I looked up old pictures on the internet… and it made me sad. Five or ten years ago the Doctor’s Shack must have been the definition of “hidden gem”, now it’s still one of a kind, but it suffered severely over the last couple of years. Unnecessarily as it must have survived decades with hardly any damages. One or two more years and the Doctor’s Shack finally will be vandalized beyond recognition…
(If you liked this location go straight to the Tokushima Countryside Clinic – bigger, better, mind-blowing!)

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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*.)

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Takada Ranch Ruin

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/03/12| 10 Comments »

Initially I wanted to post another haikyo first, but since it took me quite a while to update this blog I decided to come back with one of my favorite haikyo so far: The Takada Ranch Ruin. Coincidentally it seems to be one of the rarest, too…

Located in a totally different area of the Hyogo countryside than “Doggy Land” the Takada Ranch Ruin was a samurai residence given up quite a long time ago – and that’s pretty much all I know about the place. I don’t even know if it’s the real name or if somebody made it up. But the sheer size of the property (including a huge and completely overgrown park) makes it highly likely that it was once owned by rich and powerful people.
Entering the Takada Ranch Ruin is as easy as it can be – it’s located along a rural road with no direct neighbors and the (former) entrance door is wide open.

The first of several buildings on the premises set me back in time 200 years instantly – a long, not very wide wooden house along the road that looks right out of a samurai movie. Too bad it was partly collapsed and some rooms were filled with plastic trash bags, but it was still quite impressive. From there a path lead deeper onto the estate, with a small house to the left and several buildings to the right. The main quarters were quite big and must have cost a fortune to build. Now partly rotten they created whole movies in my head while I was carefully progressing across the wooden floors. I’m sure the buildings were constructed long before electricity was introduced to Japan as all the installations looked like they were added as an afterthought. There were only a few plugs and light bulbs – and the fridge in the kitchen looked very, very old.
East of this conglomerate of buildings I found a car wreck that was clearly put there long after the estate was abandoned – Japanese people love to dump their unused belongings like that as waste disposal can be quite expensive if done properly. Close to the car were two now completely destroyed buildings, one of them made of stone. While the existing buildings looked like they were vandalized (only by a very few people though and not as nasty as most other places), I’m sure those two constructions were torn down professionally. Why it was handled that way? I have no clue.

But it got even stranger when I progressed further. After I passed through a little forest I found some quite thin concrete surfaces and wall remains. Next to them were some weird metal constructions with the leftovers of a few wooden arbors. This whole area looked like it was destroyed a long time before the buildings in the front were given up with no debris to be found. But again I can only guess when that happened. Or what happened. Maybe the buildings were stables, maybe they were some kind of accommodation?

Although not very outstanding on paper (partly collapsed wooden buildings, all stone buildings demolished) the Takada Ranch Ruin instantly grew on me while I was exploring it – and it continued afterwards. The huge estate boosted my imagination like no other place before with its simplicity and history. To me it’s one of the few hidden haikyo treasures, one that gives you a glimpse at a time long gone; if you are patient enough to find the right spots to look at.


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