All abandoned: Chernobyl / Pripyat, Nara Dreamland, Anti-Zombie Fortress, Japanese Sex Museum – and many, many more! Plus: North Korea Special – 2 trips, 16 days / 14 nights! As seen on CNN…
I genuinely care about the places I explore – not just when I am there by following the “Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints” rule (I actually try to avoid leaving footprints…), but also afterwards. That’s why I tend to keep an eye on more or less all of the locations I’ve been to. Most of the time it ends with them being demolished, but the story of the *Shuuhen Temple* took a different route…
It was a beautiful autumn day in November of 2011 when I first headed out to the Shuuhen Temple in the countryside of Hyogo prefecture. Abandoned temples are rather rare, even in a country like Japan, where you can barely throw a stone without hitting one. But this historic site dating back to the year 651 fell into disrepair after the local monk left his house (whether on foot or on a stretcher is unknown), and it apparently got even worse when a landslide damaged the road leading up to the temple. I on the other hand enjoyed a gorgeous, serene afternoon during the height of momijigari, the little brother of looking at cherry blossoms – looking at the changing colors of the maple leaves.
About four years later I found out that the Shuuhen Temple had been under renovation or reconstruction, without getting to know any specifics. I have to admit that revisits are not really high on my priority list as I rather explore locations I haven’t been to before (especially since nothing had changed according to GoogleMaps), but during Golden Week of 2016 I finally had the opportunity to go back to this rather unique location.
To get to the Shuuhen Temple, it’s about about a 45 to 60 minute walk from the next train station – a local one, with about one connection in each direction per hour. The last stretch is up a hill. Not too steep, but a total height difference of about 160 meters. The first major change to 4.5 years prior? A brandnew sign at the main road, so this abandoned place has become *a tourist attraction*! The second major difference? About a dozen warning signs making you aware that the place is now under camera surveillance – and there was indeed a solar-powered, motion-activated camera along the road! Of course they repaired and improved the dirt road once leading up the hill… but that was not all! The rough rocks on the mostly overgrown slope leading up the final meters to Shuuhen Temple were replaced by real stairs made from cut stone, the whole area was gardened, and a new entrance was created, including a slightly rewritten info sign – as neither were part of the *previous article*, I added a 2011 flashback photo. The temple area itself underwent quite a few changes, too. First of all: The monk’s house has been demolished and is nothing more than a gravel covered piece of land now. The bell tower has been rebuilt and the gorgeous split tree trunk used to clang the bell is a brand-new piece of wood now. Everything has been cleaned up and a new rest house has been placed on the edge of the slope – the view was still gorgeous, but the new wood and concrete construction felt completely out of place. The mix of old and new was strangely odd. Although I had the place all to myself again, the atmosphere was totally different than before. I tremendously enjoyed *my first visit to the Shuuhen Temple*, but this second trip… was missing the serenity – and when a religious place feels like the magic has gone, it was probably not a good idea to have the area renovated. Some places are just destined to fade away – and I feel like the Shuuhen Temple was one of them. (Hopefully the place will recover over time. If I am still in Japan in 10 years, I’ll let you know!)
The *Mount Maya Tourist Hotel* is one of the most famous and most popular abandoned places in all of Japan – and it features one of the most gorgeous exteriors ever. What most visitors are not aware of is the little known fact that the hotel wasn’t the only accommodation on that seaside slope with the gorgeous view. On the other side of the cable car tracks was a small bungalow village! Unlike the massive art deco hotel, the little huts were not able to withstand the ravages of time – but if you look closely, you will find some interesting remains and a network of paths, now mostly covered by half a century of foliage…
While the history of Mount Maya and the tourist hotel is documented quite well (*click here* if you missed it the first time), there is little known about the bungalow village. I’ve seen it on a handful of maps / leaflets from the 1960s – one of them featuring a small print ad for a Isuzu Florian, a 4 door sedan introduced in the late 60s. I kid you not! Is life friggin weird sometimes or what? (Until yesterday, when I did some research about the bungalow village specifically, I didn’t even know that there was a Isuzu Florian! There even is an English Wikipedia entry…) According to a Japanese source, the bungalow village was built in 1957, at a time when the Maya Hotel was closed due to damages from World War II – and according to a leaflet about the Maya area, the 14 bungalows cost between 600 and 2500 Yen per night, housed between 2 and 12 people, and were available between July 1st and August 31st. That’s it for historical facts. Nothing about when it closed, nothing about the one remaining house you’ll see on the photos… Nevertheless this is infinitely more information in English than was available before this article.
The Mount Maya Bungalow Village I visited in early 2012 with a nice young fella from Nigeria living in New York, Bukola. We took the cable car half way up the mountain and descended a bit along a hiking trail to reach the bungalow village behind a partly collapsed house along a rather steep slope. It was early January and rather cold. Cold enough to snow every once in a while – not heavily, not strong enough to stay on the ground… but every flake is sacred along Osaka Bay, where half of the people dress like Reinhold Messner during his Himalayan adventures as soon as temperatures hit 10°C (50°F). Sadly there wasn’t that much to see. I am quite familiar with the history of Mount Maya and the layout of its elements, so I loved the flattened, leaves covered huts, the concrete foundations and the occasional leftover item – especially the large Bireley’s cooler! (Bireley’s is a soft drink brand and belongs to the Asahi Beer Company via Asahi Soft Drinks.) 50 years ago this part of Mount Maya must have looked quite different – I assume one had a gorgeous view at Kobe and the coastline, but in half a century trees grew so big and thick that there was little to see even in the midst of winter.
The one remaining house was definitely not a bungalow, it rather looked like a rich / important man’s home. Sadly it was also a dilapidated, vandalized death trap, probably thanks to the hiking trail leading right past by. From the back we were able to enter both floors separately, but of course there was also an internal wooden staircase in less than trustworthy condition. At the time of its construction, the house must have offered some of the best views in all of Kobe, at the time of my visit most of the living room had already crashed down to what I assume was a study / library. With a little bit of imagination you could still see the former glory – and that another major earthquake might send the whole construction down the slope, so we spent as little time inside as necessary to take a few quick shots.
If the Mount Maya Bungalow Village would have been on the slope of any other mountain, it would have been 90% less interesting to explore – but the location made it part of the fascinating and somewhat tragic Maya history. Of course afterwards we continued to have another look at the *Maya hotel*, but that… you probably already guess it… is a story for another time…
When I arrived at the Akenobe Mine and saw it demolished, I was devastated. Three years ago, this was supposed to be my first big exploration of an abandoned mine… They are rare in Kansai, and while the *Tatsuyama Mine* the year before was a good start, it couldn’t compete with the country’s greatest. But upon my arrival, the Akenobe Mine was mostly gone and the surrounding area brushed clean. A blessing in disguise, because three years and half a dozen barely touched abandoned mines later, it was very exciting to have a look at those “old” photos again, being able to see what a stripped mine looks like underneath all the rusty metal and brittle wood.
It was a sunny spring day when my buddy Dan and I headed deep into the mountains of Hyogo; an area that can be cold, but was unlikely to have snow that time of the year. After exploring another place or two, we finally arrived at the Akenobe Mine at around two o’clock. Just in time for a proper exploration as the sun is setting early in Japan; especially in the mountains, especially that time of the year. We easily found the road leading up the slope, blocked by a massive barbed wire gate. Getting by was a bit of a challenge, especially for me, but in the end it wasn’t much of an obstacle. So we followed the concrete street, littered with branches and small rocks, up the mountain, eager to find out what condition the Akenobe Mine was in. The hairpin curve leading into a dark tunnel must have been quite a thing when driving a loaded truck, but on foot it was rather enjoyable. Sadly our good mood turned into disappointment after the next turn – all the administrative buildings of the mine were gone, except for some concrete bases and stairs here and there on different levels of the mountain. The whole wooden superstructure above the massive concrete containers in the mountainside were gone; so, of course, was all the machinery. The former mine looked like it was prepared as some kind of development area, though nothing ever happened since then – no housing projects, no solar park. To get closer to the concrete leftovers, we had to get past a massive green fence, which turned out to be no obstacle at all. Sadly there wasn’t that much to see, despite us checking out several levels of the former construction. Some cables here, some canisters there… remains of a rail transportation system, of course… Not at all what we expected, but like I said, in hindsight a really good experience.
A far less good experience there had 296 prisoners of war a few decades earlier – a fact neither Dan nor I was aware of at the time. Mining for copper, zinc and tungsten (wolfram) in the Akenobe area dates back to the Heian era (794-1185), but was taken over by the new Meiji government in 1868 in an attempt to maximize the potential and progress with organized, documented mining. Like many of those highly profitable pilot projects, the Akenobe Mine was sold to Mitsubishi in 1898, together with the nearby Ikuno Silver Mine. In spring of 1945 the Akenobe Mine again received some state support in form of almost 300 POWs as forced workers – 28 Australians, 168 Brits; the rest Americans. According to Private First Class Claude R. Lewis of the U.S. Marine Corps the POWs had to work in the mines till August 13th, two days before Japan’s capitulation. Thanks to an affidavit by him, we know that he witnessed how countless boxes and cabinets with documents were transported into the mine and probably hidden in the undocumented early parts that date back hundreds of years – sadly I wasn’t able to find out if they were ever retrieved after the war. While it seems like none of the forced laborers died in Akenobe, many of them reported war crimes of staff and guards at previous camps… which probably explains an oppressive statement made by Japanese translator Kazuo Kobayashi, who worked mainly with the Ikuno prisoners: “Just the mention of Akenobe does strangely bring back tragic images of right after the end of the war when the prisoners were freed, when some of the camp military personnel and Japanese bosses working at the Akenobe mine site were beaten to a pulp.”
Mining continued after the war, but all the mines in the area became less and less profitable, so in 1987 the Akenobe Mine was closed. It seems like these days parts of the Akenobe Mine and some other remains (like a small closed station with a three car train) are actually considered “Heritage of Industrial Modernization” and therefore are open to the public for a fee of 1200 Yen, supported by an NPO. Sadly there is no English website, and the Japanese one is a text heavy read with 1990s web design… Well, not much of a tourist attraction for foreigners anyway – though now I am quite curious if they even mention the POWs there…
Darn, even writing about the Akenobe Mine was a constant up and down. Sunny day, place demolished, relaxed exploration, prisoners of war / guards getting killed in an act of revenge… I guess that’s life. And despite the fact that there was hardly anything left of the mine, it was strangely full of it. I still feel quite a bit conflicted about this place, nevertheless I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures and videos that follow. If you want to know what similar mines look like before demolition, please give my articles about the *Abandoned Dynamite Mine* (yes, it was that exciting!) or the *Taro Mine* a try.
I am getting a bit tired of hearing stuff like “Oh, there is no vandalism in Japan!” and “Japanese people are so much more respectful towards things that don’t belong to them… and nature!” – yeah, you might get that impression if you’ve never been to Japan or never left a bigger city here, but overall those almost quotes are highly exaggerated in my experience. So now I finally post a location I should have posted years ago… the Tsuyama Plaza Hotel.
Before I get to this vandalized rundown piece of sh…ub-dee-doo, let me say a few words about vandalism in Japan… and why the problem is a bit more complex than “Because it’s Japan”!
Yes, I am aware that the average place presented on Abandoned Kansai probably is indeed in better condition than the average place presented on a weekly blog about urbex in Europe or the States. One of the main reasons probably is that I am holding back locations like the Tsuyama Plaza Hotel, because I rather show you more interesting places. And when I go to rundown, vandalized buildings, I still try to take interesting photos, presenting even those locations in the best possible way. “But most urbex blogs do that!”, you might say, and you have a valid point there. Which bring us to an urbex related reason why there is less vandalism / damage to abandoned places in Japan: There are a lot less urban explorers in Japan than Europe and the States! I know, urbexers don’t damage, don’t steal, and don’t reveal places – in theory… But every visit, even when executed as carefully as possible, contributes to the downfall of a place – you bring in dirt and humidity, some people move items when looking for hints about a location’s history or to create more interesting photos… and when those are published, they attract more people to those locations, not all of which are (serious) urbexers. Speaking of attracting more people – geocaching is not a thing in Japan; not at all! I know, I know, geocachers treat every place with the highest respect and would never damage anything… in theory. But they actively lure people to deserted places by publishing coordinates. Just google “lost places geocaching” and I am sure you’ll find tons of abandoned places in the German speaking parts of Europe, despite none of those search words are German. And please don’t get me wrong, this is not an attack against geocachers – they have the same right to be at abandoned places as urbexers (technically: none…), though I’ve never heard of a place being torn down due to too many careful, serious photographers, while I was given the “too many” reason about geocachers by the demolition crew tearing down the *Deportation Prison Birkhausen*. Long story short: a lot less urbexers, hardly any geocachers in Japan. But in my estimation a lot more abandoned places per square kilometer. Japan is a country with very densely populated and rather remote areas and a distinct “out of sight, out of mind” mentality – outside of city centers, places are rather abandoned than demolished, especially since there is (was?) a tax break for built-up land, which means abandonment not only avoids demolition costs, but also taxes in the years to come.
Which brings us to “the Japanese people” – and as much as I hate those generalizations, I guess they are kind of necessary in this case. First of all: the average Japanese person is a lot more superstitious than the average European person. It’s actually mind-blowing how many of them believe in ghosts and stuff like that – which probably can be explained by the indigenous Shinto religion and its relationship with spirits and purification in general; abandoned places, especially those where people died, are absolute no-go zones for those people. In addition to that, Japanese people are a lot more subservient to authority than most Americans and Europeans, at least in my experience. They tend to follow orders by higher ranking people without questioning them, kind of in a Prussian way. Do you remember that Simpsons episode in season 20 where Lisa is standing in front of the Springfield Bell Tower with a sign stating “Keep out”? Below is another sign: “Or enter. I’m a sign, not a cop.“ Well, in Japan a sign, a rope or even a traffic cone usually is enough to keep people from entering places thanks to that general obedience. I’ve been to abandoned places with Japanese people and they didn’t dare to pass a sign or step over a rope – which is nothing in comparison to what urbexers all over the world do to get past barb-wired fences or avoid security to take pictures of places they consider “abandoned”. (But if somebody pays for security, is that place really abandoned? Or just currently not used to its full potential?) Which brings us to another major character difference – Japanese society is still about (large) groups, while urbex tends to be a rather individual hobby; especially when you are interested in taking photos. In my experience, Japanese people love big groups. 15, 20, 30, 40 people. But that doesn’t work for urbex. Even 5 people can be too many for some locations, especially if the place is small and / or access is a bit more complicated. Big groups also support another thing Japan is great at – social control and public shaming. Even in a group of 15 people there is always a snitch happy to rat out the rest… All of that combined explains why there are a lot less urban explorers / geocachers / individualistic people in Japan.
As for vandalism in general… in my opinion / experience it’s quickly on the rise in Japan. Sure, there is not nearly as much graffiti and pointless destruction in Japan as in Europe or the States, but there is infinitely more in comparison to when I first came to Japan almost 20 years ago. And when there is the opportunity, there is lots of vandalism in Japan, too. Just look at the *Rape and Death of an Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum* article I wrote a few months ago. That place went from awesome to completely vandalized in less than two years. Why? Because it was located on the main road in a busy spa town just south of Sapporo and somebody marked it on GoogleMaps. Plenty of bored people of all ages after dark – 4.45 p.m. in winter, 7.30 p.m. in summer. The *Tuberculosis Clinic for Children* in the south of Osaka went from “completely locked with running machines inside” to “completely trashed” in less than three years. Why? Opportunity! The clinic was out of sight and out of hearing from any neighbors, yet still in walking distance of a train station. If you went there at any time of the day, even with the intent to smash windows and furniture, chances were close to zero that anybody would have heard you. And those are just two examples for trashed places (both have been demolished in early 2015). And sometimes they literally get trashed. With trash. Because getting rid of electronics can be expensive in Japan, a lot of people just dump their old TVs, fridges and other equipment somewhere in the woods or at abandoned places – so much for the nature loving population mentioned in the intro… (I once took a very special photo in the middle of nowhere – a sign stating in many words “Don’t unload your garbage here!”… and in the background a huge pile of garbage bags and electronics…)
I’m not trying to be “anti” here, I just wanted to share my experiences / observations of living in Japan for almost 10 years. Maybe I am wrong and there really is significantly less vandalism in Japan. Who knows? But if there is, I am pretty sure the explanation is much more complex than “because it’s Japan”.
Now, let’s finally get to the Tsuyama Plaza Hotel… and get it over with. According to the calendars on the walls, the hotel closed in June of 2000 – and neither time nor people have been nice to the building ever since. It was (and probably still is) basically a prime example for a large, boring vandalized hotel with nothing special about it. Graffiti everywhere, broken glass everywhere, interior and everything not screwed or bolted lying around everywhere… and even some of the screwed stuff got screwed. Heck, I don’t have anything nice to say about the place either, except that the view from the lounge on the top floor was rather nice during sunset; but that’s something not even the most violent vandal would be able to destroy. I was bored exploring the place and I am kind of bored writing this part of the article. So I’ll stop – please enjoy the photos and the video. I’m outta here! 🙂
Farms are probably the last things that come to mind when you think of Japan. Temples, shrines, beautiful landscapes. Neon lights, skyscrapers, robots. But farms? Maybe rice paddies and small wooden barns, where cattle is fed with beer and grain to produce wagyu, Japanese beef. But real farms?
You might be surprised to hear that the Japanese Mountain Farm is a regular on *haikyo* blogs, despite the fact that the location is rather remote, snowed in for several months per year and relatively hard to find. It seems like nobody knows or is willing to share the real name of the place, so even the Japanese blogs call to it “Mountain Farm” or “A Mountain Farm”; the “A” referring to the next bigger city, which is neither very close nor very big…
After spending a beautiful sunshine day exploring (mostly demolished) mines in the Hyogo countryside, the weather more and more turned on my regular urbex buddy Dan and I the closer we got to the Japanese Mountain Farm – the sun started to hide behind clouds and by the time we arrived at the bottom of a mountain road leading up to the farm, the atmosphere was actually pretty spooky. The sky was a greyish mess and the dusk light made it hard to take photos. All day long we were risking a spring sunburn and all of a sudden it felt like we reached the outskirts of Silent Hill. Ten minutes on foot later, after passing some abandoned cars, or at least we hoped they were abandoned, the farm finally appeared behind some trees in front of us. The road under our feet was rather bad and partly overgrown, slightly muddy. There wasn’t any fog, but the area looked like the situation could change any minute. It was already past 5 p.m., so time was of the essence…
To the left we found a few 2-storey dwelling houses, in front of us a rather big metal barn, to the right an overgrown mess, including a severely damaged abandoned white car. Since I wasn’t sure how big the farm really was (blurry satellite photos…) I left Dan behind and followed the road passing the barn. Now there was a forest to my left and several barns and other buildings to the right – this location turned out to be pretty big, maybe 120 meters by 50 meters. In the end the farm’s premises were limited by slopes and the usual waste dump at the furthest point, far beyond where the road ended. I rushed back to buildings and started to take photos inside the barns and stables, most of them being connected and partly overgrown. It was a vast area, yet there was stuff everywhere, including at least one abandoned car, truck and bulldozer. In one of the buildings I found a calendar on the wall, last turned in June of 1998 – and the 15 years of abandonment showed everywhere. Metal was usually rusty, moss and other stuff grew everywhere. Some of the building faced south, over the slope, and they were in rather bad condition. As you can see on the one named after the place, “Japanese Mountain Farm”, there were huge cracks in both some walls and floors. The whole atmosphere was damp…
Running out of light I headed back to the residential area. The buildings there were run-down and moldy, countless visitors before went through all the stuff left behind. The partly locked barns with their abandoned vehicles and animal medicine had been much more interesting elements to offer, so I took a few quick snapshots and started my video tour on the second floor of the main living quarters. Upon my return it was pretty much pointless to try and take more photos inside of buildings, so Dan and I returned to the car and headed back home – leaving the Japanese Mountain Farm and god knows what kind of lurking creatures behind…
The Inagawa Trap Shooting in the suburbs of Osaka was one of Japan’s hottest urbex locations back when I started with urban exploration four years ago – huge overgrown buildings with lots of interior and tons of shotgun shells everywhere. It took me a while to figure out its exact location, but then I went there straight away on a sunny winter day…
Osaka is surrounded by several mountain ranges and the burbs often spread into other prefectures, especially Hyogo – the Inagawa Trap Shooting was located in one of those nice, a little bit remote neighborhoods full of single-family houses – and course I got lost, despite photos of the map on my camera. But I was inexperienced and pictures were not detailed enough… Luckily I found my way to a pond I had seen on several Japanese *haikyo* blogs and from that point on it was easy. I followed the partly overgrown path only… to find out that the Inagawa Trap Shooting was demolished!
What a downer… It took me quite long to find the place, so I was looking forward for weeks to visit it – and then it was just some small piles of rubble in the backyard of an ordinary suburb neighborhood. I clearly made another beginner’s mistake – I didn’t look hard enough for information about the location’s current state. To prevent other urban explorers from making the same mistake I created this *GoogleMap of demolished haikyo in Japan*. There you can have a look where you don’t need to go anymore… (Some of the locations of that map I was able to visit before they were demolished, so it’s worth a look even if you don’t plan on doing urbex in Japan yourself.)
With the Inagawa Trap Shooting almost completely gone there was not much I could do – but since the area was rather vast and I was pretty much an urbex noob (one of the first 20 explorations), it took me 1.5 hours to have a look at everything and to take some rather average photos. The most interesting part was a bit in the back – a couple of shacks, one of them filled with countless empty shotgun shells, another one being some kind of rest room and / or command hut; all of them in really bad condition. As I found out later, the shooting range was closed in 1989 and demolished in November 2007 – two years before I even began with urban exploration. Japanese blogs though kept reporting about the Inagawa Trap Shooting with photos of the intact buildings till at least 2012! But well, it took me almost four years to write about it, too…
Abandoned ski resorts are everywhere in Japan! I never specifically wanted to go to one, nevertheless I ended up at about half a dozen of them on the way to other places; one of them being the Alpen Rose Ski Resort.
The Alpen Rose Ski Resort is (or rather: was) a nursery slope in the middle of a busy skiing area in northern Hyogo prefecture. It opened in 1965 under a different name and apparently without a lift. In 1970 a lift was built, extended to the summit in 1971. In 1978 the ski resort was renamed to Alpen Rose, before it was closed in March 2000 or some time in 2001, depending on the source. (Since an abandoned vending machine still has “collectible” Star Wars Episode 1: Phantom Menace Pepsi Cola cans on display, the 2000 date is more likely, as the movie was released in Japan on July 10th 1999.)
After 13 years of abandonment and with the lower part of the ski lift gone, the Alpen Rose Ski Resort became one of those *haikyo* perfect for a break on the way to other places. After an hour or two in a car it’s nice to stretch your legs and take photos for a couple of minutes – in that case you don’t need a spectacular location that keeps you busy for several hours, just some dilapidated building with a couple of items and a landscape easy on the eyes.
Before entering the lodge I had a look at the surroundings – a little shack near the end of the former slope and a rather big foundation made of solid concrete; most likely the lower station of the now demolished lift. Not really much to see.
The lodge on the other hand was pretty nice, despite being partly collapsed already – and I guess the rest will follow soon, given that the building was almost completely constructed on pillars; especially the handful of guest rooms on the southern side. Partly covered by a crashed projecting roof and now exposed to Mother Nature were dozens of skis and skiing boots, right next to a Coke machine in decent condition. Next to it on the veranda was the already mentioned Pepsi machine and quite a few other items, like a Technics amplifier and a Panasonic hi-fi system – nothing fancy, but probably still working. The price list inside the lodge displayed rather steep, touristy prices. 350 Yen for a Coke and 800 Yen for curry rice would be normal prices today, but we are talking 13 years ago… Also definitely worth mentioning were the two snowmobiles right at the entrance, getting rusty and dusty.
The Alpen Rose Ski Resort was exactly what I hoped it would be – a nice break on a long car ride to the Sea of Japan. Nothing spectacular, but then again, not all of them can be like the *Abandoned Dynamite Mine* or the *Japanese Sex Museum*…
I planned to publish a video with this article, but Youtube seems to be a bit bitchy again on this computer – I will upload it most likely on August 26th.
The Kuroshio Lodge is one of the oldest and most famous abandoned places in Japan – even pioneer *haikyo* blogs who haven’t been updated in years feature this almost completely trashed hotel with the iconic bar; a beautiful photo opportunity thanks to its rusty stools and bright orange and yellow lamps. Nevertheless I struggled for about a year to find out where the Kuroshio Lodge was… and then another six months to find a ride as it is close to impossible to get to the place by public transportation – luckily it was *on the way to Shikoku* for Gianluigi and I, so we made a stop to stretch our legs and to take some photos.
Kuroshio means “black tide” and is also the name of a northeast-flowing ocean current stretching from Taiwan past Japan to the North Pacific Current – hence the nicknames Black Stream and Japanese Current, deriving from the deep blue of its waters and the country it flows by.
It’s pretty safe to say that the Kuroshio Lodge was named after the current – despite the fact that the Kuroshio (current) isn’t visible from where the lodge is located. The lodge on the other hand isn’t visible from the beautiful coastline of Awaji Island. You can get as close as 100 meters (beeline) on a busy street, look up a hill and see nothing but trees. At the same time you have a gorgeous view at the mountains of Awaji Island and the stunning Seto Inland Sea from the rooftop of the lodge… It’s all a matter of location!
At first and third sight the Kuroshio Lodge is a big disappointment. After huffing and puffing up a rather steep mountain road on foot, Gianluigi and I reached the back of the mid-size grey building. After years without maintenance the outside walls looked dirty, but that was nothing in comparison to what we saw when peeking through some open windows – the exposed rooms were filled with rotting vandalized futons and other interior. Not exactly a great start.
In close proximity of the abandoned hotel we found a couple of small houses at the slope; hut-sized, most likely the former living quarters of employees. We entered one of them, but the lighting in there was horrible and neither of us brought a tripod. There was not much to see anyway – I didn’t even bother to take a video.
Back up the slope we finally entered the Kuroshio Lodge – and were positively surprised by the lobby area with its famous turquoise chairs and the bar with its even more famous lamps and stools. You could take 100 interesting photos there and still won’t be bored!
Sadly disappointment stroke again right behind the counter. The kitchen next to the lobby / bar was completely vandalized and rotten, so we made our way up to 2F (first floor in Europe, second in Japan). No wonder that you barely ever see other rooms than the lobby when people post about the Kuroshio Lodge. The whole rest of the place was either vandalized and rotten or completely boring. I took a couple of snapshots here and there (like the lamp and the bath, although they were not really exciting subjects…) and then called it a day, taking the obligatory video on the way back to the lobby.
Since I visited the Kuroshio Lodge almost two years ago I found several Japanese articles about the hotel claiming that the area is overrun by wild dogs from a former dog breeder close to the hotel. They also claim that those dogs were involved in some rituals… whatever that means. Luckily I didn’t run into any mad dogs, crazy cultists or bloodthirsty sadists – although I remember seeing some kind of triangular sign on a metal plate in the boiler room (the one at the beginning of the video below, I just missed to catch the symbol on film… sorry for that, I didn’t think it was on any significance). The whole thing sounds a little bit like an exaggerated version of the usual ghost story surrounding basically every abandoned hotel in Japan. A lot of Japanese people are surprisingly superstitious, so whenever a place is abandoned you get some variation of the “owner committed suicide” story. Stories that are virtually impossible to verify. Nevertheless I thought I better mention the wild dogs. You know, just in case you walk up to the Kuroshio Lodge one day, get surrounded by them and think “Florian never mentioned those damn dogs!”…
To me the Kuroshio Lodge was a rather disappointing location. I loved the entrance area, but the rest of the building gave me a “been there, done that” kind of vibe – which is not what I was hoping for after putting so much time and effort into finding the place. But hey, what can you do? At least the bar and the lobby didn’t fail to deliver. And sometimes one room is all you need to make a visit worthwhile…
Daiwa Pottery or Yamato Ceramics?
Researching abandoned Japanese places can be a pain. Even if you have a name in kanji (those complicated Japanese characters that the island-dwellers use up to 20.000 different ones of…) doesn’t mean that you know how to pronounce it or do some research with it. In this case I found the name in kanji both on a chimney as well as written across the entrance of the main building – nevertheless I couldn’t find out anything about the company behind those characters; or how to read those characters as kanji can have several readings and meanings. Sure, I found a company of the same name in Osaka, but their logo didn’t match the one on the building I explored. I also found photos by two Japanese explorers, taken around the same time my buddy Gianluigi and I explored the factory – sadly neither of those fellow explorers put some visible effort into researching the history of the place; they just used the kanji they found written to name their pictures…
It got even more confusing at the end of the exploration when I took a photo of a piece of paper taped to the locked office door. Thanks to Gianluigi I know now that the sales team of the company moved to a different location in late 2006 / early 2007 – but on that sheet the name of the company was given as Daito, in katakana (those less complicated Japanese characters mainly used for foreign terms and to make terms stand out). So I did some research on the internet… At first without success, but then I found a Japanese page selling roof tiles, presenting some made by Daito. Full of excitement I sent the link to Gianluigi – who told me that I missed the top part of the page where it says that Daito went bankrupt.
So I guess the company started out as Daiwa Pottery / Yamato Ceramics, changed their name to Daito (maybe due to pressure from the Osaka company of the same name?), moved their sales team 7 years ago and went bust since then… which leaves me with a new abandoned place nobody knows about yet. 🙂
(BTW: The standard Daiwa Pottery / Yamato Ceramics roof tiles were 345mm by 345mm, weighed 3.6kg each and came in the colors Straight Black, Matt Brown, Matt Green, Metallic Black and Caribbean Blue.)
Exploring this abandoned tile factory was ill-starred anyway; mainly because it was only a matter of time until the stars were visible as *we arrived way behind schedule* at around 6 p.m. – sunset in early May in Japan, where complete darkness hits shortly after 7. An hour of twilight was all we got left, so we rushed through the backyard and the storage area below the main building first. By the time we actually entered the unlocked parts of the factory (another factory building was locked, so was the office) it was already too dark to take photos without a tripod – so I left it on the ground, on tables, machinery and whatever seemed to offer space. Exposure times quickly reached 30 seconds, so I hurried to take a flashlight assisted video before we finally ran out of time for good.
Like most last locations of a day the tile factory definitely deserved another hour or two, preferably with better lighting conditions. But well, what can you do? If I ever come to that area again I’ll make sure to revisit the place as it was a lot better than the few decent photos indicate. And I’ll stop by the now closed “new” sales office, maybe I will be able to find out more about the company’s history – or at least its name…
One of my favorite things about urban exploration is travelling. Most of the time I do day trips within Kansai, but every couple of months I go on mini vacations to other regions. *Okinawa*, *Kyushu*, *Hokkaido*, *Shikoku* … and a couple of more that will be revealed in the future.
I lived in Japan for several years before I started to visit abandoned places – and in those first years I barely travelled within Japan. Kansai has plenty of castles, temples and shrines, some of the most famous in all of Japan. More than enough to get templed out, shrined out and castled out, so I didn’t feel the urge to spend hundreds of bucks on train tickets – and then a similar amount on hotels. Only to see more castles, temples and shrines that look similar to what I can see down the street. Abandoned places on the other hand are unique – and some of them are actually worth spending a couple of hundred bucks, at least to me.
The spring of 2011 saw my second overnight trip to Shikoku. *During the first one* my favorite location on Japan’s least populated main island was the spectacular *Tokushima Countryside Clinic*, a small town doctor’s house, barely harmed by vandals and the ravages of time. My friend Gianluigi, an avid photographer for almost two decades, loved the photos I took at the clinic, so I convinced him to go on a road trip – I would show him that wonderfully spooky gem if we would stop on other abandoned places along the way…
If you are a regular reader of Abandoned Kansai you might remember two articles I wrote about really unique haikyo about half a year ago – the abandoned Japanese spa *Shimizu Onsen Center* and the giant Buddha statue / viewing platform *World Peace Giant Kannon*; both of them were actually part of this second trip to Shikoku.
So here is a complete list of all the locations: Amano Hospital Daiwa Pottery Kuroshio Lodge Shimizu Onsen Center Tokushima Countryside Clinic Revisited World Peace Giant Kannon
One of these places has been demolished since I visited it two years ago – you’ll find out soon which one… and then I’ll add it to my *GoogleMap of Demolished Haikyo*.
Abandoned Kansai 