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Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

Anti-Zombie Fortress Revisited (a.k.a. The Winding Tower Of The Shime Coal Mine)

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Fukuoka, Haikyo, Japan, Kyushu, Map, Mine, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013, Zombies on 2013/09/17| 11 Comments »

The zombie apocalypse, no doubt, will start in Japan – some claim it actually already began; and if you’ve ever been in a train with salarymen you cannot help but wonder. Nevertheless zombies were the last thing on my mind when I first visited the *Shime Coal Mine* with my buddy Enric in March of 2010, a mere 4 month after I started doing urban exploration in Japan. Despite being a noob back then I realized quickly that the concrete construction was beautiful, but inaccessible, at least during daytime. The mine shaft entry was fenced off and the area was freshly converted into a sports center, with a new community building, playground and fields for soccer, baseball and other sports. I took a couple of quick photos and a short video before we left for *Gunkanjima*, now known as Skyfall Island thanks to the latest James Bond movie, without thinking much about the Shime Coal Mine. Until… it came back, but not to haunt us.

The Anti-Zombie Fortress meme started on April 1st 2011 (no joke!) when somebody on reddit by the nickname of Mitsjol posted a photo of the winding tower of the Shime Coal Mine, mentioning that it would make an awesome fortification against zombies. Back then zombies were the latest upcoming hot thing, so the board sucked up the idea like the previous trendy monster sucks blood. People were longing for more information and I have to thank the user bakerybob for linking to Abandoned Kansai – when the meme picked up speed in the following days my small and otherwise pretty much overlooked article about the Shime Coal Mine took off, too.
Since then I passed through Fukuoka several times, to visit *Ikeshima* and *Navelland*, but I never had the opportunity to have a look at the location that turned out to be my first 10k+ views article. Last weekend was different though. I hadn’t been on a rushed and packed urbex trip for a change, but on a short vacation to the south of Japan. So I took a couple of hours of my day in Fukuoka and went back to have a look at the now famous mine shaft.

As expected the situation hasn’t changed much. In the past 3.5 years a couple of local Japanese explorers were brave enough to sneak into the winding tower at night, taking some unique shots, but when I arrived around noon on a national holiday the same thing would have gotten me arrested in no time – the place was buzzing thanks to what appeared to be a soccer tournament for kids. Hundreds of children and the same amount of adults were enjoying the Respect-For-The-Aged Day, so I basically did what I did years before: I spent 15 minutes taking photos and a video – and then I left… not for Gunkanjima, but for a small bakery 2.5 kilometers down the road.

The Konditorei RothenBurg, undoubtably named after the stunningly beautiful German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, differs from your average local cake shop in two ways:
1.) It doesn’t suck up to the French (as 80% of the bakeries and pâtisseries in Japan do…), but chose a German setting with the same (or at least similar) concept, including German cook books in the store.
2.) It sells urbex cookies, which most likely makes it unique in all of Japan, probably in the world.

About a year ago I saw a small story about RothenBurg on a Japanese blog, not only mentioning but showing a cookie designed after the winding tower of the Shime coal mine. I knew I had to go there the next time I was in Fukuoka… and I did. (Thanks to my buddy Gen for making sure that the bakery was open for business on this national holiday!) Upon arrival I was a bit disappointed. RothenBurg was a really small store deep in the suburbs of Fukuoka – and apparently the cookie information was outdated. But then I saw two of them lying on a white plate, about 4 by 6 centimeters, 252 Yen each. Of course I bought both of them; one for Gen and one to try myself. Upon closer look it turned out that the small package contained two cookies, a brown one above a black one. Luckily the cookies were not just a novelty item, they actually tasted good. If you are a true urbex fan visiting Fukuoka, you have to go there and try them yourself! I added the location of RothenBurg to my *GoogleMap of Touristy and Demolished Haikyo*, but here is the address, too: ローテンブルグ, 福岡県糟屋郡志免町別府120-18, telephone 092-936-0009.

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Kyoto Countryside School

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Kyoto, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/09/10| 24 Comments »

Schools are probably the most common abandoned places in Japan. Rare in populated areas, they can be found by the dozen in the countryside. In all of Japan there must be hundreds, nevertheless I only wrote about two of them so far (the *F# Elementary School* and the *North Korean School in Gifu*). The main reason for that is that until last year I did almost all of my explorations by using public transportation – and the vast majority of those abandoned schools are in the middle of nowhere, often part of (almost) deserted villages. By now I’ve been to about eight or ten *haikyo* schools (a.k.a. haikou), though most of them were either boarded up, under security supervision or in really bad condition.
The Kyoto Countryside School on the other hand turned out to be a hidden gem – and to keep it that way I gave it this rather generic name…

When my buddy Dan and I drove up to the Kyoto Countryside School in a stunningly beautiful picture book village in the middle of the mountains I kind of had a bad feeling. The school itself was in rather good condition and the grass in front of it was about 10 to 15 centimeters high – higher than usual, but not “abandoned for 20 years” high; implying that somebody was still taking care of the school and its side-buildings. But we were lucky… While the front entrance and all the windows were locked, the back entrance was open; and so was the kitchen building.
Sadly I don’t know much about the history of the school, only that it was closed 22 years prior to our visit – which was hard to believe as pretty much all rooms, despite being almost empty, looked like they were just closed for the summer. I am actually pretty sure that the school building is still used every once in a while, probably for some village celebrations or stuff like that.
Visiting the Kyoto Countryside School was part of a one day urbex trip in July; something I tend to avoid, because Japanese summers are nasty – hot, humid and full of insects as well as other animals you don’t want to run into. Luckily the school was in almost pristine condition, one of the cleanest places I have ever explored; bug free! But it was a typical summer day, just past high noon, and being in the mountains helped surprisingly little.
A sweaty, yet interesting exploration – opening that door was like stepping into the past, and in that regard it reminded me of the *Old Higashi-Aoyama Station* I wrote about last week. Most rooms were empty, except for the secretariat… and things on the walls. Photos, relics of art classes, info posters, mirrors. One room has a handwritten banner, showing Japanese number units. 10.000 = man, 100.000.000 = oku, and so on. The longest number was a 1 with 88 zeros, 4 kanji reading muryoutaisuu – I’m pretty sure 99.999% of the Japanese population haven’t heard of that number. But finds like that made this exploration so much fun. If you just looked through the windows you probably would have thought “Boooooring!”, but once inside the place revealed dozens of little things that caught me eye; my favorite part being the gorgeous wooden hallway, perfectly lit at that time of the day.
Surprisingly interesting was the most western part of the building, separated by a now locked door, but accessible from the outside: a small storage room full of left behind school books and the school’s toilet – with song sheets above the tiny pissoirs and old electric wiring along the wooden ceiling, probably added years after the school was built…

(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*…)

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Old Higashi-Aoyama Station

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Mie, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2013/09/03| 31 Comments »

“Why?”

More than once I asked myself that question when getting up way too early on a Saturday morning to head out to an abandoned place I have barely information on, once in a while not even the exact location. On some days it’s even a “WHY?!” – especially when it’s cold outside and I have to go all by myself. But then I grab my equipment packed the evening before and head out to the middle of nowhere, using up to four railway companies on a trip that takes up to four hours… each way.
The Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was my goal on one of those “WHY?!” days. A 2.5 hour long trip on three different lines to the Mie countryside, plus a 5 km hike in the mountains to the final destination. None of my friends wanted to come along, but at least the weather forecast was decent – sunny 12 degrees in the middle of December, not too bad while Europe was covered in snow. GoogleMaps, back in 2010 my most reliable haikyo partner, was rather useless in this case since my place of interest was really off the beaten tracks…

Opened on December 20th 1930 the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was already in the middle of nowhere in 1971, when it hit the news big time. Located in a beautiful valley between two pretty long one track tunnels, it must have been extremely popular amongst day-trip hikers. Probably only with hikers, as there is or was no bigger town or even village in reasonable walking distance; and there are no hints of parking lots close to the station.
One track tunnels always involve the danger of train accidents and one of those sealed the destiny of the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station: On October 25th 1971 at around 4 p.m. an express train to Nagoya collided with a limited express going to Namba / Kyoto (I guess it was supposed to be separated later along the track…). 25 fatalities, 218 wounded, cause: human error.
To avoid an accident like that could ever happen again, Kintetsu, the company owning the line and its stations, planned a huge new two-track tunnel, avoiding the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station and the valley it was located in, building the current Higashi-Aoyama Station a few kilometers away. On November 22nd 1975 the new station was opened, while in the following months the railroad tracks of the old line were stripped down and all buildings except the platforms as well as the tunnels were demolished.

At first sight, after huffing and puffing up a steep forgotten road that once must have been used to transport supplies to (build) the station, the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was a big disappointment. Although I hadn’t seen anything but seven years old photos of two abandoned train station platforms on a hiking blog, I was kind of hoping for something more. I took a couple of quick pictures of what I had already seen on the internet, looking for more signs of the past.
Luckily the disappointment disappeared in no time as I quickly found a side-track and then something that must have been a kiosk four decades ago – including a fridge and several empty glass bottles of “Morinaga Twist”, a soda I’ve never heard of before, and other drinks. That’s when the mental cinema screen started to work again. Left of the kiosk I found a shrine, so overgrown that I wasn’t able to see it from the platforms. To the right was a concrete flight of stairs leading up the mountain – I guess that was the starting point for the hikers once buying Morinaga Twist. What could it have been like to follow that trail 40 years ago? I tried to get a taste by climbing the stairs, only to find a reminder of how dangerous even the most harmless *haikyo* can be when having bad luck – a huge rock, at least 60 cm in diameter was “blocking” the stairs; some things can just hit you without a warning… I went around the boulder and climbed the mountain for about 15 minutes, concrete step after concrete step. Up there I found the typical leftovers of what must have been another kiosk when the train station was still down in the valley – lots of corrugated iron, some broken bottles and dented pots as well as a rusty gas canister.
This discovery just fueled my imagination, so I followed what I assumed once was the hiking trail, now covered by leaves. After about another 10 minutes I reached the top of the mountain and there I found more leftovers from hikers passing by decades ago – bottles and cans once holding tea, juice and sodas. A couple of meters along the ridge I startled up a bigger specimen of the local wildlife (I guess it was a deer), so I decided to turn around and go back down to the station for a couple of more photos, still wondering what it would have been like to be an autumn hiker 60, 70 years ago. At that point I was actually happy being alone on that exploration, because I didn’t have to talk to anybody and could fully enjoy the atmosphere of this wonderful location on that amazing late autumn day. Eight hours prior I asked myself “WHY?!” – leaving the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station behind, I knew why…

(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*…)

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Red Factory

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chugoku, Factory, Haikyo, Japan, Okayama, Photography, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/08/20| 10 Comments »

June is probably the worst month to spend in Japan. While the temperatures are still at a bearable level (25 to 30 degrees Celsius / about 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit) the humidity goes crazy thanks to the rainy season. Six weeks of rain, probably on five days a week. Not fun when you like to spend your time outdoors.
Four weeks into the 2012 rainy season the weather forecast announced a whole weekend without rain and I got excited. Finally some urbex again, even an overnight trip for two days. Of course on Friday the forecast changed from two days of sun to sunny on Saturday and rainy on Sunday, but one day of exploration is better than none, so decided to finally visit the “Red Factory”, a favorite of Japanese blogs in the first half of 2012. It was in day trip range, but nevertheless a pain in the ass to get to due to its remote location. The closest train station was about 11 kilometers away, with buses running twice a day on weekends, at 12.30 p.m. and 5 p.m., going back to the station at 7.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. – which meant a pretty long walk on the way back…

At least I was able to sleep in on Saturday, only to find the weather wasn’t sunny at all. Not even cloudy. It was overcast, pretty much the worst weather for photography. June in Japan…

3 hours later (2 hours on several trains, then half an hour waiting for another 30 minutes on a bus) I finally reached the Red Factory on this hot and humid, but not sunny, Saturday – and I was a bit disappointed, to say the least. The place was not nearly as big and not nearly as red as I imagined it to be (I picked the “most red” photos for this article…). And the road there was impassable for cars due to a retractable road block I hadn’t seen on any photo before. The first factory building, empty on old Japanese blog entries, usually not to be seen on newer ones (a fact I didn’t realize during my research, of course) was filled with all kinds of canisters, tools and cars with white and yellow license plates – which means privately, not commercially, used vehicles. It looked like somebody started to use the factory as storage buildings. Great… infiltration, not exploration.
Cautiously I continued to walk up the mountain. Next building – a brand-new midget tractor. All the other buildings were pretty much broom-clean. Not exactly what I expected. And what about the partly overgrown house on the other side of the small river running through the factory area? Hastily I quickened my pace to reach the top of the factory area, not sure anymore if it was still abandoned. 50 meters of elevation gain later I reached the end of the factory area. Nobody there, so at least I was sure no human surprises were waiting for me in the back. An animal surprise was there though. A dead animal. Well, more than dead – the skeleton of a deer, most likely a Sika Deer or Japanese Deer, cervus nippon nippon. At least a dozen Japanese urban explorers went to the Red Factory that year and none did care to mention that the place was in use and that parts of a deer skeleton were lying in front of one of the buildings. What the heck…?!

From that point on the exploration was pretty much easy going. Of course I was still worried that somebody would show up, but I was way too busy to avoid spiders, snakes and other animals in the buzzing summer season.

Sadly there is not much I can tell you about the history of the Red Factory. In Japanese it is usually called the Red Ochre Factory, so given the looks of the factory it’s safe to say that the facility was used to produce red ochre from yellow ochre. Captain Obvious strikes again!

Aaaand… that’s pretty much it. Unspectacular exploration, getting there and back took much longer and was much more of an effort than actually exploring the Red Factory. A bit disappointing since I had great expectations, but after sitting at home for several weeks due to the weather it was a welcome change… (The walk back though wasn’t fun at all. Jeans, hiking boots, full camera equipment on an extremely humid day along a river – 11 kilometers in under two hours or I would have missed the train, running every 60 to 90 minutes.)

(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*…)

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.

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Alpen Rose Ski Resort

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Ski, Sports, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/08/13| 13 Comments »

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*…

(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*…)

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.

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Okayama Hospital Haikyo

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chugoku, Haikyo, Hospital, House, Japan, Monochrome, Okayama, Photography, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/08/06| 26 Comments »

The abandoned Okayama Hospital is a place of many names. Okayama Countryside Clinic (like the *Tokushima Countryside Clinic*) would have been an appropriate name, too, but Japanese blogs usually call it the Setouchi Clinic – which I think is a rather risky name as, in my humble opinion, it gives away too much about its location…

I was trying really hard to write an entertaining text about the Okayama Hospital Haikyo, but sadly there is little to nothing known about the clinic – and the current humid heat here in Osaka (up to 37°C and up to 84% humidity) didn’t exactly help either. Judging by the mansion-like looks of the estate it must have been built during the Meiji or Taisho era – a traditional Japanese style complex with massive boundary walls. I don’t know when the clinic was abandoned, but I guess it was about 20 years ago. Overall it was in good condition, but nature was claiming back the living room and I saw a decently sized hole in the floor of the reception – probably a previous explorer crashing through the wooden planks.
The owner definitely moved out, but left behind quite a bit of both medical as well as everyday life items. Since I visited the clinic, well hidden by a completely overgrown garden, on a rainy summer day, it was quite uncomfortable to explore – not nearly as bad as the mosquito ridden hellhole known as *Doctor’s Shack*, but still bad enough. It obviously also affected the lighting in the clinic, so I decided to publish this set in monochrome. For some reason monochrome works well with abandoned countryside clinics. (If you watch the video and think “But the sun is shining outside!” – yeah, for about ten minutes while I was there… and then for the rest of the day right after I left the clinic!)
Since the weather is killing me and there is not much to say about the clinic anyway, I will keep it short this week – overall it was a good location with some neat little details (I love the clock, the two phones and the katakana eye test!), but the *Tokushima Countryside Clinic* is still unrivaled when it comes to abandoned village doctor houses…

(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*…)

Okayama Hospital Haikyo

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Asahi Sports Center

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Sports, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/07/30| 20 Comments »

Asahi beer is popular all over the world, the Asahi Shimbun is a famous Japanese newspaper and Asahi TV is a somewhat known TV station – but the Asahi Sports Center nobody seems to know. Or seemed to know at the time my buddy Dan and I explored the place in October 2012. (If you google the term you will find tons of fitness clubs in Germany and Japan, despite the fact that I use the real name of the place here.)

Japanese summers are hot, humid, full of insects… and they drag on forever, especially in the Kansai region. While back home in Germany friends and family start to complain about grey days and having to wear windbreakers, I spend most late autumn days wearing T-shirts – and risking sunburns. Last year October was no different when Dan and I were approaching the Asahi Sports Center somewhere in the Japanese mountains. Despite wearing a T-shirt I was sweating like a hog, the vegetation still lush, green and thick. Before going to the sports center I only had seen a handful of bad photos on a Japanese blog, the satellite view on GoogleMaps basically useless due to its blurriness. With only a vague idea of what to expect the sheer size of the Asahi Sports Center took us by surprise, making it an all-time favorite at the time of its exploration.

After paying some serious amount of money for highway fees and driving for half an hour through tiniest towns and past forgotten fields we finally reached the Asahi Sports Center – being kilometers away from the next living soul we just parked the car in front of the first building we saw and headed in. It seemed like this was some kind of service center / administrative building. The kitchen on the ground floor was half unrigged, half ripped apart, the restrooms were dark and gloomy, vandalism everywhere; not exactly a warm welcome. The first floor, too, had not been spared by vandals and mould, but at least there we found some flyers and posters including maps, giving us an idea how big the sports center really was – the answer: about 450 by 200 meters. Pretty friggin big!
Two things on the map caught our eyes immediately: the huge swimming pool and the tennis courts. To our misfortune the combination of a drawn map (including artistic freedom…) and rampant nature didn’t make it easy to navigate, so it took a while until we found our way south via several flights of steps and an overpass – across a now completely overgrown kart track!

It was actually this outdoor area that made the Asahi Sports Center so spectacular. The service center was vandalized, but the sports area was just abandoned and overgrown. This part looked like people just didn’t show up anymore and nature took over again – natural decay at its best.
You should think that an abandoned tennis court wouldn’t be very interesting. The ones I saw on *Okunoshima* and near an abandoned retirement home in Germany (yet to come…) were actually quite dull places, but these courts here… amazing! They were located down a slope, lower than the visitor center, and the fences were almost completely overgrown, while the courts including the nets were… well… withered and rusted, but overall in decent condition. Somebody dragged the rusty umpire chairs away, but other than that everything looked eerily normal. The atmosphere was just wonderful, with the sun shining and birds singing; a perfect place to go to for reading a book without getting disturbed.
The huge pool west of the tennis courts was even spookier, thanks to a couple of little buildings surrounding the place, most vandalized and / or overgrown. A perfect place to shoot a horror movie on a grey hazy day… The dark green water looked like you could dump a body there without it ever being seen again once it sank down half a meter or so – a strong contrast to the white painted edge surrounding the creatively shaped pool. Just in sight of the pool we found about half a dozen wooden huts the sports center called Swiss Chalets. (The first video shows a walking tour of both the chalets and the pool.)
Shimmering through the profuse vegetation were some metal constructions, most likely part of the amusement park like rides visible on the posters and tickets at the visitor center. Sadly there was no way to get through, the undergrowth was just still too thick.

Dan and I went back up to the main road and followed it for a while. There we found another set of bungalows and some other buildings. Sadly they were completely vandalized and I had no motivation to take any photos there after enjoying the gorgeous sports area – but I kept the video camera rolling while I was going through the buildings for the first time. Usually I do the walking tours after I have seen everything, so this is a rare opportunity to explore live with me. To see what I saw when I actually saw it for the first time. After about 3 hours on the premises I didn’t expect any trouble anymore, exploring a building for the first time nevertheless is an exciting experience, even if the building is far from being spectacular!
In the neighborhood we also found the so-called convention center – basically a party space with an open fireplace on the ground floor and some rooms with tons of bunk beds upstairs. The Christmas party photos I found at the visitor center were clearly taken here.

Last but not least we followed a road down the mountain to what once was the goal of a summer ski slope – but this area was also completely overgrown, making it rather likely that I will revisit the sports center again one winter; before it starts to snow, but after the vegetation is weakened… 🙂

(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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Abandoned Dynamite Mine

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Mine, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/23| 44 Comments »

My favorite abandoned place in Japan? The Abandoned Dynamite Mine! It was love at first sight, in spring somewhere in the Japanese mountains…

2013 started slow for me, only two urbex day trips until late April, but then my buddy Dan and I decided to go on a weekend trip, a mere four days before I left for *North Korea*. I planned a little roundtrip to the countryside – some schools without children, some abandoned houses, a snowless ski resort or two… and that mine I had seen on a Japanese blog a while ago. It didn’t look spectacular there, and it was in the middle of nowhere, so my expectations were low, but I added it to the itinerary anyway. I like mines, big or small…
Halfway through the second day we finally drove up that tiny little countryside road – so off the beaten tracks that we weren’t even sure whether we would find anything or not. Maybe we missed a turnoff and the remains were out of sight just a couple of hundred meters away? But we continued, just to reach a dilapidated bridge across a tiny mountain river, the steep road we were on not deserving that term anymore – so we stopped and parked… right next to another car, with a dude reading fishing magazines!
We ignored him, he ignored us – and we continued on foot up the mountain, the grey sky slightly drizzling. Some hundred meters later it turned out that it was a good idea to have parked the car: A landslide washed away half of the road, reducing it to a path. Again several hundred meters later. And again and again. There was no way that any car would ever go up here again! We followed what now looked like a street that hadn’t seen traffic in decades, deeper into a valley and up the mountain; and then we saw it for the first time, partly hidden by clouds – the abandoned mine we were hoping to explore.

To some degree abandoned places are like people – with some you connect, with some you don’t. Some you find attractive, some you don’t. Some you want to spend more time with, some you just want to get away from. I looked up the steep slope, this time barely passable thanks to several mudslides, saw a couple of rusty, metal-cladded wooden shacks (I have a thing for redheads… uhm… red roofs!) and somehow had the feeling that this would be a fantastic exploration; especially since the place didn’t look much like on the tiny photos I saw before.

I couldn’t wait to have a closer look, so I picked up the speed, virtually flying up the slightly damp mountain. By the time I reached the first buildings, the low hanging clouds started to retreat and the sun came out – even nature was smiling at us… (The weather kept changing though, much like at the amazing *abandoned China themed park Tenkaen*.)
The first storage shack I entered already had some promising items, like a phone with a hand crank and an old lamp with the paint flaking off; old, rusty technology I really like. So while I was taking photos, my buddy Dan and his friend Spencer went ahead to have a look around. By the time I was done taking photos inside the storage my friends told me to have a look at the next building, as they found a special item there I should really see.
I hurried up the steep, raw steps to a little wooden shack filled with all kinds of electronic installations – and there it was sitting on the ground, a box labeled “新桐ダイナマイト“ – new ammonia gelatine dynamite. DYNAMITE?! Luckily the box was open and empty, but although I had been to several mines before, I had never seen a crate of dynamite. This was getting better by the minute! (Later on it turned out that this wasn’t the only dynamite box left behind…)
Since Dan and Spencer were going on a much faster pace, I was basically on my own at the Abandoned Dynamite Mine – exploring by myself while having the security of fellow explorers nearby is actually my favorite way to approach abandoned places. Especially in this case, where every step was dangerous; all the metal was rusty, all the wood was brittle, lots of corners were dark.

Rusty, brittle and dark, that also applied to my next destination, the loading dock at the bottom of the main building. Sadly there wasn’t much to see, except for conveyer belts and about a dozen 20 liter buckets of Hidiesel S-3, a patented lubricant produced by the Nippon Oil Company.

I left the loading dock, climbed another raw set of steps and entered the main building through what turned out to be a repair and assembly shop, right next to a system of machinery. Of course none of them were powered anymore, nevertheless there was a constant stream of water running through that part of the building. Actually it wasn’t constant, as it was getting stronger and weaker – I assumed my buddies were toying with some valves, but it turned out I was wrong. I still don’t know what was responsible for the variations, but it added to the atmosphere – the Abandoned Dynamite Mine might have been closed down, but it clearly wasn’t dead!
From this machine area with its thin rusty pathways I continued up the mountain inside the building, past more conveyer belts, more machines, more gauges. There I found two unopened cans of “Bireley’s Orange”, a non-carbonated orange soft drink more than a decade past its best before date; interestingly enough the can design didn’t change much since then.
The top of the main building was another interesting spot, offering a great view over the lower part of the Abandoned Dynamite Mine and holding a couple of interesting items, like more hand-cranked phones and a rusty shaving knife along with a pair of pincers.

To get to the upper part of the mine, where I assumed the mine entrance was, I had to go back down and follow a now somewhat overgrown path along the mountain slope. Three and a half hours into exploring this amazing place I was running out of time – luckily my friends were waiting for me up there, giving me advice on where to go and how to get there.
The view was amazing, but what really blew my mind were the wooden buildings – one looked like a one room apartment house, now filled with insect repellant. In April of 2013 bugs were not a problem, patches of snow still lying on the ground, but I can only imagine how the air must buzz of insects in the humid summer heat… The other building of interest must have been used for administrative purposes – there I found more dusty phones, but also old mining lamps, a large table with several chairs, lots of old LPs, books, safety guides, nude magazines… The back of the building smelled a bit chemical and when I left I could see more dynamite boxes from the corner of my eye – and that’s why I named the place Abandoned Dynamite Mine. (Given the stench I didn’t have a closer look at the boxes…)
Due to the known time restraints I only had a quick look at the surroundings, following some lorry rails along the mountain slope, but when the tracks lead me too far away from the buildings I turned around, only to find a really old mine entrance right next to the wooden administrative building – I am sure it wasn’t used to extract ores, at least not since the use of modern equipment, instead the tubes / hoses leading outside imply that it was used to handle the mine’s damps.
At that time the sun was about to set and so I had to leave my new favorite abandoned place in all of Japan before I was able to see everything; it took us about half an hour to get back to the car, plus another six hours to drive back Osaka (including a break at a conveyer belt sushi restaurant…).

The Abandoned Dynamite Mine was a perfect location, maybe THE perfect location; at least to me. I loved every second there, from the moment that I saw the first buildings through the mist till the last time I saw them 5 hours later from the same spot during golden hour. Most abandoned places unnerve me a bit for one reason or another, but here everything was perfect – the amazing condition of the mine, the variety of buildings and items, the tranquil atmosphere amidst the amazing landscape, the low expectations I had upon arrival; everything came together perfectly. As far as abandoned places go, this was true love at first sight… Even the bittersweet feeling of being cut short at the end contributed positively to the experience – leaving having seen everything would have been wonderful, but leaving while longing for more elevated the exploration to a whole new level!

(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*…)

Abandoned Dynamite Mine

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Farewell, North Korea… Welcome back, Japan!

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, DPRK, Haikyo, Japan, Korea, Photography, Urbex, Visited in 2012, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/22| 4 Comments »

My trip to North Korea was an absolutely fantastic experience – and so was writing about it!
If you are a long-time reader of Abandoned Kansai I would like to thank you for sticking with me while I went off-topic! The last urban exploration article I wrote was about the *Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum* – just in case you want to jump back there without going through all the DPRK postings…
If you started reading this blog because of my postings about North Korea I hope you will keep on reading. I think I was able to show you a different side of the DPRK – I sure as heck will show you a different side of Japan, too!
From tomorrow on I will go back to one article per week, every Tuesday evening JST (= Tuesday afternoon in Europe and Tuesday morning in the States).
Forsaken hospitals, deserted amusement parks, forlorn mines, desolated resorts, rotting military bases, dilapidated factories, abandoned hotels, derelict train stations – you’ll see them all, and much more, on Abandoned Kansai!

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North Korea – Air Koryo

Posted in Airport, Asia, Beijing, China, DPRK, Japan, Korea, Map, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/05/18| 20 Comments »

Air Koryo is the state owned and government run airline of North Korea, based at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport. It was founded under the name SOKAO in 1950 as a joint venture between North Korea and Soviet Russia, but had to suspend business shortly after due to the Korean War. A successor was established in 1954 under the name of Choson Minhang and started operations in late September of 1955 before being renamed Air Koryo in 1993. Air Koryo from the beginning was placed under the control of the Civil Aviation Administration, a part of the North Korean Airforce – which means that all pilots are military officers. Due to North Koreas close affiliation with the soviets all airplanes in the fleet of Air Koryo are Russian models. Antonovs, Ilyushins, Tupolevs. During the Cold War Air Koryo flew to more than three dozen destinations within Korea and all over the world – nowadays there are only three regular international connections (Beijing three times a week, Shenyang twice a week and Vladivostok once a week) plus a couple of charter flights. In Europe Air Koryo is blacklisted since March 2006, though that ban was lifted four years later for two newly acquired Tupolev Tu-204s.

It was on board of one of those two machines that my fellow travelers and I started our trip to Pyongyang in Beijing. Some websites still recommend using Air China (or the 24 hour train…) to get to North Korea’s capital, but I would have chosen Air Koryo anyway if I would have been asked to choose. How often do you have the opportunity to fly Air Koryo?!
Interestingly enough our predominantly white Air Koryo plane was parked right next to a predominantly blue plane by Korean Air – the flag carrier and largest airline of South Korea. Since the Korean Air machine took off before we even boarded I had the great opportunity to take a photo of both machines at the same time when the Seoul bound machine was on its way to the runway. Two planes, one photo. It didn’t cross my mind at the time, but I am sure North Koreans would have loved the picture, them being all about one united Korea. (And so would have the dozen Christians wearing “A United Korea 4 The World” sweatshirts that boarded the plane with us. I seriously hope they were able to leave the country without running into trouble – they might love Korea, but (North) Korea doesn’t love missionaries. And those guys looked like they were on a mission from God…)

Air Koryo actually was the first positive surprise of my *trip to the DPRK*. After using *Ukraine International Airlines to Kiev* three years prior, my expectations on (former) communist airlines were as low as they can get; but the Tupolev Tu-204 was a perfectly fine modern plane with the usual seat spacing, the flight attendants were as friendly as they were beautiful (and they were gorgeous!) and the food was living up to international standards, too.
When checking in I was asking for a seat away from the wings to be able to look outside and maybe take a quick video secretly. At that point the photography situation was a bit up in the air (no pun intended…) – we were told that it’s okay to take photos on board, but not of the stewardesses; and nobody asked about video or footage through the windows. So I took a few quick snapshots until one of the other foreign travelers was shut down when he violated the instructions we got and took photos of a flight attendant… Even worse: After we all settled in and were ready to take off about a dozen Koreans boarded the plane and occupied seats all over the aircraft cabin. Just a coincidence? Or a way to keep an eye on the foreigners at a time when the official guides were still waiting for our arrival in Pyongyang? I felt a bit uneasy, but decided to give the rather young fella sitting next to me the benefit of the doubt. Which turned out to be right about an hour later. Lunch was just served and I was wondering if it was okay to take a photo of the meal – as we all know from Western media: Taking pictures most likely is a crime… So I slowly unwrapped all the small containers and before I could even start to eat my meal the guy in the neighboring seat pulled out his smart phone and took a photo himself. Easy going! The same situation a couple of minutes later. While I was wondering whether it was okay to take some photos of the landscape passing by (there could have been airports or train stations or military camps – or worse!) we were informed that we just entered Korean airspace – and all of a sudden everybody took photos, including our late arriving Koreans. Lesson learned: Don’t shove a lens into somebody’s face and you can take photos of pretty much everything you want…

Air Koryo’s home airport Pyongyang Sunan International Airport is as small as you think it is – two landing strips, one of them closed permanently. There are 10 regular international flights a week at Sunan (7 by Air Koryo, 3 by Air China), plus charter flights and some cargo flights – that’s it! There are no official statistics about flight movements within the DPRK, but I doubt that there are many, given the rather high cost of air transport and the regime’s problem to get fuel.
On the positive side: Immigration is a piece of cake. You show your filled out forms, your passport and your visa – and then you are in. No bag checks, no other bullshit. When you want to enter Japan on the other hand you get treated like a criminal as they take your finger prints and a photo. Every… friggin… time! I’m on my third Japanese long-term visa, I never ran into trouble, I always pay my taxes – nevertheless I get treated like a murder suspect every time I come back from an overseas trip… Welcome home! (Of course this treatment only applies to foreigners, Japanese people just waltz in…)

(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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