Abandoned Kansai

Exploring the Sunset View Inn Shah Bay (combining two dozen cottages and the Shah Bay hotel) was one of the worst urbex experiences I ever had – so bad that I cut it short and left after about half an hour. I could have easily faked an interesting article about a smooth exploration since I took enough photos and even a short video, but what’s the point? Not all urbex trips go as planned and not all explorations are successful. Here’s one that turned out to be a nerve-wrecking waste of time.

The Sunset View Inn is (or better: was) a resort complex in the northern part of Okinawa on top of a mountain with a gorgeous view, but pretty much in the middle of nowhere even by Okinawan standards. When *Michael* and I drove up there using narrow countryside roads and half-overgrown streets of decent size I already was kind of aware that we were slipping into a disaster. Tired from the previous day we arrived on the mountain top with no food, drinks or umbrellas at the nearby scenic outpost when it just started to drizzle again. Michael opted for a bathroom break (yes, there was a maintained concrete restroom at an abandoned scenic outpost…) while I walked down the road for a couple of dozen meters as I thought I saw an abandoned concrete building behind a wall of green – I was right. Sadly I didn’t bring my camera, but it was unspectacular anyway; just a vandalized one floor concrete building, probably a restaurant. Of course the rain got stronger, so I had to wait for about ten minutes before I could reunite with Michael. It still drizzled heavily when my haikyo buddy told me that he saw house with some activity and a sign that says that the police will be called if somebody gets close to the hotel. Great. Could it get any worse? Yes: When we climbed over a road block on the way to the hotel Michael made me aware of another sign informing potential visitors about security patrolling the area. And of course the rain was pouring heavily again. Hot, humid, hungry, tired, potential security, heavy rain, no umbrella – a nightmare scenario. After about 150 meters the road split. Right cottages, left the Shah Bay hotel. We decided to have a look at the cottages first, but even their slightly vandalized state didn’t make me more confident. I felt uneasy and would have probably left at that point if I would have been alone. The road lining up the cottages lead back to the entrance area where Michael told me the occupied house with the warning sign was… Was the street leading there? Could security get to us by car? (The way we entered was blocked for vehicles.) Or even worse: silently on foot? I mentioned it before in other articles – I’m tired of vandalized hotels, and those abandoned cottages looked all the same, were all moldy, had all the typical look, feel and smell of abandoned Japanese accommodations. Michael didn’t seem to be that excited either, so after about ten minutes we decided to turn around and go to the hotel. Hot, wet, sweaty, nervous, tired and bored we approached the big deserted building when all of a sudden Michael yelled whisperingly “There’s a car coming, there’s a car coming!” (or something like that) – so we sprinted and dug into the wet bushed while the rain continued to get stronger. Of course there was no car coming, but now we were completely wet and at least I was a nervous wreck and getting seriously paranoid. As I mentioned twice recently (*here* and *here*) I am not into infiltration, I have explored way too many haikyo (especially hotels) and I am just too old for this shit! But the situation got worse. We entered the empty lobby of the hotel with a beautiful, untouched area straight out of a museum to the left when all of a sudden I thought I heard footsteps. We ran again, this time hiding in the close-by former gift shop. While my knees were screaming in pain I still heard footsteps – irregularly, louder and quieter. After two or three minutes I had enough. I already told Michael at the cottages that I didn’t like the current situation and while hiding at the gift shop I finally draw the line – this far and not a single step further. So I left. Michael decided to stay and joined me at the car about an hour later. It turned out that the footsteps were a mix of dripping water and an unspecified animal making noises – we couldn’t get in contact because the phone reception up there was close to non-existent. I couldn’t have gotten back in anyways since tourists in cars were coming up constantly to pay a visit to the abandoned observation point. So I took a couple of photos there and in passing found out that the first warning sign wasn’t at the house where people lived, but at an derelict kiosk a couple of meters away, outside of the premises – small details…

I know this article doesn’t fit the self-publicizing image of urban explorers hiding from the police, dodging security and doing all kinds of “cool” things. But that’s not me anyways. I’m just a regular guy who likes to take pictures of urban decay. This exploration turned into a small disaster for many reasons and I’m actually still shocked that Michael and I, two of the most experienced foreign urban explorers in Japan, stumbled into this adventure the way we did. But then again… Isn’t the only currency in this bankrupt world what we share with someone else when we are uncool?
Would I go back to the Sunset View Inn Shah Bay with sufficient supplies on a sunny day? Most likely yes. The area looked awesome and the map close to the abandoned viewpoint showed that the resort had more to offer than the cottages and the hotel – there was also a stone garden, a huge fountain, an area for band practice, a gateball course, tennis courts, a sports club house, a BBQ area, some kind of race track and two pools. I had seen the pools on a satellite photo and it really hurt that I missed them. Luckily I was able to take abandoned hotel pool shots later that day when we visited another one of those concrete giants that obviously never get demolished in Japan.
Chances that the Sunset View Inn Shah Bay will get demolished are rather slim, too. Opened in 1986 in the structurally weak north of Okinawa by a successful businessman from Naha (sounds familiar, eh?) the resort went bankrupt and closed in 1995, less than 10 years after the hopeful opening. So no Persian investor as the name might have implied. Shah is actually an old Okinawan / Ryukyuan word, meaning salt – the owner of the resort named the Shah Bay hotek after he saw the term on a map in Matthew Perry’s “The Japan Expedition”. (Matthew Perry as in “the guy who forced Japan to open its ports for foreign ships”, not the “Friends” goofball!) Shah Bay once was the name of the bight at the feet of the hotel, the one that made the sunset view so remarkable, the one that people still try to see from the once so wonderful vantage point…

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When *Michael* and I approached the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin I knew we were in for a treat. I’ve explored enough ruins (about 200 so far…) to recognize a triple A, a five star, a first class abandoned place. But in this case I had no clue about the epic glory that was waiting for us. I actually didn’t find out until 5 hours into our exploration. At that point I was lying on the hot concrete roof of the hotel in the merciless Okinawan sun, hiding from a group of tourists visiting the Nakagusuku Castle, when a gigantic Lockheed C-130 Hercules (Edit: Thanks to La Mian World I now know that it was a C17 Globemaster! Which replaced the Hercules…) was heading towards me as if it was trying to bomb both the castle and the hotel…

“But how did it come to this?”, I hear ya say. Well, it’s a long story. Come closer, and I’ll tell ya. It all started… earlier that day. And what a day that was. It’s what I call… an excellent exploration day. (To everybody not admiring Conker’s Bad Fur Day: Sorry for this silly paragraph, I just had to do it. And if by any chance Robin Beanland and / or Chris Seavor read this: Thanks for creating one of the best platformers ever, a true masterpiece!)

If I would have judged Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin after the first two hours I would have been disappointed. Yes, it was big. Yes, it was made of concrete. Yes, it was abandoned. Yes, it was overgrown. But entering the place and following the beaten paths countless urban explorers and by-chance-visitors have walked along for more than 30 years was actually quite disillusioning. The hotel looked awesome from the distance, but the entrance area was rather dull. It even had a burned-out area, though there was hardly anything to burn. I didn’t want to stray too far away from Michael since last time he visited the place he saw a white pick-up truck driving by and I read in one report that there was security. So at one point, probably two hours into our little adventure, I walked up to Michael and told him that I was bored – after he spent about half an hour taking pictures of a column of ants at the wall of a small room. My highlight up to that point? Taking photos of a singing bird sitting at one of the smaller roofs outside…

We continued to the north across a little covered bridge over a small road (leading up the hill to the top part of the hotel) – and there things started to become interesting. While the architecture at the entrance area was quite quirky (wide aisles, small rooms and corners that didn’t have a clear purpose) all of a sudden it became downright weird. The annex wasn’t properly connected to the main building, it was about a meter too low. And there were no stairs, not even a ladder. But it got stranger… and stranger… and stranger. (You can see all of that in the video I published with *the first article about the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin*.) The staircase in the annex… it wasn’t high enough for an adult to walk upright and it was freakishly narrow. Nevertheless that’s where we headed next. If we were incautious Michael and I could have been seen from the castle, but we had a great view at the overgrown lower parts of the hotel and at the landmark top of it. Michael wasn’t happy with the cloud situation, so while he killed some time on the roof I took the long video I published with the last article – we agreed to meet in the burned out main hall later. From there we walked up the mountain and entered the annex complex again. Basically the area you can see in the first half of the third video. Michael and I left the building to take some photos when all of a sudden we heard voices. We ducked down, being as quiet as possible. The voices came closer… two female, one male – obviously American tourists who saw the hotel ruin when visiting the castle ruin. They passed by us without noticing us when Michael realized that the cloud was finally gone, so we went back to the little tower of the annex building. While still on a lower floor the family came back and we decided to scare them a little bit. Sadly we were quite indecisive about it, so by the time Michael yelled at them in Japanese with a low aggressive voice right out of a classic samurai movie they were already too far down the road for us to see their reaction. Well, it wasn’t that funny anyway…

So up the annex building and taking more photos outside. That’s when Michael realized that he could walk across the roof of the covered bridge to reach the roof of the main building. I’m sure it was perfectly safe, but since I saw another way to reach the main building’s roof I made my way through the main building when I received a phone call from Michael – he was pinned down on the roof thanks to a bunch of tourists at the castle. So I went back to get his tripod and finally made it to the upper part of the main building to get onto the roof myself. Five minutes later I was lying there with the C-130 Hercules flying over my head… and I couldn’t get a close-up since I had my ultra wide-angle lens mounted and not a snowball’s chance in hell to switch it in time. (Edit: Thanks to La Mian World I now know that it was a C17 Globemaster, not a Hercules…)

After having seen most of the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin Michael and I were willing to take more risks and finally walked up the hill to the exposed skeleton part of the hotel ruin. On the ground floor there we made an unexpected discovery – a completely burned out and rusted car INSIDE the building. It definitely was a car, but in absolutely abysmal condition, so I have no idea which manufacturer or model it was. Then we went to the top of the building and enjoyed a spectacular view – the hotel, the castle, the small cities and of course the Pacific Ocean and the East Chinese Sea. A slight breeze and the gorgeous view almost made us forget that we were completely exposed.

On the way back to the exit I shot the second and the third video, both published with this article. Although the exploration was great I was kind of eager to get out of the deserted hotel after seven hours when Michael found a building we hadn’t been to yet. Which lead to a lower floor, which lead to a balcony, which lead to a whole new world. The annex building we explored 4 hours earlier was actually the gateway to an area mostly overgrown and lower than the rest of the construction, reminding me of Mayan or Aztec temple in the middle of the jungle. The sun was already setting (it was past 5 p.m. which basically prefaces the end of the day in Japanese spring time…) and bathed the area in warm light. As much as I wanted to get out of there, this part of the hotel was just way too gorgeous to be left behind without us having seen it. So we went deeper and deeper, up and down staircases, through walls of green and past all kinds of weird and sometimes dangerous architecture (one photo shows a flight of stairs separated by a massive concrete handrail – if you would have walked up the right side you would have banged your head unless you are smaller than 30cm…). I really wonder if there was no construction supervision agency in Japan back in the 70s… or what they did all day. Or what the architect was paid for. If there was an architect. Why nobody on the construction site said “If we do it like that people won’t be able to use it properly…”. But whatever, for people with a predilection for the surreal it’s a mind-blowing place to see, although some things don’t make sense at first. Like when Michael jumped into the now empty pool and had no clue where he was, because things just didn’t made sense at first sight. From the pool we had an awesome view looking up to the hotel complex, some overgrown concrete water slides in the background. At that point we were in such a hurry that we didn’t even set up our tripods for good photos – snapshots, snapshots, snapshots. When we finally left the lost civilization area we did it via a part of the building that was home to the cage like installations you can see at the end of the last video where my camera ran out of memory space. It seems like the hotel had a rather decently sized half-underground zoo, although I’m pretty sure that no animal ever lived there. The main area there was composed of a maze of stairs, most of them basically unusable thanks to the ubiquitous misplanning – I loved it, though I’m about 1.90 meters tall. It’s hard to believe that a place like that exists, especially when coming from a country where the state’s building control department is such a powerful institution.

After about eight hours Michael and I finally left the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin, exhausted but happy.
When Michael told me about the hotel *two months prior to our visit* I was skeptical. When I saw it that morning I was excited. After two hours I was slightly disappointed – and from that point on it grew on me. And it actually kind of still does. The Nakagusku Hotel Ruin is one of the most amazing places I ever had to the pleasure to explore. The location was gorgeous, the fact that most of it was never finished lessened the effect of the always present vandalism, the warm and sunny spring day and a couple of singing birds following us up the mountain was heartwarming, no security present was a pleasant surprise, the size of the site was enormous (I think it would take about an hour of straight ambling without stopping to look at details to see the whole complex) – but what really separated the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin from most other places was the constant flow of surprises. The architecture of the place was mind-blowing in so many ways, and items like the wrecked car made it such a unique exploration. It actually made it an exploration. At so many other urbex spots you get what you expect and once you’ve seen one floor you’ve basically seen 90% of the site. The Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin put exploration back in urban exploration – I never knew what to expect behind the next corner, on the next floor, below the next overgrown flight of stairs. And although I spent about eight hours on the premises the Nakagusku Hotel Ruin became one of the few places I really want to revisit, if possible in late winter (whatever that means in Okinawa…) when there is a little less vegetation – without the shadow of a doubt the best abandoned hotel I’ve ever been to, probably the most amazing urbex hotel in the world!

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ADDENDUM 2013-2-12: On February 9th user stuzbob left a comment on one of the videos, shedding some light on the car remains: “The engine appears to be a Nissan J-series and the remains of the leaf springs and solid frame at the back lead me to conclude that it was, at one time, a Nissan 520 or 521 pickup.” Thanks a lot stuzbob, much appreciated!

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The Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin on the Japanese island of Okinawa is a prime example for a problem pretty much everybody has when writing about abandoned places – how to name the location? I could have called it the N# Hotel or the N# Hotel Ruin, but it would have been pretty pointless, because the name is revealed with a location description when you google “urban exploration Okinawa”. First hit, at least at the time I am writing this article. I could as well mark it on a map, but I’m still reluctant to do that since the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin clearly is not a tourist attraction – the Nakagusuku Castle (中城城), right next to the hotel ruin, on the other hand is a tourist attraction. A major one, since they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site  – and it’s visible on a lot of photos and videos I took. Gusuku is a term to describe Okinawan castles (jo, 城) and in Japanese it actually uses the same kanji – and that makes a gusuku-jo a castle-castle. But this article is not about the castle ruin, it’s about the hotel ruin, which actually is a place of many names. Most people refer to it as the Nakagusku Hotel Ruin in English, but I’ve also seen it been called the Royal Hotel (I have no clue why…) and the Nakagusuku Takahara Hotel / Nakagusuku Kogen Hotel – both names are based on the common Japanese term for the place, 中城高原ホテル. The first two characters mean Nakagusuku, the last three mean hotel. Characters three and four can be read takahara or kogen / kougen. The latter reading makes more sense as it means plateau – the Nakagusuku Plateau Hotel, because it’s actually on the Nakagusuku plateau…

The complex naming of this deserted hotel is rather suiting, because nothing about the Nakagusku Hotel Ruin is simple or small. The place is actually gigantic and fascinating. So gigantic and fascinating that I decided to split up the article in two. This first one will be about the background information, a soon to come second one will describe my experiences exploring the never finished hotel.

Yep, the Nakagusku Hotel Ruin is an unfinished building – carcass and interior completion are both unfinished. The story is that a rich business man from Naha, Okinawa’s capital about 10km to the southwest, wanted to take advantage of the beautiful location right next to the Nakagusku Castle, where both the Pacific Ocean and the East Chinese Sea are visible. Locals warned him not to build a hotel there since the area overgrown by jungle like vegetation was the home to countless old graves – of course he ignored the advice, even when a Buddhist monk told him that the land was sacred and that he was building too close to a tomb inhabited by restless souls. Upon hearing that some of the workers quit – and others died by accidents on the construction site. Having spent millions of dollars on the vast concrete construction the unnamed businessman wanted to prove that the hotel wasn’t cursed, so he pledged that he would sleep on the premises until the building was finished. After three nights he went insane and people still don’t agree if he was institutionalized or if he committed suicide – or both.

That’s the folklore story you can read in most articles about the Nakagusku Hotel Ruin. Another version, less spectacular, is that the hotel was built under the responsibility of the Nakagusku Park Union (中城公園組合), which was in charge of the Nakagusku Castle since it was declared important cultural property by the government’s Cultural Properties Protection Committee in 1955. The first plans became a political issue when the information became public that the hotel was supposed to be built too close to or actually on the castle ruin, risking its status as a cultural property site (and making it impossible to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a program that was ratified in 1972). So the planned construction site of the hotel was moved from the castle’s rampart further to the west, away from the historical ruin. Construction of the massive concrete hotel began in the first half of the 1970s and was supposed to be finished right on time for the opening of the Okinawa International Marine Exhibition (better known as “Expo 75”) on July 20th of 1975. But of course the inevitable happened: The contractor went bankrupt and the access road was specified as part of the “preservation of cultural properties zone” after Okinawa became part of Japan a couple of years prior (between the end of WW2 in 1945 and May 15th of 1972 Okinawa was run by a U.S. military government), bringing the construction of the Nakagusuku Hotel to a complete standstill – permanently. (I had to compile / confirm this version of the hotel ruin’s background story from different Japanese sources, so if there is an inaccuracy I apologize in advance.)

And to end the stories about the history of the Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin with another one based on rumors, not on facts: It’s said that a part of the hotel was used as a brothel for several years – the upper part, where the now burned interior was already finished. A highly unlikely story, since that brothel would have been within sight of a major tourist attraction and kind of tough to access, especially at night – I can’t imagine that happening without the knowledge of the authorities…

Okay, so much for the background story. The next article will be about *Michael* and myself exploring the huge concrete carcass. We spent about 8 hours on the premises, so there is plenty to tell you – and to show you! All the photos below are from the easy to access parts most urban explorers see, and so is 22 minute long video, representing maybe a third of the huge complex. *If you like what you see below you better read the next article, too, because it will blow you away!*

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