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Archive for the ‘Nara’ Category

Nara Dreamland – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Night, Restaurant, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2009, Visited in 2010, Visited in 2011 on 2011/10/21| 65 Comments »

# What is Nara Dreamland?
– Nara Dreamland is an abandoned amusement park in Nara, Japan. It was closed in 2006 and abandoned without getting demolished – which makes it quite a unique urbex location since all the roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, souvenir shops, arcades and other attractions are still there. (Although it’s up for discussion if the place is really abandoned. It’s closed, that’s for sure, but the owner of the park obviously still cares about it to some degree…)

# Where is Nara Dreamland?
– That’s the kind of questions I usually don’t answer. But since NDL has entries in four language versions of Wikipedia, three of them giving away the exact location of Nara Dreamland, I can as well link to *my own map at GoogleMaps*. The address was / is:
Nara Dreamland
1900 Horen-cho
630-8113 Nara
But just because you know where it is I wouldn’t recommend going there. You might wanna read the next question(s) before rushing out…

# Does Nara Dreamland have security?
– YES! Some people got lucky and didn’t run into security at Nara Dreamland, I got away with plugged feathers – others got roasted and served to the police. The whole park is surrounded by fences, most parts with spikes and / or barbed wire. Warning signs once asked people to call the police if they see somebody suspicious, now the latest signs I saw announced a fine of 100.000 Yen, about 950 Euros / 1300 Dollars! Furthermore there were reports that the guy patrolling there tries to blame caught trespassers for vandalism to get more money out of them. And vandalism becomes more and more of a problem…

# Is there any vandalism at Nara Dreamland?
– Sadly yes. Lots of it. When I explored Nara Dreamland for the first time in December of 2009 there were barely any signs of vandalism. Almost two years later there are graffiti at the former pachinko parlor at the Eastern Parking Lot. The Parking Garage’s staircase is completely sealed now and the Hotel is boarded up again. Inside the park you can see how people smashed the control station of a merry-go-round – the fire extinguisher still on top of broken glass. The Main Street USA clone with all the souvenir shops has barely any undamaged windows and several doors were kicked in, even of buildings that were clearly just a false front. It’s actually pretty sad how fast the place goes down the drain – especially since the graffiti people took over; and not the good ones…

# I’ve heard Nara Dreamland is a rip-off of Disneyland in Anaheim. Is that true?
– Definitely. Disneyland was opened in 1955, Nara Dreamland followed in 1961. You have copies of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, Adventureland, Main Street USA, Autopia, Skyway, Tea Party Cup Ride, Submarine Voyage, Flying Saucers, the monorail, the fire station, a pirate ship, double decker omnibusses, vintage cars, and a train station (called DreamStation). Even the entrance looked the same! Of course the layout of the park was very similar – aerial shots make them look like twins. And of course there is the story of Kunizo Matsuo, the man behind Nara Dreamland.

# Can you tell me more about the history of Nara Dreamland?
– Sure. After World War II Japan’s industry was booming. People worked hard and needed some places to relax. The United States were not only occupiers, but also the helping hands for the reconstruction of the country – and the new role models. In the second half of the 1950s a Japanese businessman called Kunizu Matsuo, president of the Matsuo Entertainment Company, visited the States and the brand-new amusement park Disneyland in Anaheim near Los Angeles – and was quite impressed. Something like that would be perfect for Japan, he decided. He became a mediator for the Japanese Dream Sightseeing Company (JDSC) and had direct contact with Walt Disney. The plan was to bring Disneyland to Japan – not to Tokyo, but to the old capital Nara (710 – 794), the cradle of Japanese culture. Matsuo also was in direct contact with Disney’s engineers to create the Japanese version of Disneyland. But Nara Disneyland never came true. Towards the end of the construction phase JDSC and Disney couldn’t agree on license fees for all the famous Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck and Goofy – so the Japanese side created their own mascots and abandoned the idea of Nara Disneyland. I have no idea how JDSC and Disney settled in the end (I’m sure JDSC had to pay quite a bit of money for Disney’s “help” even without getting the permission to use Cinderella & Co.), but while Nara Dreamland opened in 1961 it took Disney another 20 years to finally open Tokyo Disneyland on April 15th of 1983. Coincidentally (?) this year marked the beginning of the downfall for Nara Dreamland – the number of visitors began to decrease and JDSC including Nara Dreamland was bought by the supermarket chain Daiei in 1993. Eight years later, in 2001, Universal Studios Japan (USJ) opened in Osaka, just about 40 kilometers away. USJ annihilated Nara Dreamland and the once so glamorous place was forced to shut its doors on August 31st of 2006.

# What were the names of the mascots at Nara Dreamland? And are there famous non-Disney characters present at Nara Dreamland?
I’m sorry, but I have no idea about the mascots. All I know is that there are two of them, a male one and a female one. I don’t even know if they had names…
As for other characters: There are no specially themed rides, but Anpanman is pretty visible at Nara Dreamland. (In case you don’t know Anpanman: He’s the most popular fictional character amongst Japanese age 0 – 12 for 10 consecutive years. Anpanman was created by Takashi Yanase in 1968 as a manga character, but spread to other media quickly (including movies, animated shorts, a TV show and dozens of video games). Nowadays Anpanman is everywhere – imagine Hello Kitty, but popular with girls and boys…)

# Why was Nara Dreamland closed?
– A declining amount of visitors for many, many years – and most of all Universal Studios Japan. By the time USJ opened in 2001 Nara Dreamland already was a rundown theme park decades after its prime. Universal Studios Japan on the other hand was brand-new and high-tech, probably the most modern amusement park of its time. Tokyo Disneyland started the struggle (yes, even though 400km away TDL was direct competition for NDL!) and Universal Studios knocked it down – Nara Dreamland didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell… (Surprisingly enough *Expoland* in Osaka wasn’t affected that much by USJ and closed mainly because of bad press after a 19 year old university student from Shiga prefecture died on a roller coaster in 2007 – and Hirakata Park (also known as HiraPa – ひらかたパーク / ひらパー) between Osaka and Kyoto still doesn’t show any signs of giving up…)
At the height of its success Nara Dreamland welcomed 1.6 million visitors per year, when it closed the number was as low as 400k. Universal Studios Japan on the other hand had 11 million visitors (!) in its first year of operation…

# What was Nara Dreamland’s main attraction?
– Nara Dreamland’s main attraction was (and still is!) the Aska roller coaster (木製コースターASKA, Mokusei kōsutā ASKA), a wooden coaster built by Intamin and opened in 1998. The track was 1081 meters long and reached a height of 30 meters. The trains consisted of seven waggons for four guests each (two rows with two seats). They reached a speed of 80 km/h (almost 50 mp/h) and accelerated with up to 2.8g. Aska is named after Asuka, a city close to Nara – from 538 to 710 it was the capital of Yamato, one of the earliest states on Japanese ground, and the location of many imperial palaces as well as important temples and shrines, some of them still in existence today.
I took a video walking along parts of the abandoned Aska roller coaster – you can check it out on *Youtube*.

# Was it expensive to visit Nara Dreamland?
– The signs at the abandoned Nara Dreamland indicate that it was a pay-as-you-go amusement park (as was Disneyland when it opened in 1955!) – which means that you had to pay a low entrance fee, but then additionally for every single ride. So basically it was up to you how much you spent there. Sadly I never paid much attention to the prices, so let me have a look at some photos and see what I can come up with… Parking was 200 Yen for bikes, 1.200 Yen for cars and 2.000 Yen for busses. Bobsleigh (ボブスレー), the steel roller coaster modeled after Disney’s Matterhorn Bobsleds, was 600 Yen and a haunted witch cave put a hole of 300 Yen in your pocket. As for food: A beer was 500 Yen, chuhai was 400 Yen, takoyaki were 300 Yen, yakisoba was 400 Yen and the Family BBQ Set was 3.200 Yen. I don’t know how much the entrance fee was, but if you get caught by security now it costs you a whopping 100.000 Yen!

# I’ve heard there is a Yokohama Dreamland. Is it related?
– Well, there was a Yokohama Dreamland – it operated from October 1st 1964 to February 17th 2002 and closed, not really surprisingly, because of financial issues. It was located in the Totsuka ward of Yokohama. Unlike Nara Dreamland it was completely demolished – and replaced by a prison. And to finally answer the question: Yes, it was the sister park of Nara Dreamland with a similar layout, similar attractions and the same branding.

# Is there an official homepage?
– There was: http://www.nara-dreamland.co.jp/ (I didn’t make it clickable as it doesn’t work anymore anyways – save your time…)
You can find a copy *here*. (2003, Japanese only)

# How often have you been to Nara Dreamland?
– Never when it was still open and 5 times since it was closed.

# Do you have any plans to go back?
– Concrete, solid plans? No. Security there is the main reason for me not to go anymore. I know people visited the place without getting caught, but I made my own experiences and they were not all pleasant…

# Have you written more articles about Nara Dreamland than the one I’ve just read?
– Well, I summed up my experiences in the *Nara Dreamland Special*, but the articles I wrote about Nara Dreamland are in chronological order:
Getting Caught By Security
Nara Dreamland
Eastern Parking Lot And Parking Garage
Nara Dreamland Hotel
Nara Dreamland Revisited – Nighttime
Nara Dreamland Revisited – Daytime
Nara Dreamland – Nara Snowland
Nara Dreamland – Third Time Lucky
Nara Dreamland 2015
Nara Dreamland 2016
Nara Dreamland – 10th Anniversary
Nara Dreamland – Demolition

If you are less into facts about Nara Dreamland and you rather want to more about what it’s like to explore this abandoned theme park I recommend reading the articles I’ve just mentioned.

# Do you have material for more articles about Nara Dreamland?
– Yes! As of August 2014 I have material for about half a dozen articles, including some very unique photos…

# Is there a place even creepier than Nara Dreamland?
– Yes! It’s a half-abandoned amusement park called *People’s Park* – thanks to the constant music in the background and its nude statues it’s creepy as heck!

# What about that killer robot called Mascot 6-22? Is it really roaming Nara Dreamland?
– Killer robots at Nara Dreamland?! No, this is not another *April Fool’s joke*, this is the internet!
Nara Dreamland has been kind of my backyard for the past five years and I thought I’ve heard pretty much all stories about it… until one of Abandoned Kansai’s regular readers, Justin, asked me about the fully animatronic Mascot 6-22 in a private message via *Facebook* – and I had no idea what he was talking about. I did some research and there seems to be a theory out there in the depth of the internet, that Disney created Nara Dreamland to find out whether the fake park would be popular enough to justify the construction of an official Disneyland; which happened more than 20 years later. As if that wouldn’t be ridiculous enough, somebody claimed that the official new mascots were not poor students in poorly tailored costumes, but in fact robots – and that series 6, unit 22 was so special, that they didn’t turn it off, but let it roam freely in the park after it closed in 2006, defending a solar power station and giving everybody who tries to deactivate him an electric shock. But that’s not all! Some people actually seem to believe that the Japanese military asked Disney if they should take out “Mascot 6-22”, but they declined as the thing was showing interesting program adaptations.
Seriously, what the heck? The whole story is so ridiculous I won’t even spend the time to point out all the things that are wrong with it! Yes, I know, both the origin and the end of Nara Dreamland are somewhat in the dark, but come on, people… that’s a bit much, don’t ya think?

# I’ve heard that Nara Dreamland has been sold in late 2015. Is that true?
– Yes, that’s true. It seems like the previous owner owed the city of Nara 650 million Yen in ground tax, so the city foreclosed Dreamland and sold it to the only bidder for 730 million Yen – a real estate company called SK Housing. What plans they have is unclear though, because there are strict limitations on how the land Nara Dreamland is on can be used in the future…

# What are those strange noises I can hear at Nara Dreamland?
– If the noises are not coming from one of the nearby sports arenas, they are most likely caused by ushigaeru (ウシガエル) a.k.a. American bullfrogs. They freaked me out the first time I heard them in 2010, because they sounded like somebody opening a heavy metal door / gate…

If you have any unanswered questions about Nara Dreamland please let me know – I might update this posting every once in while. A lot of the information given here was only available in Japanese so far, some stuff I came up with by actually going to NDL – so if you use material for your own articles please be so kind and mention / link to this FAQ. Thanks a lot!

All of the following photos were taken in 2009 and 2010, most of them previously unpublished. The photos I took later will be published in two separate articles at some point in the future.
(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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New (Old) Videos!

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Museum, Nara, Restaurant, Shiga, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2009, Visited in 2010 on 2011/09/03| 2 Comments »

Today I had a look at some rather old videos shot at locations I already wrote articles about. None of them were intended to be published, so the camera work might be a bit rushed occasionally, but I decided to upload them anyways as I think there might be some interest in them out there in the world wide web. While some of my videos only get a couple of dozen views quite a few of them were watched by thousands of people – *this one* will actually reach 30.000 views soon. Please enjoy!
*Nara Dreamland – Aska Rollercoaster*

*Koga Family Land*

*Jumbo Club Awaji Island*

*Ohmi Lodge*

*Young People’s Plaza & Museum*

*Takada Ranch Ruin*

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Nara Dreamland Revisited: Daytime

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/11| 10 Comments »

After spending a whole night at Nara Dreamland it dawned at around 5.30am, so Mike and I went straight to the entrance area near the Dreamstation to begin our second round through the park. The atmosphere at Dreamland early in the morning is almost creepier than it is at night. The light was kind of blue-ish, the sky slowly turned to overcast and we could finally have a closer look at the state of this huge abandoned amusement park – it looks horrible! The main street is so fake it would make an Ed Wood movie look cheap(er) and the amount of vandalism and decay is almost shocking considering the place was closed down for good only four years ago. If you want to see pictures of an undamaged Dreamland you’ll have to find some that are at least one or two years old. Pretty much all the windows in the park are smashed in, most of them just for the sake of destroying them – and that’s why places like Doggy Land or the Doctor’s Shack don’t get published with their real names or hints on how to find them… Too late for Dreamland though, the damage is done and I think it will get worse every month. And I totally understand now why the security guard was quite aggressive when he caught me taking pictures in February since it’s impossible to know who’s a vandal and who’s a harmless urban explorer. It would seriously piss me off and I guess even scare me when I’d come to work in the morning only to see doors and windows smashed in!
Mike and I, of course, just minded our own business and took a few pictures here and there – but to be fully honest, I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe it was because at that point we already spent four and a half hours there and of course we were tired and worried that security will show up at any minute, but Nara Dreamland (at daylight) is just a miserable place to be. It’s widespread, it’s run-down, it’s ugly and it’s full of weird items. Like the statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the castle, that doesn’t make sense at all. (Maybe it does – if you know an explanation please drop me a line!) The really shocking part about it is that the place most likely felt weird even when it was still open. I can see the Aska rollercoaster being fun, maybe the water park with the pools and slides, too. But the rest looks like a real embarrassment for everybody involved. Again, love and hate at the same time: It’s a huge amusement park with all the attractions still standing – but at the same time it feels like one of the cheap weird reality shows on TV you don’t really want to watch, but you do it anyways and feel a bit guilty for doing so. So I guess it was no surprise that Mike left after about an hour to wait for me outside and I followed maybe ten minutes later. For some reason the daytime version of Nara Dreamland wasn’t nearly as captivating as I hoped it would be – I defeated my haikyo nemesis, but it was a bitter-sweet victory to find out that “the enemy” didn’t live up to the expectations…
Overall my (most likely) last visit to Nara Dreamland was an ambiguous experience. It was great to hang out with Mike and being at an abandoned amusement park at night is an awesome experience – it just wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as my explorations of other places like the Taga Mine, the Takada Ranch Ruin or the mostly demolished Expoland.
And don’t even get me started on the Zone of Alienation, including Chernobyl and Pripyat! Oh… well… now that I think about it: Maybe it’s time to write up a couple of stories about radioactivity, gas masks and some of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to!
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*. And since this article is quite popular: You can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIeBW2SYBg

 

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Nara Dreamland Revisited: Nighttime

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Night, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/03| 21 Comments »

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you know that I have a love-hate relationship with Nara Dreamland. Abandoned amusement parks are quite rare, especially those without any destroyed or sold attractions. Sadly both times I went there I spotted a security guard. Once he spotted me, too – a very, very unpleasant experience. To me the chapter “Nara Dreamland” was closed. I wasn’t able to post pictures taken inside of Dreamland on this blog (since I had to delete the ones I took), but I’ve seen quite a bit of it and that is what is important to me. But when Michael John Grist wrote me a message that he would be in Kansai soon and asked me if I was interested in tackling Nara Dreamland again of course I couldn’t resist. Learning from previous explorations I suggested to meet in Nara late to do a shooting at night and get out of Dreamland before the guard(s) even show up. Mike agreed and so that’s what we did…
We met at JR Nara Station at around 0.30am and made our way to the park. Since I’ve been there twice before I knew exactly where to go and how to get in, but there were some changes since I last came to Dreamland. For example all the “If you see somebody entering Nara Dreamland: Call the police!” signs were replaced by new “If you get caught we’ll fine you 100,000 Yen” signs. Which I thought was interesting in two ways:
1.) It kind of seems like the police in Nara isn’t really interested in trespassers.
2.) Why 100,000 Yen (currently about 900 Euro / 1150 Dollars) and not 50,000 / 200,000 / 1,000,000 Yen? The number seems so random…
Anyways, it would really surprise me if the new signs keep anybody from entering. (“I don’t care about being sued for trespassing, but 1000 bucks scare me back to where I came from!”)
After entering Nara Dreamland the next difference was obvious: If you lift your car over the fence you won’t be able to drive into the park anymore as the road is now blocked by a fence of maybe 50cm height! If you are on foot you just step over it or use the non-blocked pedestrian walkway – which is perfect for all you urban explorers on bikes, motorcycles and unicycles, too! Seriously, WTF? I can understand why you want to keep people from entering Nara Dreamland, but if your effort ends with knee high fences you deserve to be ridiculed! I would have laughed out loud, but I guess my mean spirit was punished right away when a car passed the road under the bridge while we were walking across – in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Small sins get punished right away…
It was a strange feeling to enter Nara Dreamland that way since last time I was there I was running from a security guard. Shortly after the bridge we came across the merry-go-rounds and finally reached the mirror maze called “Mirror-Puzzle” where the yellfest happened in February. I would like to say that I felt more comfortable the longer we stayed at the park, but I didn’t. Not after one hour, not after two, not till we left. But at least this time I was able to see the whole park. We took at few pictures near the Mirror-Puzzle, passed through the castle and then went on to pay a visit to the park’s main attraction: the gigantic wooden roller-coaster named Aska. From there we went back to the castle and down the main road to the main entrance / train station. After that we returned to the area filled by merry-go-rounds to have a little rest and wait for the sun to come up.
The safety of exploring Nara Dreamland at night came with the price of a way more demanding shooting: Neither Mike nor I had shot any haikyo at night before, so we spent quite a while at each attraction. Basically learning by doing. It wasn’t pitch black dark and the sky was slightly lit in some parts due to light pollution, so most of the pictures turned out to be blurry or terribly lit, but could there be a better place to figure out stuff like that than an abandoned amusement park? The answer is “YES!”, but hey, some things just don’t work out as planned…
Exploring an abandoned amusement park on a warm night in late summer is nothing but an amazing adventure – and I guess it is even more so if you can suppress the uneasy feeling of not being wanted there. I can’t say that I really enjoyed shooting Nara Dreamland at night, but I nevertheless cherish it as an exciting and educational experience.
“Wait a minute!”, you might say at this point. “If you felt uneasy all the time, why did you even wait for the sun to come up?” Well, the answer is simple: Since the sun rises at about 5.30am in Japan even in late September we though we could kill two birds with one stone and do a second round through the park, shooting it under way easier lighting conditions – and that’s what we did. So come back soon and don’t miss the second part of Nara Dreamland Revisited!
(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…
For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*.)

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Location Teaser 2

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Chūbu, Europe, Factory, Gifu, Haikyo, Hospital, Hotel / Ryokan, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Luxembourg, Map, Nara, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2010/09/28| 4 Comments »

Looking at my urban exploration log I realized that I had a pretty good run lately.

It all started when I met Michael of Gakuranman fame in late July – he was in Kansai and suggested to take on the famous Maya Hotel together. Since I already scouted the surrounding, but never went in, it was a fun exploration of an impressive location; followed by a revisit of the Takada Ranch Ruin. Two weeks later I started my summer vacation to Europe which included a side trip to the Zone of Alienation with its famous cities Chernobyl and Pripyat. Back to Germany I went to Luxembourg for two more explorations with a kindergarden friend of mine.

Soon after I got back to Japan I received an e-mail from Michael John Grist who planned to come to Kansai to tackle my haikyo nemesis, Nara Dreamland. I wanted to meet the guy more than I wanted to avoid the Dreamland, so we went there on a warm late summer night and for the first time I got in and out without spotting security… And finally I went on a little trip myself again to visit the Gakuranman in the Nagoya area to take pictures of the mysterious Doctor’s Shack, one of the few haikyo that are kept a real secret in Japan – even if it appears somewhere on the net or in a book there are barely any hints about its location and I’m really grateful Michael took me there; another awesome exploration, punished with about 30 mosquito bites!

Maya Hotel, Pripyat, Luxembourg, Nara Dreamland and the Doctor’s Shack in a row… it’s hard to do better than that! Now it’s time to write up the stories and show you some really, really interesting pictures!

(You can find all the articles related to Chernobyl and Pripyat by *clicking here* – the picture was taken *here*.)

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Nara Dreamland – Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Visited in 2010 on 2010/08/20| 8 Comments »

I don’t know why, but people exploring Nara Dreamland seem to be so drawn to the roller-coasters and merry-go-rounds that they totally ignore the not so hidden gem that is dominating the northern part of the Eastern Parking Lot: I’m talking about the building with the strange observation tower. And a strange building it was… A hotel, according to a Japanese hompage. But I found out about that fact weeks after I explored the building as I still was a bit unsure about its purpose.
Although the Nara Dreamland Hotel looks like a fortress (with its broken and boarded-up windows) there are actually at least two ways to get in. Mine was a quite surprising one: Through an unlocked door I closed behind me – a slightly stupid move at first sight, but it might have saved me from getting arrested as I should experience a few hours later.
The first room I entered must have been a meeting room once, followed by a service counter for ice skate rentals and probably other things. Next to it was one of two former main entrances to the building and a quite impressive staircase leading up to the other floors.
Roaming through the three floors I found a strange mix of all kinds of places: Offices, meeting rooms, private rooms, bath rooms, dormitory rooms, small and huge kitchens (several ones actually!), washing rooms, storage rooms, staircases, dark hallways, machinery rooms – a few of them locked, most of them accessible. Probably the most surprising room was a huge auditorium with a stage on the third floor. My most favorite floor of course was the observation tower. The view up there was absolutely stunning – luckily it didn’t paralyze me, because as I was enjoying the great view I saw a security guard on a scooter driving onto the parking lot! I found cover on the stairs leading down, giving me a good look at what was happening: The guard parked in front of the parking garage and went inside for a couples of minutes. After that he got back on his scooter again and drove the 30 meters right towards me to the hotel building. Now ten very, very long minutes began… until I saw the guy again, leaving. Luckily. I’m pretty sure he would have searched the building way more thoroughly if I had left the door on the ground floor open. Luckily he didn’t lock it when he left either, so I escaped with nothing more than a fright. That was in December of 2009 – a couple of weeks later I wasn’t that lucky when I entered the park itself and got caught by the guard only half an hour after I started taking pictures…
The Nara Dreamland Hotel is a massive haikyo that offers lots of diversity. It took me about 3 hours to explore and shoot the building and due to the arrival of the guard I got way more excitement than I was hoping for. As far as hotels go it was definitely one of the most interesting ones, way better than the One Dragon Hotel, the Koga CC House and the Kasagi Tourist Hotel – the lack of history was compensated by the relative absence of vandalism and the amount of items present. I have very, very fond memories of this exploration…
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*. *Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

Addendum 2015-07-01:

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Nara Dreamland – Eastern Parking Lot And Parking Garage

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Transportation, Urbex, Visited in 2009 on 2010/07/27| 8 Comments »

It seems like Nara Dreamland is quite popular lately. The statistics on WordPress indicate that most of the visitors I get from search engines looked for information about Dreamland. Well, since the once so vivid memories of a crazy Japanese dude yelling like a madman and threatening me with calling the police to get me arrested slowly fades I guess it’s about time to give people what they want: Two more postings about the Dreamland with leftover pictures I took in December. I still wouldn’t recommend going there, and I doubt that I ever will again, but should already taken pictures been wasted?

This posting will be all about the Eastern Parking Lot and the Parking Garage, the next one will show some interior shots of the building with the observation tower.

The Eastern Parking Lot is easy to find as it is part of the main entrance – most of the people entering Nara Dreamland when it was still open passed through here. There are two ways to enter the area and both involve just stepping over a rope; no fence, no gate, no nothing; but a guard showing up once in a while on a scooter. Coming from the east you’ll see the former pay booths for the parking lot, with the phones and stools still in place. The main entrance is now right in front of you and to your right there is a white building with shutters down (it seems like it was closed down even before the rest of the park was, judging by the pictures I saw on the net) and a the Parking Garage – opposite of that building complex are a small building with windows, I guess it was a souvenir shop once, and a huge building that will be the topic of the next blog entry…

The Parking Garage is 4 floors high (including the ground floor) and the different floors are sealed by massive shutters. Next to the (locked) gaterkeeper’s office is a defunct elevator and next to that is a staircase without a door. Going up there you’ll realize that all the doors to the floors are locked – but to my total surprise the last door at the top isn’t. Behind it you’ll find a small room with some machinery and a great view on the top of the Parking Garage.

Overall the Eastern Parking Lot and the Parking Garage are not that spectacular – but writing about them offers me a good opportunity to post some more pictures and it gives me a great lead-in for the next posting that will deal with the exploration of the former hotel and its observation tower. And phew… that is quite an amazing haikyo on its own!
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*.)

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Nara Dreamland

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Visited in 2009 on 2010/02/10| 10 Comments »

(Most search engines referring to this blog usually end up up here, although the main article about Nara Dreamland is considered the *Nara Dreamland Special* by now. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*.)

Initially I planned to do a three part series about the Nara Dreamland without giving away too much about its location since it’s considered something like the last holy haikyo cow. But due to events that may or may not be related to a recent blog post I decided to not do that. I’ve heard that the owner(s) of Nara Dreamland don’t want to have pictures taken by trespassers a.k.a. urban explorers to avoid attention on the internet. Something I totally understand and basically respect. But respect is a mutual thing and that’s why this blog entry will be a bit different than usual. Nara Dreamland is really one of a kind – the place as well as this blog post. (Don’t expect something similar here too soon…)

First of all – here is where you can find Nara Dreamland:
34° 42′ 0″ N, 135° 49′ 27″ E
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=34.70021,135.824168&spn=0.004587,0.009645&t=h&z=17&msid=206399389614348219908.00049a6abf8e42dabb0b0

But what is Nara Dreamland? Some would describe it as an extremely cheap copy of Disneyland. More or less successful for the first years of its existence it was annihilated by Universal Studios Japan in Osaka and closed in 2006. It seems like people hated the place and considered it abandoned even before it actually was – these guys say “it’s an ugly, disgusting, abandoned looking theme park ” and even call it “a total dump”:
http://www.themeparkreview.com/japan2004/nara1.htm

Since it closed down Nara Dreamland actually became more and more popular – as an abandoned place on the internet. Since I would never enter this huge abandoned and apparently untouched amusement park I can only show you what other people found when they went there:
http://tw.silk.to/am/dreamland/dreamland__20060610/index.php (Oops, this set of pictures was taken when the park was still open – but who can see the difference anyways…?)
(If this material was created by illegally entering Nara Dreamland I totally distance myself from it as they obviously disrespect the owner’s wishes! But I guess those people asked for permission in advance…)

If you want to go to Nara Dreamland please go ahead. But be aware that people say that the security there is tight. The whole park is surrounded by fences, most of them with nasty spikes and rusty barbed wire. There are talks about guards patrolling the area and there are motion detectors yelling automatic messages at you – scared me half to death when I was walking along a public street (!) around the northern part of the park, just minding my own business. I don’t know if those installations are inside the park, too, since it is so obvious that people are not wanted there… now even less than when the park was still open for business.
Oh, and at the eastern parking lot there are the main entrance and several buildings. The area has no fences, only some ropes preventing people from entering. Since it’s still private property of course I didn’t cross the ropes, but the northern building looks interesting and like a place worth checking out. Especially the observation tower part is very tempting and must offer a great view. I would never enter the building since the owner doesn’t want to draw attention to it. And by it I mean Nara Dreamland in Nara city, Nara prefecture, Japan.

To bring this joyful entry to an end I’ll present you some pictures I’ve taken back in December – all of them were taken from public roads; there was no trespassing or any other illegal activities involved! Enjoy… And if you go to Nara Dreamland, the most fascinating abandoned place in Japan, remember one thing: It’s all about respect!

(I went back to Nara Dreamland after this posting, so for all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special – including night shots and the hardly ever seen Nara Dreamland Hotel. And since this article is quite popular, especially with first time visitors: 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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