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Archive for the ‘Roadside Attraction’ Category

Non-Urbex: Katsuura Marine Park Underwater Observation Tower

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kanto, Museum, Non-Urbex, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Underwater Observation Tower, Urbex on 2024/11/27| 8 Comments »

In spring I visited the *Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium* on Shikoku and it blew my mind. One of the greatest day trips ever. When all of a sudden something occurred to me that I never thought of before: What if… there are similar structures in Japan? I did some research… and here we go: The Katsuura Marine Park Underwater Observation Tower in Chiba prefecture, a fun day trip from Tokyo!

The Katsuura Marine Park Underwater Observation Tower is located in walking distance of Ubara Station, about two hours by train (or car…) from Tokyo Station – an area popular with surfers even in November, but not exactly a destination for tourists from overseas… or any other tourists. I have been in the area before about a decade ago to check out some abandoned places, but of course at the time I didn’t know about B-Spots like this hidden gem.
Arriving at Ubara Station on an unexpectedly sunny Saturday morning in autumn I was surprised that I was the only person to get off the train. Not the only non-Asian person, that happens a lot at places I go to – the only person in total! The Japanese countryside is dying, that’s no secret, but come on! The only person on their way to a lovely seaside town with a beach, cliffs, a museum and an underwater aquarium? And then people wonder why train lines and bus stops get abandoned constantly, accelerating the death of rural areas. And that’s something you can’t blame on overseas tourists alone – they follow the beaten Instagram path promoted by the JNTO. Japanese people need to go out there! It’s bad enough that they stop living in smaller towns… at least support them and the declining public transport system by heading out there instead of hiding from fresh air and human interactions in anonymous housing blocks, surrounded by millions of people, yet not speaking a single word all weekend!
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the lovely Japanese countryside, Chiba coastline, to be more specific. The Katsuura Marine Park was created in June of 1974 and consists of the underwater observation tower, a restaurant, a museum and several other facilities as well as some of the surrounding nature. The tower was opened on November 1st 1980, almost a decade after the one in Kochi. Its total height is 24.4 meters – the above sea level entrance and viewing platform is about 8 meters above water, the underwater main area with 24 windows is about 8 meters below sea level. Which leaves… 8 meters for the structure on the platform? Seems a bit much, maybe the numbers don’t really add up. Details, I guess. Fact is: The entrance fee is 980 Yen, slightly more expensive than the Kochi one – and the bridge to the tower is a bit more scary as it is longer and maybe a bit more rusty. A small viewing platform on the way is even roped off currently as the railings have rusted away! Visually I found the Kochi tower quite a bit more appealing, though an accidentally underexposed shot made the Chiba one look like from a post-apocalyptic world – it would perfectly fit the Apple TV+ show Silo. The concept of both towers is the same though: You have to walk down a staircase to the bottom of the sea to observe a variety of fish in their natural habitat, the Katsuura one though features small cushioned rest areas on the way up and on the way down. No photos of the underwater platform as the underwater aquarium was surprisingly crowded, despite my rant earlier. I guess Tokyo people have more cars than I thought. And more kids. Tons of kids, actually. Or maybe they were all Chiba countryside locals who desperately need a car, because like I said: public transport in Japan is dying, despite what the “L@@K AT THE HOKURIKU-SHINKANSEN!!!” propaganda is trying to sell.
To make up for it, I added a photo of an abandoned boat I found on the way to the marine park… and a few more of what looked like the hideout of a 1980s action movie villain. The concrete structure is just off the coast in the ocean, connected by a bridge similar to the one leading to the tower. It’s not marked as anything on the map, but it might have been used as a facility / headquarter during the construction of the underwater aquarium. In any case, it looked really cool, but to my surprise wasn’t abandoned. On the third photo you can see a white car – and when I was heading back to land, I saw some guys handling oxygen tanks, so maybe it’s a diving center now?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this… and if you did, please check out the *Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium* again for comparison.

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Insta360 – How Is That Even Legal?

Posted in Abandoned, Aichi, Airport, Akita, Amusement Park, Animals, Aquarium, Asia, Asylum, Beijing, Berlin, Cemetery, China, Chugoku, Church, Chūbu, Cinema, Closed, Communications, Dark Tourism, Demolished, Depot, Driving School, Europe, Exhibition, Factory, Farm, Ferris Wheel, Festival, Fire Station, Food, Fukuoka, Fukushima, Gifu, Golf, Gunma, Haikyo, HDR, Hiking, Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Hospital, Hotel / Ryokan, House, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Ishikawa, Iwate, Japan, Kagawa, Kanagawa, Kanazawa, Kansai, Kanto, Kindergarten / Nursery, Kochi, Korea, Kumamoto, Kyoto, Kyushu, Lighthouse, Love Hotel, Mie, Military, Mine, Miyagi, Monochrome, Monument, Museum, Nagano, Nagasaki, Nampo, Nara, New Zealand, Night, Niigata, Non-Urbex, Oita, Okayama, Okinawa, Olympia, Original Find, Osaka, Pachinko, Photography, Power Station, Prison, Race Track, Restaurant, Roadside Attraction, Sacred Site, Saitama, Sapporo, School, Sex, Shiga, Shikoku, Shipyard, Shizuoka, Shrine, Ski, Snow, Spa / Onsen, Sports, Store, Strip Club, Supermarket, Taxidermy, Temple, Theater, Tochigi, Tohoku, Tokushima, Tokyo, Tottori, Transportation, Travel, University, Urbex, US Military, Video, Wakayama, Yamagata, Yamaguchi, Yamanashi, Zombies, Zoo on 2024/06/15| 15 Comments »

I’ve been urbexing for almost 15 years. During that time I’ve never written any articles about equipment, despite being very happy with three different Nikon DSLRs, two Manfrotto tripods, and a Sanyo video camera – which broke in 2019 after almost 15 years of recording countless hours at hundreds of locations as well as places like Chernobyl and North Korea. Videos I always considered a bonus anyway… and I’m still having a hard time thinking of myself as a photographer, given that I have no formal education in that field and only do it as a hobby. A really time-consuming hobby, but nevertheless just a hobby. I also don’t have a background in technology, so what’s the point of reviewing camera equipment when I just have an opinion based on learning by doing? Well, that doesn’t keep countless “influencers” and Youtubers from churning out incompetent nonsense, but I wouldn’t want to be found dead with either label on me! And like my favorite professor at university once said in regards to papers we had to hand in: “Don’t claim anything you can’t proof!”

Fortunately there is no need to be technical or scientific about this Insta360 X4 article, because unfortunately we never got that far…
Like I said, I always considered video walkthroughs of the locations I explore a bonus. I started them pretty much right away, but at first I didn’t even publish them, because I only took them for myself. And even when I published them, I didn’t edit them. No cuts, no voice overs. Just me walking around breathing heavily into the silence. That all came to a sudden halt when my Sanyo stopped working after exploring the abandoned *Trump Hotel*, also wiping out the recordings of the whole day. At that point I was tired of doing the videos anyway – and my co-explorers were increasingly annoyed, because I added 10 to 30 minutes at the end of every exploration for the walkthrough. So I stopped doing them.
For the past 18 months I’ve been exploring solo again (don’t ask, it’s complicated and often quite frustrating, to be honest), but a few weeks ago a colleague of mine showed me an older model Insta360 video camera that a visiting cousin from the States forgot at his place in Japan. I was fascinated by the easy to use 360 photos and videos, so I did some research and decided to get one. I’ve read reviews, I’ve read product pages – I did my best to make an informed decision, because at first I considered buying the X2 or X3 as older models often are cheaper with only slightly fewer / worse features. The X2 was out of the race when I read in a review that it required a smartphone to be activated – something I didn’t read anywhere about the X3 and X4. I guess because it’s an idea that is so stupid that it probably was a one-time mistake by Insta360, facing so much backlash that they removed the requirement from following models. The price difference between the X3 and X4 wasn’t very big and since the latter was only four weeks old at the time, the price on Amazon and in brick and mortar stores was the same, so I decided to get it at my local Yodobashi Camera (street block sized electronics stores with hundreds of employees each, in case you are not familiar with the chain), where I’ve been a customer for almost 18 years – ever since I moved to Japan.
BIG MISTAKE!

Yodobashi Camera was extremely stingy, giving only 1% points on the video camera, despite a promotional campaign of giving 13% points for purchases over amount X – except for (small print)… But when you shell out 80k Yen on a new video camera you are looking forward to use, store points are the last thing you worry about anyway. Fortunately I still had some of those points, which I used to get a seriously overpriced MicroSD card, because without it the video camera would be useless and I wanted to try it out on the weekend before an upcoming urbex trip. 83500 Yen poorer, but with a big smile on my face I left Yodobashi Camera on a Friday evening after an otherwise pretty horrible week.

Saturday was supposed to be a great day, though it started with a rude awakening / realization…
After sleeping in and having a delicious breakfast, I enjoyed a nice unboxing. The first slight disappointment was when I realized that the included battery was dead. Well, not dead dead, but completely empty. Whatever, an hour or two wouldn’t make a difference. It would not dent my great mood for sure. That came a few hours later when the battery was fully charged. I booted the small brick for the first time, its screen came to life, asking me to choose a language – and then the screen showed what the camera was seeing… for about a second or so. Then some text popped up and my heart sank. You gotta be kidding me! What I was looking at was a screen telling me to download an app by Insta360 to a smartphone, iOS or Android, to unlock the video camera. What. The. Heck? I literally felt it in my fingers how my blood-pressure exploded, because unlike pretty much every person on the planet above the age of 6 years I don’t own a smartphone. Never have. In the late 90s I had a black and white Nokia for work (yes, I’m not the youngest anymore, though I started working full-time in my early 20s). When I moved to Japan I had a flip phone or two, but for the past 15 years or so I didn’t have any mobile phone at all, smart or not, because I don’t like them as they turn way too many people into dumb zombies. So here I had a brand-new, quite expensive video camera… that forced me to make it usable by using another device with cameras? Who comes up with stupid ideas like that?!
Certainly not Nikon! Their D7500 DSLR I bought just weeks prior worked with a partly charged battery and regular SD cards straight out of the box 5 minutes after purchase – without any charging or unlocking BS!
So I started to do some research… and didn’t find much. Like I said, I couldn’t care less about smartphones, apps and all that stuff, so I tried to find a solution to unlock the darn X4 via PC or MicroSD card. Of course I couldn’t find anything about that either, so I contacted Insta360 directly – who apparently didn’t read my message and instead sent me a standard reply. So I got back to them, apologized for not describing my problem properly (I’ve been in Japan too long…), and this time got an answer that at least implied that they understood the situation I was in – without being able to help, because though it seems to be nowhere stated on the box, the promo material or even on the X4 website (at least back in mid / late May, maybe they changed it by now)… you really need a smartphone and the Insta360 app to use a newly bought X4 video camera, that seems to work perfectly fine, but is made not usable on purpose by the manufacturer. Which absolutely blows my mind!
How is that even legal?
How can a company force you to use a completely unrelated piece of expensive technology that actually partly does the job of the product you just bought, to make your purchase usable? Without mentioning that essential detail with big warnings before purchase! And in addition, forces you to use an app, which does who knows what in the background without one knowing?
What’s next? You need an electric bike with WiFi to unlock your newly bought car? And if you don’t… sucks to be you, it’s completely useless!

Yodobashi Camera – (The Lack Of) Customer Service In Japan!
After some back and forth it was Monday and I came to the conclusion that I won’t be able to use the Insta360 X4, because it really needs a smartphone to unlock, which wasn’t properly communicated. So after work I went back to Yodobashi Camera, my go-to electronics store for the past almost 18 years. Never had a problem with them, because all the products I bought worked as intended right out of the box. So I went back to the cashier counter where I bought the video camera… and already ran into the first minor bump in the road – apparently I hadn’t paid for it in the camera department, but a neighboring one, which wasn’t a problem on Friday evening, but very well on Monday evening. So I went 20 meters over to the camera department and told them about my unfortunate situation: That I had bought this video camera three days prior, but couldn’t use it, because it doesn’t work without a smartphone, which wasn’t properly communicated by Insta360 or Yodobashi Camera. But I was very careful with everything, I didn’t even remove the protective film from either of the lenses. Some air through the teeth sucking, some going back behind the counter to talk to a superior and then something like the following conversation – it’s in quotation marks, but they are not really quotes, you know… just something like that, from memory:
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“But I can’t use the video camera.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I don’t have a smartphone. The X4 is useless to me.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I did proper research and I only found out about this after I opened the box and tried to use the X4.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I bought a D7500 last month, it worked out of the box…”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Then take it back and ask Insta360 to exchange the X4 – you have dozens of them here, you probably have to return one once in a while anyway.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Are you serious? I’ve been a customer here for almost 18 years, spent millions at your store and other ones in the building that has your name. Never had a problem – and the first time I have, you are stonewalling me?”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Really?”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”

At this point I gave up and exchanged a few more e-mails with Insta360 (“You should try to return the X4 where you bought it!” No kidding…), but their responses quickly became as useless and repetitive as the one of the guy at Yodobashi Camera – who is just a small cog in a big machine, so I don’t blame him; he’s punished enough with the lighting in the store and the uniform he has to wear all day.
So here we are, after me falling for the usual misconception about (customer) service in Japan, because I rarely ever had a real problem anywhere. It’s great as long as everything is within procedures – if somebody has planned for it, it most likely will go smoothly. Service is great. When service becomes customer service though, i.e. an individual customer needs help that requires improvisation outside of the planned service… you’re basically on your own. The only thing flexible in Japan is bamboo.

Nevertheless I still have moments when I wonder: AITAH?
I’m a huge believer in personal responsibility. If I make a mistake, I stand by it. I find behavior like ordering 20 items of clothes in different sizes and colors with the intention of sending 18 of them back despicable. In fact I’ve never sent anything back that I’ve ordered online, except for two USB-HDDs – and only because they didn’t work. I don’t do fast fashion, I don’t buy garbage from questionable sites like Shein oder Temu, I don’t replace electronics unless they are broken. (RIP, Nikon D7100!) I did due diligence before buying the Insta360 X4 and to this day everything in that (opened…) box is in mint condition. If I would have known about the smartphone requirement, I wouldn’t have bought the X4. It’s the reason why I didn’t buy the X2.
This is actually only the second time that I tell this story to anybody, because part of me is a bit ashamed that this series of unfortunate events happened – despite all the research before buying. But spending more than 80k on a useless brick of tech isn’t exactly something to be proud of. I don’t regret much in my life, but buying the Insta360 X4 I regret. And buying it at Yodobashi Camera is something I regret, too. Maybe Amazon would have been more accommodating with returns…
But I guess it is what it is – only money in the end. And no videos for Abandoned Kansai in the future. Heck, even if I would get the currently useless X4 to work, I would always be reminded of this story. Screw video cameras! Never was a fan, now I dislike them almost as much as smartphones. Which kind of closes the circle. But I’ll make sure to never ever even consider buying anything from Insta360 again – I still don’t understand how it’s even legal that they can do this. What’s next to unlock their cameras? Having to send them a voice message, swearing loyalty to Winnie the Xi(thead)? Apparently they can do anything without people questioning it…
I went back to Yodobashi Camera once more though, two days ago. I spent the remaining shop points I had on presents for my nephews without having to pay a single sen – my goal was it to hit +/- 20 points/Yen, but going to exactly 0 was priceless – and so I left the Yodobashi Camera building one last time with a big smile on my face. Upon arriving back home I cut up my loyalty card after almost 18 years. It probably doesn’t mean much to a large store chain like that. But it meant a lot to me!

Thank you for reading till the end and… What has your worst experience with Japanese (customer) service been? Write it in the comments!

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Non-Urbex: Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium

Posted in Aquarium, Asia, Japan, Kochi, Non-Urbex, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Shikoku, Travel on 2024/05/17| 10 Comments »

Whenever self-proclaimed Japan experts after their second or third trip recommend places like Iwakuni, Aomori or Otaru as off the beaten tracks, I’m not sure whether to giggle or facepalm… or both. And yet even “professionals” hardly ever shine a serious light on Shikoku, let alone this beautiful retrofuturism gem at the southwestern end of Japan’s fourth largest island. Matsuyama, Tokushima, maybe the Iya Valley with a side-trip to Kochi… Which is fine by me, actually. Let the masses trample the so-called Golden Route to death and leave the quiet corners for the people who really appreciate the country, who are willing to venture off to areas with three bus connections per day. And yes, I am aware that I am trying to talk up the rarely visited parts of Japan by pointing to one of the most Instagram-able places in the whole country, but… well… shoganai, eh?

(I just hope this place doesn’t turn into a second *Okunoshima*. It most likely won’t, because it’s too far away from the nearest Shinkansen station, but I went to *Okunoshima* (the “Rabbit Island”, though it should be known as the “Poison Gas Island”, as poison gas produced in World War 2 is the actual reason for rabbits being on the island) in 2012, when it was virtually unknown to the rather few tourists from overseas back then. Early in the season, on a small boat with maybe half a dozen other people. A serene experience. A few weeks ago I passed through Tadano-Umi again, the closest train station, on my way to Kure. The train along the coast was suspiciously busy and of course a group of Western tourists, most likely Aussies judging by the accent, burst into laughter as if it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard when another train station was announced – though they most likely misheard as the station’s name was Sunami, not Tsunami! The train got a lot quieter… and emptier… upon arrival at Tadano-Umi when several dozen travelers got off and a blob of humans rolled straight towards the harbor to educate themselves on how Japan was the only country in World War 2 to actually use poison gas in warfare. Naaah, I’m kidding! Every single new sign said Rabbit Island. I wonder how many of the tourists leave without ever finding out about the deadly past of their latest destination…)


How to get to the Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium
Anyway, the Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium (天然ミュージアム・足摺海底館) or Ashizuri Underwater Observation Tower! I first heard about it a few years ago, but like I said, the thing is really off the beaten tracks, especially without a car, so I couldn’t go earlier. I visited the area as a day trip from Kochi (about 3 hours by car, 3.5 by train and bus) as I only had three days in this seriously undervalued prefecture, but it was one of the greatest days in 2024 so far – sunny 20°C, perfect weather, hardly any people around on a Friday. (Other attractions of the Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park include a large playground, several camp grounds, the Kochi Prefectural Ashizuri Aquarium SATOUMI, a glass bottom boat, and several museum – plenty for a few days actually!)
I took an early Limited Express from Kochi Station to Nakamura Station, from there a bus to Shimizu Plaza Pal and then 5 minutes later a bus to Kaiteikan-mae – the beautiful train ride is a feast for the eyes and the two bus rides aren’t too shabby either, probably a bit nerve-wrecking though if you are not familiar with basic Japanese and buses in Japan. From the bus stop it’s a short walk along the coast to the Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium. Built in 1971 and opened on January 1st 1972 this unusual structure is basically a metal tube with a double-helix staircase to go under water near the coastline. At the bottom of the staircase is a room with portholes (?) to look outside and enjoy the wildlife at the bottom of the sea. Of course the sights are not as spectacular as at an aquarium where things are set up perfectly for viewers – but it’s a unique, authentic experience. Especially if you have a predilection for Showa Era retrofuturism roadside attractions. In that case I would consider the Ashizuri Underwater Observation Tower the Holy Grail. It’s absolutely gorgeous inside and out… as long as you are light on your feet as the place is not barrier-free at all, because hardly anybody cared about that five decades ago. You have to climb a couple of steps to access the bridge to the tower – and there is no elevator, so you have to face the spiral staircase both on the way up and down. Other than that the Ashizuri Underwater Aquarium is definitely one of the coolest places in all of Japan and as off the beaten tracks as it gets. I’m seriously surprised that all those western “Only I know the true soul and all of Japan’s secrets!” bloggers and Youtubers haven’t picked up on it (yet), but I thought the same thing about *Okunoshima in 2012* – and now the island is overrun by bogans and their Chinese equivalents.

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Onomichi Castle

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiroshima, Japan, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2012 on 2022/05/24| 1 Comment »

Onomichi is famous for the being the starting point of the Shimanami Kaido, a popular car expressway and bike trail stretching from Honshu to Shikoku across several islands… but abandoned places?!

I loved Japanese castles ever since I watched the mini-series “Shogun” with my dad as a little boy – and of course I’ve been to the most famous ones (Hikone, Himeji, Inuyama, Matsue, and Matsumoto) and then some dozens. What I dislike with a passion are fake castles built in the 20th century as tourist attractions – the most famous one probably being the one in Osaka. Great castle park with amazing moats, but the castle itself is one step away from being some Disney crap – at least they went all in and even included elevators, so it’s one of the few wheelchair accessible castles in Japan. The latest of those abominations was erected in 2018/19 – and all it needed was a rich idiot on an ego trip and some local politicians who thought that they can turn an industrial bedroom community into a tourist attraction. “Let’s check out the underrated city of Amagasaki, I’ve heard they have an amazing castle there!” is something nobody ever said. Heck, I live near Amagasucky and I’ve never been to the castle, not even to take some photos and rant about it.
50 years earlier, a couple hundred kilometers southwest. Onomichi, Hiroshima prefecture. An important trade harbor from the mid-12th to the mid-17th century, the town lost quite a bit of its former glory during the Tokugawa period as international trade was mostly limited to Nagasaki’s Dejima. After WW2 the movies Tokyo Story and The Naked Island reignited interest in Onomichi, so in 1964 the local chamber of commerce and industry had the glorious idea to attract the fun hungry post-war workers with a three-story watchtower, modeled after the castle tower of Hirosaki Castle, but without any historical background. It was in business for a few decades (as “National Museum of Castles, Onomichi Castle”), but closed in 1990 or 1992 – it probably fell victim to the asset price bubble of the late 80s, when investors decided to make the Seto Inland Sea THE new tourist destination in Japan and pumped insane amounts of money into the area, resulting in plenty of abandoned places still visible today (like the famous *La Rainbow Hotel & Tower*, where the Japanese police caught 30 urbexers and airsoft players since the start of the pandemic alone)! Located on a hill just behind Onomichi Station and surrounded by hotels, the castle saw quite a bit of foot traffic and therefore hardly any vandalism. At the time of my visit in 2012 most of the premises were overgrown, entrance impossible. I took a few photos and deemed the location not interesting enough to publish… until I found out recently that Onomichi castle (which really wasn’t a castle, just a glorified watchtower) had been donated to the city in 2018 and was demolished between December 2019 and January 2021. On March 11th 2022 the site was reopened to the public as Senkoji Park Viewpoint Hall, after the city spent 200 million Yen on the project.

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New Ginger Museum

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Food, Japan, Museum, Non-Urbex, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Visited in 2018 on 2020/07/14| 1 Comment »

In Japan you have a museum for just about everything – even gingers! … Sorry, that’s not correct. There are no gingers in Japan, only artificial rustheads (and a few imported real ones…). So it’s a ginger museum. A pink ginger museum! The New Ginger Museum!

Tochigi Prefecture is most famous for Nikko and its Toshogu Shrine with the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu, but its name-giving capital also has a tourist attraction or two to offer – probably the strangest one is the New Ginger Museum, just a quick 10 minute walk east of Tochigi Station (featuring both JR and Tobu trains!).
When I first heard about the New Ginger Museum I had no idea what to expect, but my buddy *Hamish* and I were on the way to Nikko for a road trip weekend anyway, so why not stop there and have a quick look around?
Apparently the museum is super busy on the weekends, which is why it has four designated parking lots, some of them suitable for buses, but we went on a weekday, so we were able to get of the few parking spots right in front of the building. Needless to say that there was hardly anybody there when we arrived at around 11:30 in the morning.
To both of our surprise the museum was free to enter, but if you want to spend some money, you have plenty of opportunitiws at the gift shop and the restaurant, both featuring a large variety of ginger themed / flavored options. A smart decision, because the museum turned out to be quite underwhelming. Probably 1/3 of the exhibition space was used for self-referencial things like old menus of the restaurant and posters of events held at the museum; basically a museum about the museum! Another 1/3 was used for all kinds of random pink things, from many units of the same plush animals to a pink shrine to printouts of caught pink Pokemon from Pokemon Go – I kid you not! The remaining 1/3 was actually somewhat ginger related as it depicted ginger and ginger products. Still not super interesting, but at least related to the topic. If they would have charged 500 Yen or 700 Yen at the door I would have felt slightly ripped off, but since it was free I was rather amused and more than willing to shell out several thousand Yen for lunch and presents for family and friends, like ginger scented candles and ginger salt. The food at the restaurant / cafe was actually pretty good – on one of the photos you can see pink ginger curry, pink ginger bits wrapped in bacon, ginger tea and ginger lemonade. (Speaking of which, sorry about the photo quality overall. The museum was rather dark and I didn’t bring a tripod inside, so shooting there freehand was quite challenging at times.)

The New Ginger Museum is literally and figuratively an acquired taste. I enjoyed the unhidden nonsense of it quite a bit since I was on vacation – and because it was on the way to our destination we didn’t waste much time to get there. Would it be worth a trip from Tokyo? Probably not, unless you really like (pink) ginger or really are into roadside attractions. Even as a stop to or from Nikko I would rather save the time and spend it in the mountains. But if it doesn’t take you much time and / or effort to go there I’d absolutely recommend it, just for the giggles and the gift shop.

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Takeshima Fantasy Museum

Posted in Aichi, Asia, Japan, Museum, Non-Urbex, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel on 2019/11/13| 2 Comments »

A colorful seashell museum with a nondescript name – mostly artistic, but also scientific… and not even abandoned!

Ever since I moved to Japan 13 years ago I’ve been traveling the country when time allows. At first day trips to touristy spots (now hard to enjoy due to the suffocating amount of tourists from overseas – visiting the bamboo forest in Kyoto’s Arashiyama or the temples and shrines in Nara, for example, is a completely different experience in 2009 and 2019!), then weekend trips to explore abandoned places. During those early exploration trips me and my various co-explorers didn’t actively avoid other places (and included even spots like the very famous and recently burnt down Shuri Castle in Okinawa), but we were quite focused on our ruins, especially during daylight hours. Exploring can be quite exhausting and after a while I realized that extended lunch breaks at mom and pop restaurants and occasional sightseeing spots can really break up an otherwise quite tense day. Sooner or later sightseeing spot lead to roadside attractions and here we are now, at the Takeshima Fantasy Museum. (After visiting the infamous *Zao Fox Village* last year…)
The Takeshima Fantasy Museum, located in Gamagori, Achi (about an hour southeast of Nagoya), has quite a bit of history. Opened in 1983 as Gamagori Fantasy House it featured colorful exhibits made from 5 million (!) pieces of corals and seashells, collected in 110 countries. During the economic boom of the 1980s even the strangest places did well, but after some years of decline it closed in 2010 – apparently without any plans of ever being opened again. I remember actually being there around late 2013 / early 2014, but wasn’t able to find a way in… and there was some construction going on. Turns out that the Gamagori Fantasy House was in the state of renewal and expansion. Part of the parking lot was turned into a (casual) seafood restaurant and the exhibits were overhauled, bringing the shell count up to 5.5 million upon reopening in August 2014 as the Takeshima Fantasy Museum.
When the recent exploration attempt of the *Gamagori City Pool* (actually within sight of the Takeshima Fantasy Museum) failed miserably it was a good opportunity to come back later and finally have a look inside. Fortunately photography without flash was allowed in the whole museum, so I took the opportunity to snap some high ISO shots for another roadside attraction article. While the *homepage of the museum* is in Japanese only, the museum hands out a nice, large pamphlet in English, which is included in the entrance fee – at 1000 Yen for adults, 800 Yen for senior citizens and 500 Yen for children not cheap, but still affordable, considering that it takes about an hour to enjoy the colorful fantasy world, the museum, and the gift. It’s a unique location worth supporting, especially if you have a soft spot for whimsical places and unusual art. While passing by the exhibits I was wondering what the people creating them were doing now. And I guess I got the answer in the gift shop, where I saw a guy making chickens using different kinds of seashells – to be sold in the shop. If you ever are in the Nagoya area: Have a look! I’m sure you won’t regret it. To me it was a strangely and surprisingly entertaining experience! And who knows, maybe I’ll be back one day after they close it again…

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Zao Fox Village

Posted in Animals, Asia, Japan, Miyagi, Non-Urbex, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Video on 2019/01/22| 6 Comments »

Cat cafés, dog cafès, owl cafés, a rabbit island, several cat islands, the deers of Nara and Itsukushima – not to mention several snake stations, monkey parks and bear villages as well as countless regular zoos and aquariums. Japan is (almost) every animal lover’s dream… and the more adventurous ones are heading for the mountains of Miyagi prefecture to visit the Zao Fox Village!

The Miyagi Zao Fox Village (a.k.a. Kitsune Mura, which is Japanese for… well… fox village) is located on the foot of Mount Zao, a large and absolutely gorgeous onsen / skiing / hiking area on the border of Yamanashi and Miyagi prefectures, just an hour outside of Sendai. According to the surprisingly informative and well-made English homepage it features “rare 6 types and over 100 fluffy cute foxes”. Unfortunately public transportation in this area is not running as often as in central Tokyo, so you either go there on a Tuesday or Friday by bus from Shiroishi Station (not Shiro Ishii Station!) at 7:58 a.m. and return to said station with the second bus of the day that leaves nearby Kawarago Dam at 2:32 (which means that you are stuck there for about five and a half hours!) – or you don’t. There are no other connections, except for private means of transportation (a taxi ride takes about 20, 25 minutes according to GoogleMaps and should cost about 4000 Yen), so… welcome to the Japanese countryside!
After paying 1000 Yen and agreeing to a couple of rules (not leaving the concrete paths, not squatting down, …) you first reach a tree-housy area on a slope where some of the foxes, the beautiful and especially tame ones, are resting in rather large cages. There’s also a mini (petting) zoo with other animals, and the veterinarian’s office. From there you can reach the main area (where the foxes roam freely and the large breeding cages are) or either exit through the gift shop. This main part is basically an open forest area with concrete paths and some benches as well as installations for the foxes to hide and play – and a big sign reminding you not to squat down or the foxes might bite or pee on you. You are also advised not to pet those foxes… and after being there for a couple of minutes and seeing them (play?) fight, you sure don’t want to anyway – though there is an optional petting experience at certain times with the caged foxes.

As you probably have guessed by now, the Miyagi Zao Fox Village isn’t abandoned – and probably won’t be anytime soon. But as I travel all across Japan I often run into roadside attractions, so-called B-spots, that look quite intriguing… and then we push on, because it’s not abandoned or we don’t have time. I always felt sorry for all the tourist explorers who came all the way to Japan and “explored” the already photographed to death *Western Village* as well as the moldy, rundown spa hotels of Kinugawa Onsen, but didn’t take the time to have a look at the spectacular Toshogu Shrine in nearby Nikko – and yet here I was doing a similar thing on a (much!) smaller scale… so I decided to add some B-spots to the Abandoned Kansai mix. It’s actually nothing new, I’ve done it in the past (for example with my article about *Hachijojima* or the one about the *Okinawan themed parks*. And don’t worry, the vast majority of articles on Abandoned Kansai will still be about abandoned places – throwing a B-spot into the mix every two or three months won’t hurt the flow… and half of them will probably look abandoned anyway… 😉
But to wrap up the Zao Fox Village: I’m not a fan of any kind of animal prisons, especially dolphinariums and circuses, but much to my surprise the Zao Fox Village didn’t make a bad impression to me. We arrived there shortly after 3 p.m., two hours before the place closed, but it was a late autumn day, so the sun was already setting in the mountains and we were losing daylight quickly. It also meant that the foxes had been entertaining guests for six hours, so about half of them were already tired and just trying to keep warm by making themselves small in one of the few preferably sunny spots. About three or four dozen foxes though were still roaming around freely. Some of them were fighting occasionally – but only away from the concrete paths humans were not supposed to leave anyway. And while it was a really strange feeling to have one or two getting so close that you could easily touch them (or they could bite you without a warning…), it was also quite exciting to get so close to an animal you usually only can see from afar. Some of the foxes were especially tame, for example the one with the gorgeous white and black fur – that one actually sat down on a bench and patiently had its photo taken. So patiently that it was borderline annoying, because in today’s selfie culture some people seem to have lost awareness of their own selfishness completely. It took three Japanese girls a couple of minutes to take some selfies and group photos, which is totally fine, but then a… tourist from another Asian country… took like 10 minutes to take selfies and have her picture taken by her parents, over and over and over again, while a dozen people lined up to take photos – which was completely ignored by that… BTW, are female foxes called bitches, too? No, I just looked it up, they are called vixens – which is probably what that girl thought of herself, though she wasn’t; she was just narcissistic. Long story short, her photo session ended when even the monochrome fox had enough, got up and left; leaving quite a few disappointed people behind, including yours truly. Luckily the furry model just went for a walk and was back two minutes later, giving me the opportunity to take a couple of quick shots, before yet another line formed.

So… overall visiting the Zao Fox Village wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. When you go to pages like Tripadvisor especially the English speaking reviews depict a nightmarish place that make South American prisons look like a spa vacation – and I kinda expected to see a rundown facility with a couple of visitors, but in reality they had a couple of parking lots and even close to closing something like 50, 60 visitors at any given time on the premises. In peak seasons like late spring and early autumn this place must be a money making machine. All the animals, not just the foxes, didn’t look like they were mistreated or malnourished. At least not to me, but then again – I’m not an experienced animal prison visitor and I went there in late autumn; what the situation is like at 35°C in summer I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure if those one star reviewers would see me in my small apartment in summer, they’d probably criticize the animal unworthy living situation I exist in, too… 😉 Of course *the rabbit island Okunoshima* is much more relaxed and all animals there are actually free, but if you take the Zao Fox Village for what it is (a commercial roadside attraction, not a wildlife haven for hand-tame predators) it’s a unusual, slightly quirky place to visit – and even some the haters couldn’t resist to take and publish selfies… Probably not worth traveling to, but definitely worth stopping at, if you are in the area anyway; I actually added it to my *map of demolished and touristy places*.

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