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Archive for the ‘Shikoku’ Category

Boobs Clinic

Posted in Abandoned, Hospital, Japan, Photography, Shikoku, Travel, Urbex on 2025/01/29| 4 Comments »

I love abandoned hospitals! Always have, always will – ever since I walked into the *Tokushima Countryside Clinic* about a year after I started exploring abandoned places. It wasn’t a standalone hospital as we are used to in the West, more like a traditional Japanese mansion with a pharmacy and a study and an examination room. Most of those clinics are basically the doctor’s home with a section for business – and I usually named them clinics here on the blog, while hospitals are standalone buildings with rooms for inpatients. *Hospitals here on Abandoned Kansai* also tend to be rather modern whereas most clinics are from 50s or 60s, some even pre-WW2, like the aforementioned Tokushima Countryside Clinic.
The Boobs Clinic (named after two pictures on a wall in the office, which hopefully were put up after the clinic closed – it wasn’t named that because it was home to a cosmetic surgeon, or any surgeon for that matter) in rural Ehime prefecture looked like any other house in the area, maybe on the larger side. If there had ever been signs that it was a doctor’s office, they had been removed a long time ago. At the time of my visit in late 2020 (exploring during the pandemic was the best!) it was just another house on the main road of a small town.
Since I wasn’t in charge of that trip, I actually had serious doubts when approaching the building, because it could as well still have been inhabited – and you really don’t want to walk into somebody’s home while the people living there are just minding their own business…
To be honest, this wasn’t a very memorable exploration. According to the photo data we were in and out within 45 minutes and the main reason I remember it, is because of the pictures I’ve taken – I actually had already written that I didn’t take any in the rest of the house, but then I checked the set to create a selection for the gallery of this article… and I had to rewrite this paragraph, because apparently I had taken a picture of the not so pretty living room. That being said, the whole building was in bad condition and partly falling apart, with the rest being moldy. A decent location worth stopping for for sure, but nothing spectacular when you have more than 10 years of exploring in Japan under you belt (at the time). In addition it was a very busy day with a total of four locations and hundreds of kilometers of driving, a lot on countryside roads through small towns. I hope you’ll enjoy the gallery, but there really is not much to say about this location as it is virtually unknown and exploring it was a surprise to me, too. My guess is that it was built in the 50s or 60s and provided care for the surrounding villages – handwritten patient files similar to those found in other clinics as well as various medicine and various medical instruments were all over the place, which was probably closed when the doctor running it retired or died. The end. Literally.

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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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Shikoku Festival Village

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Museum, Photography, Shikoku, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2015/09/29| 1 Comment »

A festival village? What the heck is a festival village? To be honest, even 3.5 years after exploring it, I am still not sure!

A couple of years ago, the Shikoku Festival Village was one of the most popular abandoned places on Japan’s smallest and least populous main island; at least amongst Japanese explorers. Sadly, hardly any of them cared much about the location’s history – and the rest of the internet neither, given that it was apparently abandoned in 1999; three years after the first camera phone was sold in Japan and almost a decade before they achieved decent quality. And so I wasn’t able to find a single photo or video of the time the Shikoku Festival Village was still in business – and only little more information, though it is said to be yet another failed project of the Japanese asset price bubble, which means that the place was most likely built between 1986 and 1991. It consisted of two buildings, a dome shaped museum and a big multi-purpose building, connected by a huge parking lot that included a helipad and had two massive entrance gates on different height levels, given that the whole complex was located on a slope – yep, that sounds like the megalomaniac bubble economy…

I think it’s safe to say that the Shikoku Festival Village was carefully closed and shut tight when closed about one and a half decades ago, but vandals / airsoft players made sure to gain access as BB pellets all over the place indicated. The museum was still split in two parts by massive shutters all over the building. Offices, exhibition rooms (with both intact and shattered showcases) and a couple of bathrooms. On the ground floor I found a huge and still closed abandoned safe, a Pythagoras by SECOM. The main building across the parking lot was accessible on the ground floor and on the third floor – which turned out to be a great thing, because when I was about to leave, I realized that a car parked in front of the gate I entered… not really through… but rather by. Luckily not a security guy, but some random dude, most likely trying to kill some time away from his family. Nevertheless it would have been a hassle to exit with the fella watching through his driving mirror. The building itself was big enough to have an escalator, though I have to admit that I don’t remember much of it as I kinda rushed through since I was running out of time. On the ground floor I found some hover disc, flying saucers if you want to call them that – probably a lot of fun in the 1990s, especially with the large parking lot right in front of the building. The top floor seemed to be the amusement area with a bar or two, seating areas and more exhibition space. There also were several boxes filled with high quality prints of the last museum exhibition – expensive pottery. The quite vandalized middle floor offered more party space, though it didn’t look as if the building allowed for overnight stays, which probably contributed to the Shikoku Festival Village’s downfall, given that there were no bigger hotels in walking distance.
On a sunny day with friends I probably would have considered the Shikoku Festival Village somewhat of a dud – but the overcast, drizzly weather and the fact that I was exploring solo added quite a bit to this event space’s atmosphere. Especially the darker areas of the museum were spooky as hell. Too bad that the place’s history is still mostly shrouded and most likely will stay that way forever, but overall it was an interesting exploration. Oh, and of course I would have loved to take a ride on one of those hover discs, but they were probably beyond repair anyway after all those years of abandonment.

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Tokushima Countryside Clinic Revisited

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hospital, House, Japan, Monochrome, Photography, Shikoku, Tokushima, Urbex, Visited in 2011 on 2013/03/28| 47 Comments »

The Sudden Stop Syndrome is a widespread phenomenon in Japan. When you least expect it, people just stop walking without any warning signs. Half a meter in front of an open train door (even after lining up for minutes!), 5 cm inside of a train (basically in the middle of the door), at the end of elevators, moving walkways and steps, or right in front of you just as you walk down a street. No slowing down, no looking over the shoulder – just a sudden stop as if they were the last person on the planet. So far no deadly incidents have occurred, but there is always the risk of bumping into somebody… The worst part about it: There is no treatment and it can happen to everybody at any time. I don’t know how widespread the Sudden Stop Syndrome is in your country, but in Japan you most likely will observe it at one point or the other. (And by that I mean “at least weekly”.)
I wonder if the Sudden Stop Syndrome was known to the doctor(s) running the Tokushima Countryside Clinic (TCC) from as early as the 1930s on. Probably not. I imagine back then the times were less rushed – and the slower you walk, the less sudden a stop is.

The Tokushima Countryside Clinic is without the shadow of a doubt one of the best abandoned hospitals in Japan, probably in the world – although “hospital” and “clinic” are words that are used rather loosely in Japan.
When I hear the terms in English (or my native tongue German) I imagine rather big health care facilities with several doctors and departments; buildings for dozens or even hundreds of patients and inpatients. In Japan basically every family practice is called a clinic – but even some hospitals can host only a handful of inpatients and close on the weekends. Clinics are usually named after the doctor who owns and runs it, or by the town they are in.
The spookiest hospital I’ve ever been to is the *Hospital #126 in Pripyat*, abandoned in the aftermath of the *Chernobyl Disaster* – a big hospital with several floors and never-ending hallways, with paint flaking off the walls and wind making scary noises; just right out of a horror movie, though reality probably was scarier.
The Tokushima Countryside Clinic on the other hand offered quite a different experience. Located in a small town in the countryside of Tokushima prefecture it once were the rather big premises of the local doctor; half private house, half clinic. Even without the medical equipment it would have been a gorgeous example of an early modern Japanese estate, built about 100 years ago – most likely earlier.
Hidden in the backstreet of a side street in a tiny town the Tokushima Countryside Clinic really is off the beaten tracks and for years it was one of the most secret abandoned places in Japan. Although deserted more than 30 years prior to both of my visits (November 2010 and April 2011) the clinic was in amazing condition – you can find out a little bit more about the clinic’s history *in the article about my first visit*.

Being at the TCC you actually breathe history. The amount of books, chemicals and equipment left behind is amazing!
On one photo you can see containers of Risoban plaster. “Medical use, “Ideal adhesive plaser”, “Trade mark” – probably high-end when bought, but completely unknown to the internet today.
Oude Meesters on the other hand is still in business. The South African company with the Dutch name is famous for its brandies and actually still uses the same logo you can find on a bottle of Villa Rosa in one uf the photos – putting it dangerously close to containers filled with chemicals probably wasn’t a good idea though.
A box of “Koyamas Safe Pessaries” has written Osaka Juzen Hospital on the side – don’t get your hopes up, that’s not the real name of the Tokushima Countryside Clinic, it’s the hospital Dr. Sakae Koyama was the president of when he developed his birth control method: Koyama designed the conical shaped soft rubber diaphragm, patented as “Koyama Suction Pessary”, first and foremost out of personal motivation as him and his wife were parents to 12 children. The doc made history when he tried to market his invention in the States and the pessaries were seized by the customs as birth control was illegal in the United States in the early 1930s – that lead to a couple of lawsuits legalizing the trade of contraceptives in December 1936.
And the list goes on… and on… and on. Somebody should actually get all the stuff inside of the Tokushima Countryside Clinic and rebuild it as a room in a museum. I think you could spend weeks or months researching all the items in this wonderful family practice, spanning about 50 years in six different decades, maybe seven.

During this two hour long second visit I didn’t even enter the living quarters of this stunningly beautiful mansion – so you have to *look at the previous article* for photos of that part. And like in the article about my original visit I will publish the photo set in monochrome as it adds so much to the atmosphere in this case. I didn’t think much about the TCC recently, but when I went back to the photo set and my notes to write this article I got all excited about it again – some of the pictures actually gave me goosebumps and I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do.

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Urbex Trip To Shikoku

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Demolished, Factory, Haikyo, Hospital, Hotel / Ryokan, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Monochrome, Non-Urbex, Photography, Sacred Site, Shikoku, Spa / Onsen, Tokushima, Urbex, Visited in 2011 on 2013/03/26| 13 Comments »

One of my favorite things about urban exploration is travelling. Most of the time I do day trips within Kansai, but every couple of months I go on mini vacations to other regions. *Okinawa*, *Kyushu*, *Hokkaido*, *Shikoku* … and a couple of more that will be revealed in the future.
I lived in Japan for several years before I started to visit abandoned places – and in those first years I barely travelled within Japan. Kansai has plenty of castles, temples and shrines, some of the most famous in all of Japan. More than enough to get templed out, shrined out and castled out, so I didn’t feel the urge to spend hundreds of bucks on train tickets – and then a similar amount on hotels. Only to see more castles, temples and shrines that look similar to what I can see down the street. Abandoned places on the other hand are unique – and some of them are actually worth spending a couple of hundred bucks, at least to me.
The spring of 2011 saw my second overnight trip to Shikoku. *During the first one* my favorite location on Japan’s least populated main island was the spectacular *Tokushima Countryside Clinic*, a small town doctor’s house, barely harmed by vandals and the ravages of time. My friend Gianluigi, an avid photographer for almost two decades, loved the photos I took at the clinic, so I convinced him to go on a road trip – I would show him that wonderfully spooky gem if we would stop on other abandoned places along the way…
If you are a regular reader of Abandoned Kansai you might remember two articles I wrote about really unique haikyo about half a year ago – the abandoned Japanese spa *Shimizu Onsen Center* and the giant Buddha statue / viewing platform *World Peace Giant Kannon*; both of them were actually part of this second trip to Shikoku.
So here is a complete list of all the locations:
Amano Hospital
Daiwa Pottery
Kuroshio Lodge
Shimizu Onsen Center
Tokushima Countryside Clinic Revisited
World Peace Giant Kannon

One of these places has been demolished since I visited it two years ago – you’ll find out soon which one… and then I’ll add it to my *GoogleMap of Demolished Haikyo*.

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Shikoku New Zealand Village

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Animals, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kagawa, Museum, New Zealand, Photography, Race Track, Restaurant, Shikoku, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/02/19| 35 Comments »

Japan is a linguistically and culturally extremely homogenous country. Of its 127 million inhabitants about 98.5% are ethnic Japanese, 0.5% are Korean and 0.4 are Chinese – leaving a whopping 0.6% others; including yours truly. Those 0.6% “others” include about 210.000 Filipinos, mostly of Japanese descent, and 210.000 Brazilians, also mostly of Japanese descent – which means that only about 0.3% of Japan’s population are neither Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino-Japanese nor Brazilian-Japanese.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term gaijin before (外 gai = outside, 人 jin = person), a short version of the term gaikokujin (外国gaikoku = foreign country, 人 jin = person). People are still arguing if it’s pejorative term, but personally I don’t like it very much, because it’s such a simple term, pushing everybody who is not Japanese to the outside – which is a precarious thing in a country where a group is still so much more important than an individual.

Integration?

Becoming a foreigner in Japan is actually an achievement by itself. Japan isn’t eager to let many people in and therefore the requirements to get a long-term visa are rather high – usually you have to have either a Bachelor’s degree or several years of work experience; in both cases an employer has to vouch for you. Other possibilities are investor visas or some kind of artist visa, but there quite a bit of cash is involved; and so is with the spousal visa… 😉
Once in the country the Japanese government couldn’t care less about you as long as you renew your visa when it expires and pay your taxes – and those are usually handled by the company you work for anyway. While there are long and public discussions about integration in European countries there is zip in Japan. Language classes and tests? Bah, humbug! On the other hand you shouldn’t expect anybody to be able to speak English anywhere, despite the huge English school industry in Japan; especially at the immigration office, where you can address the staff in English as much as you want – they’ll always reply in Japanese, even though most of the time they obviously understood what you’ve said…
But Japan in general isn’t set up for integration, probably because of the educational system. You have your childhood friends, you have your high school friends, you have your university friends and you have your work friends – usually four different groups that keep you busy for the rest of your life; with no need to make additional friends at any point; or many opportunities for that matter, like community colleges or sports clubs, both extremely popular in Germany, especially after moving to a new area. (With the result that many foreigners in Japan stick with each other, too – I don’t think I know any foreigner here who has more Japanese than foreign friends; and by that I mean friends, not Facebook acquaintances…)

Xenophobia?

With that few foreigners in the country and that strong of a national identity I am still not sure if Japan is an above average racist country or not. People are definitely more polite in general than let’s say in my home country Germany (sorry guys, but certain things really are better in Zipangu…), especially in everyday service situations like shopping, but I experienced some of the weirdest behavior here, probably because hardly any Japanese school kid has foreign co-pupils, while I went to school with people of Italian, Austrian, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, Japanese, British, Polish and Bavarian descent – and because the average Japanese person doesn’t think that you can understand what they say.
Sometimes they most likely mean no evil (like that one time when I had a dinner date with a Japanese girl at an Indian restaurant and all of a sudden all the tables around us talked about their oversea vacations, their foreign alibi friends and how great it would be to be able to be fluent in English…), sometimes I’m not sure (remember me *not getting a hotel room after the clerk found out that I’m a foreigner*?) – and sometimes they actually do mean harm. For example that young Japanese couple and their two friends who have beaten a Nepali restaurant owner to death in January 2012; one of them were quoted afterwards “I thought the foreigner had shoved me, so I got angry and kicked him many times.” (Note the use of “foreigner”? I’m sure it was “gaijin” in the original… Not “the man”, or “the Nepali” – “the foreigner”…)

Discrimination

It’s just a completely different mindset regarding foreigners and discrimination in general – and most people don’t even question it, because to them it’s normal. Like most countries Japan has a long history of discrimination. It even went through a time when a social class system with all its downsides was officially established; during the Edo period (1603 to 1868). Back then the burakumin (a.k.a. eta, “an abundance of filth”) were the outcasts and usually connected to jobs dealing with public sanitation or death (butchers, tanners, …), but when the class system was abolished the discrimination didn’t end. More than 100 years later, in 1975, there was a huge scandal when an anti-discrimination organization found out that a company in Osaka sold copies of a handwritten 330-page book listing names and locations of former burakumin settlements. Companies bought that book to compare the listed locations with the addresses of applicants – to prevent them from hiring descendants of burakumin; some famous firms like Daihatsu, Honda, Nissan and Toyota were among those companies… Two generations later the issue finally is no more, instead the average Japanese “discriminist“ focuses on foreigners – and I am so tired of and annoyed by comments about “those dog eating Koreans” or “those Chinese comfort women who try to screw the Japanese state”… (“Comfort women” is a Japanese euphemism for the sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese military in World War 2. While some (Japanese) historians like Ikuhiko Hata claim that there were 20.000 volunteer prostitutes, others found that up to 400.000 women were hired under false pretenses or even kidnapped into “comfort stations” all over Asia; but even the “few” volunteers made a bad choice as about 75% of the comfort women died during the war due to mistreatment and diseases. Shinzo Abe, the current Japanese prime minister, claimed during his first term in 2007 that the Japanese military didn’t keep sex slaves during WW2, although the government admitted to the fact in 1993 after decades of denial!)

New Zealand Village

Despite their share of xenophobia the average Japanese seems to love to travel and is actually interested in experiencing foreign countries; especially non-Asian countries… They barely ever jump all in, backpacking all by themselves – more like group vacations with Japanese speaking travel guides. Or an even safer version: themed parks in Japan! Recently I wrote a vastly popular article about the *Chinese themed park Tenkaen*, but in spring I was able to visit the rather unknown *New Zealand Farm in Hiroshima* and the *New Zealand Village in Yamaguchi*. Even less known, and after more than a thousand words of introduction we finally get to it, is the Shikoku New Zealand Village. It was actually the first of the three I visited, but due to certain circumstances I never got to write about it. (If you missed the articles about the other two New Zealand parks I recommend reading them first for background information…)
I don’t remember how I found out about the Shikoku New Zealand Village, but I’m sure it wasn’t an urbex article, because to the best of my knowledge till that very day nobody has ever written about the place. I remember seeing a photo of the entrance to the parking lot though, with heavy machinery in the background. That was on a Thursday – worried that the place was in the process of being demolished I went there two days later, despite the facts that the weather forecast wasn’t favorable and it took me about 4 hours to get there. And except for the photo and the name I didn’t know anything about the park – not what it was, not when it was closed, not if there was security, not how to get in. You know, the risky kind of exploration…
I saw the first surprise when walking up to the parking lot – there was a rather big house right next to it, with wet laundry in the garden. The parking lot was blocked by barricades, entering via a muddy road to the side was difficult due to rusty barbed wire and lots of vegetation. After getting a decent grasp of the situation I decided to jump the blockade at the parking lot and walk right in, my heart pounding like mad. At the time I had more than 150 explorations under my belt, nevertheless I was and still am nervous exploring new and unchartered territory. As soon as I entered the place I heard motor noises… Not a big car motor, probably some gardening tool? Well, after a couple of seconds I realized that it was a model aircraft – and as soon as one landed another one started for almost all of the two and a half hours I spent at the Shikoku New Zealand Village.
Now that you’ve already seen the Tenkaen and the other two New Zealand villages the Shikoku one might not seem that exciting or spectacular, but to me it was the first themed park I ever visited, and I was all by myself, so to me it was extremely adventurous. Cautiously I progressed – first the sheep race track and the archery station, then a barn I wasn’t able to enter. From there I reached a bike race track before I walked back to the main street leading to the Oakland House; basically a restaurant and a souvenir shop. When I walked around the corner I stumbled across surprise number 2: the road in front of me was gone – a landslide washed it away! Now that’s something you don’t see every day… The rest of the park was less spectacular though. Two more barns, a long slide on a slope, a pond, a bakery and a BBQ area.
What was absolutely fantastic about the Shikoku New Zealand Village was the almost complete lack of vandalism. No broken windows, no kicked in doors, no graffiti. Sure, I wasn’t able to enter all the buildings, but that didn’t matter to me, because nothing was bolted up or destroyed – unlike at *Nara Dreamland* for example. Natural decay at its best…

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

Addendum 2016-01-13: A while after my first exploration of the Shikoku New Zealand Village I revisited this awesome location. *Here is what happened since then.*

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Shimizu Onsen Center – An Abandoned Japanese Spa

Posted in Abandoned, Animals, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Shikoku, Spa / Onsen, Tokushima, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011 on 2012/09/18| Leave a Comment »

The Shimizu Onsen Center was the last stop on a road trip to Shikoku my buddy Gianluigi and I did in the spring of 2011. Usually I write a short road trip summary in advance, but these days I’m a bit busy, so maybe I’ll make up leeway some day in the future – after all it was quite a busy road trip with six locations in two days.

Onsen is the Japanese term for hot spring, but usually it is more about the hotel / restaurant that is making use of the water. The Shimizu Onsen Center is one of those hidden gems of the beaten tracks deep in the mountains of Shikoku – and the name is just perfect, because shimizu actually means “pure water”. Pure water that won’t be soiled by many visitors, because the Shimizu Onsen Center closed a couple of years ago. If you try to find some information about it yourself, make sure to not confuse it with several other towns named Shimizu all over Japan (like in Fukui, Hokkaido, Kochi, Shizuoka, and Wakayama). You can imagine that the name is quite popular…

When Gian and I drove onto the already slightly overgrown parking lot we had no idea at all what expect – I had never seen photos of the Shimizu Onsen Center and I’ve never seen any since I’ve been there, so please consider it an original find that hasn’t appeared on any blog about Japanese ruins, neither in English nor in Japanese. As we got out of the car it just started to rain and we were pretty tired after a series of exciting but energy-sapping explorations. Nevertheless we closed in quickly, but carefully, just in case the low buildings nearby were home to some curious spectators. But we were lucky and able to enter the Shimizu Onsen Center without trouble of any kind. Not only that, but there was a note taped to the entry glass door of the spa, explaining a little bit about the place’s history. According to this it was opened in 1981 and operated for 14 years before it was sold to a new owner. Financial trouble began in 2003 and in late November of 2007 the place closed with 160 million Yen of debt – just three and a half years before Gian and I visited.

The Shimizu Onsen Center was fed by a sodium hydrogen carbonate spring with a temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, helpful to treat rheumatism, neuralgia, diabetes, and skin diseases. It targeted mainly day-trippers and tourists who booked accommodations nearby. Opening hours were from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. (closed every 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month) and the entrance fee was 600 Yen. In the northern part I found a couple of Japanese style guest rooms with tatami mats and small TVs, but I’m not sure if they were used for overnight stays or just to relax between two baths.

Gian and I entered through the normal entrance on the second floor and went straight downstairs to the first floor, where the baths were. Both the one for males as well as the ones for females were equipped with a sauna and featured several frog statues. The Japanese word for frog is “kaeru”, which can also mean “to return”, and that made them good luck charms / symbols for money and coming back safely. This floor also featured the already mentioned guest rooms, which could be reached through a very, very dark hallway. The whole floor and all the items there looked a bit old and run down (like the massage chairs in the hallway and vending machine for razors), but there were no signs of vandalism or theft.

That also applied for the second floor with the front desk and a huge tatami room with a stage – a typical Japanese party room for long karaoke sessions with dozens of attendees. The tiny coop next to the stage even still had all the music equipment including countless tapes. No vandalism, no theft. In the entrance area we found a bin stuffed with umbrellas, slippers were still lined up and the front desk was neat and tidy.

The rather small third floor was exciting and disappointing at the same time. On the one hand the former bar was removed and so were the arcade machines that one day must have been there. On the other hand I finally found some dead animals, in amazingly good condition actually. Two skeletonized birds and a rat with some of the skin left, surrounded and partly covered by dead maggots. One of the bird skeletons was on the stairs on the way up, but the other one was just a couple of centimeters away from the rat – it looked like hunter and prey died at the same time at the same place. And that rat was huge! Maybe 30 centimeters long, and by that I mean the body alone. Since it was grey outside and I had to bring my tripod for the interior shots anyway I set up my little equipment to a comfortable height and zoomed to get a decent picture, being the lazy photographer I am sometimes. I was aware that the exposure time was rather long (a quarter of a second), but I didn’t realize that I zoomed to a point where gravity took over and the lens continued to zoom on its own – and so I accidentally created one of my favorite photos ever, one that still makes me a bit dizzy to this very day. Excited by this new discovery (commonly known as radial blur) I took some additional similar shots with both the rat skeleton and the bird skeleton next to it before we finally ran out of time – we were in the middle of nowhere in Shikoku on a rainy day and had less than 3.5 hours to get the car back to the rental company. Which really reminded me of my *first trip to Shikoku*, but this time the car rental was in Osaka, not in Kobe – and due to Golden Week the roads were a lot busier…

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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Yashima Cable Car – Upper Terminus

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Kagawa, Shikoku, Transportation, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011 on 2012/08/13| 4 Comments »

Quite a while ago I wrote about my experiences exploring the *lower terminus of the Yashima Cable Car* – and after I was done I took the bus up the mountain. Usually I would have taken the hiking trail up there (or would have walked along the abandoned track like I did several times at the *Mount Atago Cable Car*), but since I lost quite some time in the morning thanks to a Shinkansen standstill (thanks, JR – the extra fee for the bullet train was really worth the money… grumble…) I took the easy way up. It was also a good way to check out the cable car’s competition, which made me wonder if the bus was already running when the cable car was still operating. Sure, the trip took about 10 minutes instead of 5, but it ended right next to Yashima Shrine (not a kilometer away) and the price was ridiculously low in comparison: 100 Yen each way!
The upper terminus of the Yashima Cable Car (屋島山上駅, yashima sanjo eki, Yashima Mountaintop Station) was as locked up and untouched as the lower terminus – but the building itself was much more beautiful. Rather small, like most cable car stations, it totally reminded me of the *Maya Hotel* in Kobe. I think I’m a sucker for that art deco style of the 1920s and 30s. At the time of my visit the area was used by construction workers of the nearby Yashima Castle reconstruction site – there were parked cars everywhere and their container office almost blocked the access to the cable car track. Luckily none of the workers were in sight when I arrived, so I was able to sneak to the back and took some pictures: car #2 was already waiting for me as I expected, sadly slightly vandalized by some spray paint on the windows of the right side. Similar to the lower terminus the amount of decay was just perfect – the car, the handrails, the building itself. A perfect abandoned beauty, worthy the cover of a book or a magazine.

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Yashima Cable Car – Lower Terminus

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Kagawa, Shikoku, Transportation, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011 on 2012/05/30| 3 Comments »

Being a mountainous country Japan has lots of cable cars and ropeways. And it seems like every single one of them was built in the late 1920s / early 1930s. A lot of them were demolished after just a couple of years in the 1940s to support the war efforts of Imperial Japan (every piece of metal counted…) – amongst others the *Mount Atago Cable Car* and the *Rokko Ropeway*. The Yashima Cable Car (YCC) had a bit more luck. Opened on April 21st 1929 it too was suspended as a nonessential line on February 11th 1944. But although some material was taken away (I’m not sure what exactly though…) it didn’t mean the end of the YCC: On April 16th 1950 the Yashima Cable Car opened again for business. And business was good thanks to the famous Yashima Shrine on top of Mount Yashima, about a kilometer away from the YCC terminal. I guess it got even better when some businessmen decided to make Mount Yashima a full-blown tourist attraction (*you can read all about it here*), but when the plan fell through the Yashima Cable Car was in trouble, too. On October 16th 2004 operations were suspended again, but it took almost a year (August 31st 2005) until the line was officially closed and abandoned.
According to a tourist guide book first published in the 1980s the cable car ran from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., charging 1160 Yen for the roundtrip. It seems like prices went up and service hours were cut down, so in 1999 the cable car ran every 20 minutes from 8 a.m. to 5.40 p.m., charging 700 Yen one way and 1300 Yen for a roundtrip.
At the time of my visit the lower terminus of the Yashima Cable Car (屋島登山口駅, yashima tozanguchi eki – Yashima Trailhead Station) stood locked-up and abandoned on the foot of Mount Yashima near the trailhead up the mountain. The road leading there was almost as abandoned – I could vividly imagine how good business must have been 20, 30 years ago for the now closed restaurants and souvenir shops. Right next to the station were a taxi stand and a metalworking company, making some noise and keeping an eye on the inaccessible station building. The 858 meter long cable car track was accessible though, with car #1 parked right at the platform. And it was beautiful! On the one hand it was hard to believe that the place had been abandoned just six years ago, on the other hand there were no signs of vandalism and everything had just the right amount of decay – and the beautiful weather on the day of my visit didn’t hurt the atmosphere either…

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