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Archive for the ‘Urbex’ Category

Yamaguchi Grand Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Yamaguchi on 2024/02/28| 10 Comments »

Abandoned hotels are a dime a dozen in Japan. Literally. I’m sure if you look thoroughly enough, you could actually get a dozen abandoned hotels for a dime. Of course they most likely would be a terrible financial burden as they probably would be rundown pieces of crap like this “grand” hotel.

Most crown jewels of Japanese urbex are still rather hard to find, I get annoying requests from lazy strangers on a regular basis, sometimes several per week, but abandoned hotels have become so common in some places that you can hardly throw a stone without hitting one; which you shouldn’t do, because that would be vandalism – or worse, you might hit a person or a car… Anyway, in certain areas I don’t have to find abandoned places, I just go there and the abandoned places find me. Like on that one trip to Yamaguchi prefecture, when I just wanted enjoy a relaxing day and eat some strawberry daifuku. Instead the weather was nasty and I stumbled across some abandoned buildings. Now, average people would just mind their own business and continue to the daifuku shop, but I’m one of those idiots who stand in front of most of those abandoned buildings for like five minutes and then finally decide to have a closer look, even though completely unprepared; meaning: no clue what to expect and no tripod to take even decent pictures.

Which finally brings us to said grand hotel, which definitely was more hotel than grand even in its heyday. But it looked kind of interesting from the outside and it was drizzling, so I thought a few minutes protection from the rain wouldn’t be the worst thing in this situation, so I had a closer look… and while it indeed wasn’t the worst thing, it actually came pretty close. The hotel was cluttered, vandalized and mostly stripped of valuable metals. The floor was rather soft (which is never good when you don’t know what’s underneath the carpet!) and the whole place felt damp and moldy. Even the shared baths, usually the highlight of most Japanese accommodations, abandoned or not, were rather underwhelming and anything but grand. The facts that the lighting was bad, that I had no tripod, and that I was exploring solo didn’t help either, so I was out of there again after something like 15 minutes. Not the greatest exploration, but I guess better than no article in February… 🙂

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Hiroshima Temple

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Sacred Site, Temple, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2015 on 2024/01/31| 2 Comments »

*Hatsumode*. *First shrine visit of the year*. *Been there, done that*. *Yada, yada, yada*. *Enjoy*! (And yes, I know, it’s a temple, but who cares? Most people don’t know the difference. Not even Japanese people, as proven recently by the makers of a successful fighting game…)

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Love Hotel Flower

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Japan, Love Hotel, Photography, Sex, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2017 on 2023/12/23| 5 Comments »

It’s been a rather slow-ho-ho year of explorations, definitely quality over quantity, but that doesn’t prevent me from posting the annual Abandoned Kansai Christmas tradition – a spectacular abandoned love hotel. Or in this case – my favorite remaining love hotel with a special surprise on top!
Exploring the love hotel Flower actually dates back more than six years, after I had a look at two other locations in the area. At the time the place was virtually unknown and easily accessible, but not easy to explore as inside it was as dark as a black steer’s tookus on a moonless prairie night – you basically entered the 2.5 storey building (ground floor for parking, two floors with rooms, rooftop) via one of two staircases that were connected by large circular hallways with rooms to the outside – so no windows in the hallways, only in the rooms. And most rooms were pitch black, too, so you had to find the blinders of a window and open it.
The majority of the very short-term rentals were in good condition, but rather unspectacular. High quality, but not very original or exotic… except for maybe the ceilings. Each staircase though was connected to a premium room. One featured a really nice sheltered “outdoorish” area, the other had an exit to the roof of the building… with a rather large pool! No hot tub or something like that, a real pool, maybe 2.5 by 8 meters. (Sorry, Americans, I have no idea how large that is in Fahrenheit…) With a rather stunning mountain view, when you ignored the electricity lines on the other side of the building! It was seriously impressive. Must have been quite a treat to experience that location in its glory (hole) days.

Over the years I’ve been to dozens of (abandoned) *love hotels*, but this one was the only one with a rooftop pool – which pushed the location from very good to spectacular. Apparently it was opened in the early 90s, towards the end of the real estate bubble, and was in business for about 20 years. Its rather remote location was probably the hotel’s downfall, but one man’s trash (hotel) is another man’s treasure.
Merry XXX-Mas everyone!

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Cape Palace

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2015, Wakayama on 2023/11/30| 4 Comments »

Abandoned hotels are a dime a dozen in Japan, but when it comes to location, hardly any of them can hold a candle to the Cape Palace! (Though there was some arson…)

The now abandoned Cape Palace was a luxury hotel built in the 1960s in southern Wakayama on the tip of a cape with gorgeous ocean views from all 44 guest rooms as well as pretty much everywhere else within the accommodation. It was famous for its various hot spring baths (including a rotenburo at the very tip of the cape, only accessible by passing through the whole hotel) and the seafood dinners – the hotel even has a small fleet of boats, so the guests could enjoy fishing trips.
There’s not much information out there about the Cape Palace, but it seems like it closed in 2011 when a typhoon hit the coast and caused massive damage to the almost 50 year old hotel, basically turning it into an economic total loss.
I first explored the Cape Palace back in 2015 as a day trip from Osaka with two regular explorer friends of mine. Access was surprisingly easy – we were able to drive up right to the front door… which was wide open. Since the hotel was located on a cape a bit off the main road, we were basically completely out of sight. To our surprise the ground floor had been completely gutted, at first we were not even sure if we had found a construction ruin or an abandoned hotel, especially since there was no demolition machinery outside, no signs of workers anywhere. The upper floor though made it pretty clear that the hotel had been in business before – plenty of rooms with the original interior and some cluttered ones with stuff from all over the hotel. The former party room still featured a large laser disc collection – I didn’t have a closer look, but most likely karaoke LDs. Right outside the hotel, at the bottom of the cape was a large beach. Not a nice sandy one, a pebbly one… so I guess the large outdoor pool next to it was quite popular with the hotel guest then. One of the rooms featured a large aerial shot of the hotel in its glory deal, if you are interested in what the setup looked like. (It also showed the long gone ground golf area – ground golf being a simplified version of regular golf, extremely popular amongst senior citizens in Japan; I’ve mentioned it several times before.)

Overall the Cape Palace was a nice and easy exploration, nothing spectacular though, except for the views. There was little left of the main interior, but I’m sure in 2010 the place had a very unusual retro atmosphere and something like two foreign guests a year as it was definitely off the beaten tracks.

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Ishikawa Yarn Factory

Posted in Abandoned, Factory, Haikyo, Ishikawa, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2023/09/20| 5 Comments »

A last glimpse at the dying industry of dyeing yarn – far from being a yawn!

I don’t know much about the Japanese textile industry, despite having been to two or three silk manufacturers and yarn factories at local history museums and open-air museums. It’s pretty safe to say though that overall it’s more of an artisan craft these days, not a mass-market industry – for proud nationals, fashionistas, and tourists on the hunt for a sweat rag not from a sweatshop or a unique bag as a souvenir.

The Ishikawa Yarn Factory was a… yarn factory… on the coast of Ishikawa prefecture… and that’s pretty much all I know about the place. It was a surprise visit with friends, about an hour on location, so I was basically taking as many pictures as I could without being able to explore the whole place or look for company signs, let alone documents. Not only that, it also was the second location of the day on the way back home to Osaka from a long weekend trip with almost a dozen explorations in total, so everybody was hungry and tired.
The factory consisted of several buildings, some empty, and some massive metal cylinders outside. I remember walking past them (“I’ll take photos later!” – never happened…) and through some storage facility with countless cardboard boxes to the large dyeing building where I found half a dozen 2-storey containers for the dyeing process – right next to the building where they were yarning raw material to twine. That building was in really bad condition, so my lack of time was a good justification for not even trying to get to the upper floor on a rusty staircase that looked like it could collapse by me staring at it.

And then it was over! Moving on, lunch time… I won’t complain though, an hour at a location I didn’t even know existed is much better than not spending any time there at all – so it was a really nice indoor exploration that felt like an outdoor exploration, out of sight and earshot. Not nearly as stressful as the *Japanese Garment Factory* and far more modern than the *Mountain Textile Factory*, both of which were original finds by yours truly (and still haven’t been found by other people, it seems).

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Genshiro Kawamoto’s Abandoned Mansions – The Final Chapter

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Japan, Photography, Shizuoka, Travel, Urbex on 2023/09/05| 11 Comments »

This is my third and final article about the abandoned villas owned by Japanese real estate mogul Genshiro Kawamoto. I’m sure the place will continue to pop up regularly on the interwebs, but I’m done with it…
Not only am I done with the mansions after repeatedly documenting them between 2016 and 2020, my final visit in spring of 2023 actually made me question once more what I’m doing here with Abandoned Kansai.

After tremendously enjoying traveling domestically all over Japan during the pandemic, it was tough to experience how mass tourism (after opening the floodgates again in October of 2022) altered the perception of places… or even the way to work. (Fun fact: Japan didn’t have a hard lockdown, freedom of movement was never limited, because pretty much everybody started wearing masks for more than three years from February of 2020 on; including kids. Meanwhile people were dying like flies all over the world as some morons claimed wearing a mask would take their freedom… while it turned out that not wearing one would take their lives.) Me being a history buff, I always wanted to go Shimoda. Expecting a significant rise in overseas tourist again in the years to come I took a chance in spring of 2023 and finally went there. I had been to the Izu Peninsula before, but with no time to spare, so it was very nice to spend a relaxing day on the southern tip. I made some stops in other areas of Shizuoka on the way to Shimoda, but on the last day I originally planned to go straight back to Osaka. A night in Atami though reminded me of the *Kanemochi Mansions* and how much I enjoyed them in the past. It had been more than three years since my previous visit, so I spontaneously decided to add a night in Atami, visit the mansions in the morning and return on less crowded trains in the afternoon. (Well, I thought the trains would be less crowded in the afternoon… they were during the pandemic… but not anymore!)
Since I was on a recreational vacation and not on a creative one, I was not prepared for this exploration at all – I even had to look up the bus to the mansions. Even worse: I didn’t bring my tripod as I only expected to take some daylight snapshots for family and friends back home of the place where Commander Matthew Perry (not the Friends guy!) “opened” Japan in the 19th century. Arriving at the Kanemochi Mansions in Atami (not Shimoda!) I was surprised by how much overgrown everything was… except for the now quite beaten path leading up to the main mansion; damaged furniture by the roadside where the short trail started. My excitement was instantly replaced by a queasy feeling. It had become rather quiet about the most famous abandoned villas in Japan over the last three years, hardly any photo, next to no articles (at least not in my social media sphere…). Word on the street was that Kawamoto (or at least his company) took control over the mansions again, installing security systems… which couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Just a few meters after the damaged desk, barely past the trampled barbed wire fence, I saw the first toppled and broken statue. The glass front of the villa, facing the pond, had some graffiti on, the windows on the second floor were completely gone. Access to the building had become gradually easier in the past, now I was able to just walk in as the massive glass pane facing the waterfront was partly smashed, too. And that was just the beginning…
To make a not so long story even shorter: The villa had been ransacked. I guess about half of the interior had been stolen (including a large paining and the Nautilus II toilet!), the other half had been vandalized in one form or another. People always commented on Kawamoto’s questionable level of taste, but at least there was some consistency and weird charm to the mansion. Now the building was just another couple of graffitied walls with broken stuff scattered around – Western urbex. But so much for “there is no vandalism in Japan”, which I already knew wasn’t true, but now you have photographic proof with some comparison photos at the end of the gallery. Not good comparison photos, because like I said, my final visit lacked preparation and equipment, but you’ll get an idea. Another “Japan is so superior in every regard” myth debunked…
The mix of fond memories, security rumors, and the disgusting amount of vandalism made this one of the worst urbex experience in my more than 13 years of enjoying this hobby. I basically only did a quick walkthrough, taking some snapshots here and there, leaving as fast as possible… to check out the second villa with the open space bedroom / office and the beautiful upper floor.
Same situation there – smashed mirrors, missing interior, massive glass front broken. BTW: We are not talking regular window glass here… that stuff was like 1.5-cm-/0.6-inch-thick glass, maybe more, probably some kind of security glass. We are still talking about the villa of a billionaire after all – not every schmock with a rock was supposed to gain access!
The thing is: For four years I absolutely loved the *billionaire’s villas*. Every trip there was exciting, I had the feeling that I found a very special place, easily in my personal Top 5; which isn’t easy considering that I logged more than 1000 explorations. Was it tough to keep the mansions a secret? YES, because if you take photos like that, you want to show them around – and NO, because I explore mainly for myself and I’m not the slightest interested in exposing abandoned places… I prefer to revisit them, which I actually barely ever do.
But then some idiots selfishly dragged the villas into the public eye to make Google (which owns Youtube) a fortune and to pick up some crumbs themselves. Other lowlifes quickly jumped onto the attention-whoring bandwagon and doxed the place – vandals did the rest. For four years I genuinely enjoyed this location every time I stopped by. Now this has been taken from me and the handful of other serious explorers. Can secrecy like ours stop places from getting vandalized? Obviously not, as long as there are careless assholes out there – but that doesn’t mean that we should contribute to that. Just because more and more people act like entitled trolls on the internet doesn’t mean that the remaining individuals can change that bad behavior – but this also doesn’t mean that they should pile onto the word vomit. Just be a decent person online and offline. And please don’t support large channels / groups / social media accounts with the focus on urban exploration – they are killing the hobby! If not actively, then at least indirectly… 😦

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Japanese Billionaire’s Abandoned Villas

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Japan, Photography, Shizuoka, Travel, Urbex on 2023/08/30| 6 Comments »

Welcome to the sequel article about the *Kanemochi Mansions*! Sorry that it took me a while…

In 1993 Ginza’s property king Genshiro Kawamoto, age 61 at the time, was at the height of his power and wealth – worth about 2.6 billion USD, he was the 72th richest person on the planet, owning 60 buildings in Japan (almost all named Marugen) and about 700 houses in the States. He already had a somewhat questionable reputation but furthered it even more in the 2000s when he rented multi-million dollar mansions to native Hawaiian families for next to nothing to drive down property values in the area, after evicting hundreds of families in California just a few years earlier to benefit from rising real estate prices. In the 2010s (and well into his own 80s) Kawamoto predominantly made news for tax evasion when his Marugen Group “forgot” to pay more than 1 billion Yen in taxes. In 2013 he was first arrested and in November of 2018 he was sentenced to four years in prison… and disappeared from the news; no word whether Kawamoto is (still) in prison or if he is on the run.

Back in 2019 a few adventure tourists from overseas somehow made it to Kawamoto’s abandoned cluster of private mansions in Atami, at the time a location hardly known even amongst Japanese urban explorers. Unfortunately the mix of unusual interior and lurid headlines generated millions of views, a new “must see” location in Japan was born, after *Nara Dreamland* was torn down in late 2016.
I had been documenting the natural decay of the villas since early 2016, but kept the material to myself, because I knew what could happen to locations when you drag them into the public eye – something the Youtube locusts obviously don’t care about…
In February of 2020, when the initial damage was done and Covid was about to prevent urbex tourists from entering Japan, I finally posted about the Kawamoto villas here on Abandoned Kansai under the name *Kanemochi Mansions* – my largest photo set with one of the shortest articles, containing much less information than your average video description. (In case you wonder why kanemochi – 金持ち means rich person in Japanese and was a good way to avoid Kawamoto’s real name without calling the location something really obscure. 🙂 )

So… Why now? Why this article with all the detailed information now? Well, the information here actually is not really new, other people have spread it long before me. I just wanted to show you this amazing location one more time with beautiful photos from back in the day, before the unwanted attention and questionable fame… with different weather, at different times of the year, at different times of the day. I truly love(d) the Kawamoto mansions, so I came back several times, despite the long way from Osaka. And if you know Abandoned Kansai longer than a recent Google search, you are probably aware that me writing an article like that doesn’t mean good news…
To be continued!

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Wada Elementary School

Posted in Abandoned, Closed, Haikyo, Japan, Nara, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex, Visited in 2015 on 2023/08/02| 5 Comments »

The Wada Elementary School deep in the mountainous part of Nara prefecture turned out to be one of my most beautiful and memorable explorations.

Abandoned elementary schools are a dime a dozen in Japan; if you include the ones that are just closed, then there are even more. While the majority of modern schools in Japan look rather similar, the majority of old schools in the countryside differ quite a bit from each other as they were built to fit the landscape and suit the requirements of the people – I’ve seen everything from small buildings with three or four rooms in total on flat land to structures with several levels along a slope.

Back in 2015 a good friend of mine and I went on a two day road trip that also lead us to southern Nara prefecture… and when you are exploring in the countryside it’s almost guaranteed that a school or two will make your schedule. Upon arrival at the Wada Elementary School, located on a level between the river and the main road, it became pretty apparent that the building wasn’t the kind you were able to sneak into easily. It was in nearly pristine condition in the middle of town, right across the street from the local ryokan and restaurant – cars and or people passing by almost constantly. The building didn’t really look abandoned, and a newly built ramp from the main road to the mid-level, where the school was located, some construction machines still nearby, implied that the Wada Elementary School was about to be a goner soon.
We decided that sneaking around wasn’t worth the risk, and were about to leave, when my friend realized that he needed a restroom break – and instead of taking advantage of the nearby forest or driving to the next public toilet, the urinal of choice was the one at the ryokan right across the street. A blessing in disguise, because my friend started a conversation with the owner, who told him that the school was indeed scheduled for demolition, that he went there to school as a child… and that he had a key to the building! Fortunately my friend was a quick thinker and offered the owner to take professional photos of his childhood school that soon would be gone if he would give us access for an hour or two… Deal!
And that’s how yours truly got access to this amazing school, built in 1942 as the Tenkawa Nishi Elementary School and closed in 2002 – a most beautiful L-shaped one-storey building made of hinoki cypress, usually used for temples, shrines, noh theatres, and artisan woodwork. At the time of our visit the school was closed, but occasionally used for local town events. Which means that it was in pristine condition – we even took our shoes off upon entering! It also meant that there were no signs of vandalism or theft. The school was exactly like when it closed a decade prior, maybe even in better condition. No spider webs, no dirt, hardly any dust. It was like a building in an open-air museum such as Meiji Mura or the Historical Village of Hokkaido. Except that the general public had limited access…
Knowing that the Wada Elementary School was scheduled for demolition I wasn’t in a hurry to write this article. I really appreciated the exclusive access we had and didn’t want to break the trust invested in us.

For years I waited for confirmation that the school has been demolished… and then the opposite happened. Instead of tearing everything down, a small BBQ area was built behind the school and the whole property was turned into a recreation center. Now you can do official tours of the school, you can swim in the river, catch some amago and roast them the traditional way, or participate in indoor rock-climbing and woodworking workshops; changing rooms and showers are available. I haven’t been back to Wada since my exploration, but the program looks and sounds awesome! (Japanese only, unfortunately.) What an amazing place – back in 2015 and most likely even more so today.

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Kyoto Company Countryside Retreat

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2023/07/05| 3 Comments »

Nothing like exploring an original find in the countryside – and this one was a beauty! Exclusively on Abandoned Kansai… 🙂

A while ago I took a bus through the countryside when I spotted this partly overgrown, massive wooden gate along a road in the middle of a forest. I made a note and was able to find the place on GoogleMaps when I got home, even verified it via StreetView. Behind the gate and in the forest I saw several roofs, so… chances were that I stumbled across another original find. The area was accessible by public transport, but not easily, so it took me a while to get back there – and it was well worth the trip!
The problem with original finds and exploring by public transport is that those places are, even more so than established locations, basically impossible to plan for. In the past I had as little as 15 minutes to explore and document a place as this was either the only connection to the middle of nowhere – or I would have had to stay 5 hours, basically ruining the rest of the day… and maybe be done after 20 minutes anyway. Usually I plan with 2 hours per exploration. Good for most locations, but even if it’s a fantastic place you can cover a lot of ground in that time. And if it’s a dud, I can sit down and relax for an hour… or 90 minutes… or 110. Unfortunately, 2 hours is not always an option. In this case I had about 45 minutes, though 120 minutes would have been perfect!
I got past the gate surprisingly easily and finally had a look at what was behind – a series of rather modern buildings with large glass elements, some connected by a wooden deck and / or a bridge on the upper floor. Steel, glass, concrete; quite 21st century. I still don’t know what this place was exactly, but judging by what I saw and based on the phone number I spotted on a sign, belonging to a company in Kyoto City, I assume it was one of those infamous company retreats. (One of the benefits working for a Japanese company of decent size and reputable image is access to one or more company retreats. Most of them are located in / near onsen towns or along the coast. Some are simple huts with self-catering, others are fully staffed mini resorts with a pool, arcade machines, a gym, access to a nearby country club, … Employees can use those facilities, usually located within two hours of driving from the main office, for free or a small fee.) Unfortunately I was in a hurry – and all the doors were locked. No signs of vandalism whatsoever. No broken things, no graffiti, no BB bullets. Just those amazing buildings in the afternoon sun, pure bliss, surrounded by nature. But the buildings seemed to be empty anyway, so in the end I was very pleased with the photos I took.

My expectations when walking up to the Kyoto Company Countryside Retreat were super low. “Roofs behind an abandoned looking gate” means nothing in Japan, could have been anything, including demolished the week before. What I found was a building complex, a small compound, that I absolutely loved. This was my kind of exploration, my kind of architecture. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to; buses and trains aren’t waiting for anybody. So I left with a heavy heart. Because it was such a stunning place – and because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to share it on Abandoned Kansai for a long time as I didn’t want to drag it into the public eye. But then I figured… that if I wouldn’t publish the photos of the gate, the Kyoto Company Countryside Retreat would be almost impossible to find. So, after thinking about it for a while, I selected some pictures, wrote up this little article and… well… here we are. I’m 99.99% sure that you won’t be able to find photos of those abandoned buildings anywhere else on the internet – it was the solo exploration of an original find, even my closest urbex friends don’t know that I’ve explored it… or when… or that this place exists (to the best of my knowledge – maybe they went there 5 years ago and decided not to publish it, like I initially did… 🙂 ). Please enjoy the gallery below and feel free to share this article with any of your friends who might be interested in Japan, urban exploration or just unusual things in general.
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A Friendly Reminder

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Non-Urbex, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2023/06/30| 16 Comments »

Hello everyone!

This is just a friendly reminder that Abandoned Kansai is run with the exclusive intention of showcasing the beauty of abandonment in Kansai and the rest of Japan.

Ever since Japan opened the floodgates again for tourists from overseas, I receive a ton of PMs and e-mails from people… Everything from “Yo dawg, coordinates?” to really friendly messages.
How do I say this as politely as possible? Urban exploration is a dangerous hobby and not something anybody is entitled to. The locations can be dangerous, the weather conditions can be dangerous, the wildlife can be dangerous; and legally it’s a grey area at best! I don’t encourage anybody doing urban exploration nor do I support the efforts – quite the opposite actually! Especially when you have never done it before. After almost 14 years of exploring I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing, sometimes learning the hard way. Most people writing me though don’t even seem to have a clue about how much and what they don’t know. Flip-flops wearing first timers on vacation who might get themselves killed – because Japan is this quirky whimsical fairy tale place where nothing can go wrong, even the police look like in an anime! Or worse: “I work for a popular Youtube channel and our audience likes to see us exploring…” Yeah, no problem – of course I’ll do the difficult part for any fame hungry idiot too lazy or incompetent to find abandoned places themselves in a country where you hardly can throw a stone without hitting a ruin! Anything else I can do? Drive you there? Hand you snacks and sodas? Pay for everything? (Speaking of payment: Offering me money doesn’t help, I’m not a whore. And Youtubers are actually not the worst people who contact me – Youtubers with 6- or 7-figure subscribers who have their management write me are; some of those people pretend to be independent wanderers, but apparently can’t even properly plan their own trips; instead they try to exploit the people who do the groundwork.) Sooooo… long story short: Urban exploration is a difficult and complex hobby with no room for bullshit or entitlement. The signs in the gallery below have been put up for good reasons. Respect them or be prepared to deal with the consequences… (I’m not trying to be mean here, this really is just a friendly reminder. Enjoy your time in Japan and don’t cause yourself unnecessary trouble! Or even better: Just enjoy Abandoned Kansai!)

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