The first time I visited the *Hiroshima Sports Hotel* it had a reputation for being under close surveillance of the surrounding country club – tough to get in and out. While it wasn’t exactly tough to get in, I still believed the story and barely dared to step outside to take pictures of the pool and the tennis courts, so I was stuck with a mediocre abandoned hotel that was completely overhyped. I hardly ever do revisits, except for *Nara Dreamland* back in the days, so I closed that chapter and hoped that I would never be reminded.
About 5 years and a case of arson later I found myself in front of the goddamn place again – with a different group of friends who never had been there before, which boggled my mind, because they just introduced me to an amazing abandoned hospital I didn’t even know existed. I had no intentions to waste just a single second on that piece of shite hotel, but I couldn’t really say no as I was still high on gratitude. Despite the flaming incident the reputation of the place apparently hadn’t changed (amazing, but hard to enter), so my friends were super excited, and I couldn’t break the news to them that we were about to waste a precious afternoon far from home. Upon arrival we saw a guy sitting in front of the road leading up to the hotel, apparently guarding it. The little devil on my shoulder was like “Perfect! Let’s use that guy as an excuse to bolt and explore a way more interesting location instead!” and my (Japanese) friends started to slightly panic, instantly trying to scout alternative ways in; which didn’t exist. I knew that because I’ve been there before. So I listened to that stupid little angel on my other shoulder and stopped my friends before somebody broke their ankle or sprained their neck (or the other way round…) and introduced them to the concept of gaijin smash. I’d walk up to and past the guy with a friendly konnichiwa on my lips and then head straight for the hotel. If he was in fact a guard, I’d play the stupid bumbling gaijin who doesn’t understand a word or the situation – if he was cool my friends should follow right behind me. And what shall I say? I smashed the situation and got us all in without sliding down a barely angled 5-meter-tall wall none of us would have been able to climb up again… and at the same time ruined the rest of my day.
While I must admit that the second exploration of the *Hiroshima Sports Hotel* was quite a bit more interesting than the first one (the arson added to the atmosphere and I went outside without caring about getting caught), it was still a boring AF experience. I didn’t even go upstairs and stayed on the entrance level and downstairs again. 5 years of additional decay (and vandalism) made some spots more interesting, so I was able to take a few cool photos, but again: hotel, revisit, exiting morning. BORING! Almost two hours later my friends finally had enough, and I was finally free to leave – just in time for sunset, ending this day of explorations. A glorious day overall that would have been better without this surprise revisit, but sometimes you gotta be a team player – especially in the land of shoganai…
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