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Archive for the ‘Urbex’ Category

Kochi Shipyard

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Factory, Haikyo, Japan, Kochi, Photography, Shipyard, Travel, Urbex on 2026/08/12| 9 Comments »

Almost 15 years passed between my first abandoned shipyard in Japan and the second one. That’s a really long time, considering that Japan is an island nation with a huge shipbuilding industry! And those places couldn’t have been more different…

My first solo trip to Kyushu is one I have very fond memories of as it included an exploration of the *Kawaminami Shipyard* as well as a day trip to *Ikeshima*, virtually unknown back then. Now the management of every overseas urbex tourist is sending their “L@@K what I found BY CHANCE” clients there as it is one of the low hanging fruits; you know, like *Kinugawa Onsen* and *Kejonuma Leisure Land* (those photos are from 2014, a few years before it became a tourist attraction…) The Kawaminami Shipyard was a really interesting exploration, despite being one of the more touristy urbex spots of its time. Mainly because it was used to build kaiten during World War 2 – basically the underwater version of kamikaze bombers; one-man suicide torpedoes.

No such reports about the Kochi Shipyard, which dates back to the year 1900. Commercial shipbuilding and repair only. And while the Kawaminami Shipyard went bankrupt for good in 1955, the Kochi Shipyard stopped all activities in spring of 1961 – only to be re-founded in summer of 1961 after being restructured by a company from Kobe. 25 years later, in September 1986, the shipyard closed for good. After about 20 years of decay the staff accommodations were demolished in 2013, followed by most of the factory site in 2018. In spring of 2024 yours truly showed up finally have a look; fashionably later, but better than never…
At first sight, the Kochi Shipyard looked like a dystopian nightmare. The former administrative building was 110 meters long, four storeys high (plus signage on the roof!), and just massive; like an outbuilding of the Ministry of Love from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Including some smaller building attached, the whole thing stretched to about 200 meters in total with only a few access points, all featuring the usual “Do not enter!” signs. Not to mention the concrete wall and the included massive metal floodgates. Part of me was really excited about the look of the place, part of me was devastated that it turned out to be an impregnable fortress.
10 minutes before my bus was scheduled to leave, I decided to have a quick look at the waterfront and maybe get a quick shot of the back of the building, despite the large fence. Towards the end of it, the road leading there was elevated to get over another one of those concrete walls with floodgates… and there it was: A hole in the fence, below street level and therefore out of sight of the main road. All the time I spent on the outskirts of the shipyard, being frustrated that there was no way in – and there it was, the way in! There also was a bit of activity on some of the boats, including a small yacht, so I was hesitant at first, but… it had been a really long time since I’ve explored an abandoned shipyard – and who knows if I would ever get an opportunity again, so I squeezed myself through the hole and past the thorny scrubs.
First I took a few quick shots of the waterfront, but then I quickly went a little bit further inland, away from the boats and the road – towards the main building, which looked a lot less threatening from the back, which probably actually was the front. Unfortunately it was completely locked and untouched by both vandals and metal thieves, so I guess all the signs on the other side fulfilled their purpose. Large abandoned industrial sites like that are rare in Japan, so I progressed slowly and carefully… and finally made it to some kind of large metal workshop, loose parts squeaking in the wind – a constant reminder to be extra careful. It was a windy day, so the sky constantly changed between sunny, cloudy, and light rain. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful solo exploration. A picture says more than a thousand words, so instead of dragging this out, I’ll leave you to almost 40k words worth of photos. Please enjoy! (And check out the links at the beginning for more seafaring explorations!)

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Forest Playground

Posted in Abandoned, Chugoku, Haikyo, Japan, Okayama, Photography, Roadside Attraction, Travel, Urbex on 2026/07/22| 10 Comments »

Most neighbourhood playgrounds / parks in Japan are a disgrace! Some compacted dirt ground, possibly a small patch of gras, with good fortune a tree or two, maybe a swing and a climbing frame – on the compacted ground, not the gras! In most of Europe they would probably be considered a health hazard and closed for good. Of course there are plenty of good ones, too, usually as part of rest stops or sightseeing spots. But the vast majority of them are shite and not even worth going to for reading a book! Once a fee is charged, they can be downright spectacular though!

The Forest Playground was part of the latter category, though I’m not sure if it was a direct or an indirect fee. I had seen the park on social media once or twice and thought it looked interesting, so whenever I randomly looked at GoogleMaps, I kept looking for what could be an abandoned outdoor playground on a forested slope. The thing is: Japan is a large country that mostly consists of forested slopes. The needle in a haystack comparison is a joke when put next to my chances of finding that playground! But… abandoned places in Japan seem to have the wonderful ability to find me, so after a few sessions on GoogleMaps a small miracle happened and I spotted what looked like a large playground on a forested slope. It was in the outskirts of a resort consisting of a hotel, a dozen holiday houses of various sizes for rent, an indoor sports center, a gateball hall, an athletic field, some tennis courts, a town hall, and three museums – all tied together by a large park. And the best of all: It was in day trip range!
The road leading up to the parking lot of the Forest Playground was blocked off by one of those accordion gates, a really low one, but there was plenty of parking in the vicinity. And most of the playground parking lot was actually covered with tree debris – looked like somebody was cleaning up the surrounding and probably stopped due to Covid. The whole thing was actually much larger than expected (since I’ve only seen a few photos of one small area), so we spent more than 3 hours exploring and documenting the place.
Next stop after the parking lot was the lower playground – a really nice, rather big playground at the bottom of the forested slope. From there were followed a nice path up to the goal of the Adventure Coaster… which wasn’t a (roller) coaster at all, but a dry toboggan run – or Sommerrodelbahn, as we say in German, a summer luge track. Right next to it: A small cable car for those too lazy to walk up the slope to the mountaintop area. Well, mountaintop… The height difference was maybe 60 meters. And we didn’t have a choice anyway, for obvious reasons. So we continued to follow the regular path, sometimes cobbled, sometimes asphalted. Next stop was the event square or rather event area, because nothing there was square – the area was actually a really nice and rather flowy brutalist outdoor… place, apparently for events, and with a nice view down into the “valley”. I love structures like that, so I very much enjoyed that part, despite the brutal humidity and rising heat of an overcast early summer / late rainy season day. Then we finally reached the mountaintop area with the start of the toboggan run, the upper cable car station, a rest house selling snacks at ridiculously low prices by today’s standards (softcream for 200 Yen, kakigori for 300 Yen, chicken pilaf for 400 Yen). Looks like the park was opened in the early 1990s and closed in 2003 – almost 20 years before I took some photos there. Well… some. I actually liked the place so much and it is that rare that I decided to publish a gallery consisting of 75 photos. By far the largest ever in Abandoned Kansai history – but history has shown that nobody cares about second parts and hardly anybody cares about revisits, so I can as well publish them all at once. Which brings us to the final part: The descent along the gigantic climbing contraption on the slope. Hardly ever was I that heartbroken to see something abandoned, because that thing was a work of art! As a kid I would have gone crazy, but even as an adult and despite its condition after 20 years without maintenance, I tremendously enjoyed the careful descent back to the entrance area.
The Forest Playground is without the shadow of a doubt one of my all-time favorite locations. Rare, unique, natural decay, great company, outdoors. It doesn’t get much better than that. Basically the *Viewpoint Playground* on steroids… but in a good way! 🙂


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Upside Down House

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2026/07/15| 20 Comments »

Let’s do a quick one this time since the last article apparently interested nobody… The number of comments has gone down significantly over the years. Blogs are a dying medium – but 0? That’s rare.
Well, whatever…
The Upside Down House, some strange structure welded onto a truck. Not sure if it was ever moved. Not with the staircase on the side, that’s for sure. The earliest StreetView is from 2013 and it was already abandoned back then. Quirky little thing. Enjoy.

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Ghibli Ryokan

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Photography, Showa, Travel, Urbex on 2026/07/01| 2 Comments »

There is probably no cheaper and more desperate cry for attention than slapping the Ghibli label onto something – and yet there have only been a few abandoned places I’ve been to that deserve this label more! 🙂

It was on a cold autumn morning when I found myself deep in the mountains of Shimane after a 5 hour long drive that started in the middle of night. If you would have told me that I was the first Caucasian to ever come through this little town, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I probably also was the second one when I came back almost 10 years later. Strangely enough those are the places where I feel comfortable the most. After almost 20 years in the big city I loathe places like Tokyo and Osucka more than ever, though that feeling caught me pretty quickly after moving to Japan. Unfortunately that’s where the jobs are, especially for foreigners, so the countryside as a place to live will have to wait until retirement… For now rural Japan is for the weekends – and by God, this was as rural as it gets. I actually had no idea where I was exactly until I paid attention to road signs on the way back since a friend was driving, but I was excited to be far away from grey skyscrapers and miserable suit wearers – and a bit disappointed when my friend pointed towards the rundown ryokan behind as. Apparently this was the main attraction of the day. Really? We must have passed about half a million abandoned places in those 5 hours. Did we really have to continue through the night to this one? Well, as it turned out, yes, we really did!
One thing I learned rather early on at the *Deathtrap Hotel* was that you never ever enter an abandoned building on a higher floor – you enter as low as possible, because otherwise you never know what’s underneath your feet. Much like the Deathtrap Hotel, the Ghibli Ryokan was built onto a slope – and my friend headed straight to the top for an easy entrance away from the “main street”. Well, his decisiveness implied that he knew that he was doing – and he learned it the hard way, as I found out later while exploring the building. At first we took pictures of the upper part, but when we made our way down, he told me: “If you want to go to the kitchen there on the lower floor, don’t take the small wooden stairs – go left and then right, and take the staircase that the guests used! The wooden stairs are not good anymore…” “How do you know?” “I crashed through them when I came here first. This is my third visit.” Well, there you have it…
The building itself, despite being pretty rundown, was just awesome to explore, because it wasn’t one of those generic hotels with a main hallway and rooms to the left and the right. It looked like it was expanded at least once, maybe two or three times, and you never knew what to expect behind the next corner… and there were plenty of corners! Probably more corners than rooms. One of which was the home to a large butsudan, a Buddhist altar usually found in private homes. Thinking of it, this might actually have been the private area of the ryokan owner… In any case, it was spectacular, and I’ve never seen anything like it before or after! Also really cool: The lobby and the bar of the ryokan, both Showa AF! Urbex at its best – time travel via natural decay. Well worth driving 5 hours there… and then back again.

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Kinugawa Onsen

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Photography, Restaurant, Spa / Onsen, Tochigi, Travel, Urbex on 2026/06/10| 1 Comment »

Kinugawa Onsen is not abandoned. Kinugawa Onsen is also not a ghost town, despite what clickbaiters are trying to make you believe! Fact of the matter is: Kinugawa Onsen is one of the busiest onsen towns in all of Japan, attracting more than 2 million visitors per year!

Believe me, I get it. Kinugawa Onsen has a lot of abandoned buildings, quite a few of them prominently along the banks of the river Kinu (or kinugawa in Japanese, hence the name). But despite what urbex tourists from both overseas AND Japan want to make you believe: The town is far from being abandoned! Quite the opposite, it’s actually one of the most successful onsen in Japan – just not among foreign tourists, despite being only a short train ride on the Tobu line away from UNESCO World Heritage site Nikko, which is usually swamped with white tourists. But Nikko is often done as a day trip from Tokyo, so why venture even further into the countryside, away from the perceived safety of the Shinkansen lifeline?
Anyway, Kinugawa, plenty of large abandoned hotels – yeah, but mostly in the very northern part, around Kinugawakoen Station. The Takimi Bridge, a suspension bridge offering stunning views, and the surrounding area is where probably 90% of the abandonment photos are taken, because it’s such a low hanging fruit where every dummy with a smartphone can take decent ghost town photos and bait some clicks on social media. The next bridge just 500 meters down the river, Kurogane Bridge, already marks the border between closed Kinugawa Onsen and bustling Kinugawa Onsen – looking north, most buildings on the right side are abandoned, but most buildings on the left side are still in business! Looking south you almost exclusively see large modern hotels along the river. A view most “explorers” leave out, because it doesn’t fit their narrative. From here it’s 400 meters to the Fureai Bridge with the Demon Steps and about a kilometer to Kinugawa Onsen Station – and if you stay within that kilometer radius of Kinugawa Onsen Station, the town looks basically like any other successful onsen place. Sure, there are some signs of struggle, Japan has a tendency to abandoned the old in plain sight just to line up for the new right next to it, but it’s far from the horrible wasteland social media clickbait wants to make you believe.
If you want to be an urbex tourist yourself, no matter whether you have 1 follower or 1 million followers, by all means, go to Kinugawa Onsen and take the same photos as everybody else from the Takimi Bridge – but please, spend the night in town and tell the whole story. First hot spring found in 1691, at first exclusively for feudal lords and Buddhist monks, from the late 19th century on (after the Meiji Restauration) open to the general public. Increase of popularity after the 1920s, when the area was connected to Tokyo by rail. Extreme boom during the bubble era in the 1980s (more than 3 million visitors per year), steep decline after the bubble burst (hence the abandonment in the north, where there were only hotels and not much else, while the area around Kinugawa Onsen Station had all kinds of attractions and entertainment) – now consistently more than 2 million visitors per year, making Kinugawa Onsen one of the biggest and most successful onsen towns in Japan.
All the photos in the gallery below have been taken from public ground. Abandoned places, especially hotels, can be found without looking for them, but I advise you against entering them for several more than obvious reasons. In addition, the town seems to be aware of its reputation, and I’ve seen several police cars casually roaming the streets. “But none of your photos have people on them. Kinugawa Onsen is not so busy after all, eh?” Yeah, there are no people on, because I went there on a Sunday afternoon when most of the Tokyoites that came for the weekend were already on their way back to the big bad city. In addition to that there was a steam locomotive about to leave, so the Kinugawa Onsen Station area was super busy – and I didn’t take any photos there, because Japan has extremely strict privacy laws I just don’t want to deal with. It’s also the reason why I waited several minutes to take photos at the Demon Steps, because I just don’t take pictures with people on if I can avoid it.

Oh, but if you are interested in other urbex places for tourists, *please give this Special a chance by clicking here*.

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Konami Sports Club Kansai

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Sports, Travel, Urbex on 2026/04/29| 5 Comments »

I still remember very well when I first heard about this spa/gym being closed about 12 years ago. My first thought was: This will be a great abandoned place one day! My second thought was: Konami will never allow that to happen! I guess I was wrong… and right… within seconds. It’s actually a pretty spectacular abandoned place now – and one of the worst at the same time!

I’m sure most of my audience knows Konami as a great developer of video and arcade games in the 1980s and 90s, to some extent in the 2000s and past that, too. Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, Silent Hill, Contra, Dance Dance Revolution, classics like Gradius and Frogger. When Konami developed the Diet Mode for Dance Dance Revolution, they partnered with a company called People, which itself was a subsidiary of Nichii, later renamed to Mycal, before finally bought and absorbed by Aeon. People ran gyms and other fitness facilities, some as designated operator for a few municipalities all over the country. In 2001 Mycal sold People to Konami (or rather the subsidiary Konami Sports) and their fitness clubs were rebranded to Konami Sports Club. When Aeon took over Mycal in 2009, the Konami Sports Clubs in Aeon malls became Aeon Sports Clubs – for reasons I still don’t fully understand, but as you can see, the whole situation is rather complicated, both regarding the facilities and the corporate structures.
I actually was a member of Konami Sports Club for about 5 or 6 years from 2007 on – and mine was basically a gym with two studios for classes and a large indoor pool for laps. So when I first heard about this soon to be closed gigantic fitness club with more than half a dozen studios and a spa area, I couldn’t believe that it actually was a Konami Sports Club; now that I’ve done all this research, I assume it’s one of those rather fancy People locations Konami took over in 2001.
Anyway, the Konami Sports Club Kansai was closed in August 2014 and at first I was eager to have look, but given that the chain was still active and that Konami was involved, I was convinced that the building would either be used in a different way or torn down. Initially I thought about it once in a while, but then I simply forgot about it…
Until 6 weeks ago or so. In March a bunch of urbex tourists from overseas with a huuuge following across all kinds of social media accounts (several with +500k followers each on Facebook alone!) published a dozen or so photo sets and videos of their tour through Japan. Now, I never hid my disgust for those locusts ever since the *Nara Dreamland* days and it only got worse since one of them dragged the *Billionaire’s Mansions* from their cozy shadowy place into the spotlight right before the pandemic hit – I wrote an article *about them being vandalized* in 2023, but the situation has gotten so much worse since then. They are basically a pile of trash now. I’m not saying that those urbex tourists vandalized these places, but the Japanese urbex scene is rather small and secretive, so when some money driven, management organized, international self-promoters with millions of followers draw that many eyes on a location, including locals of course, it’s only natural that it gets a lot more visitors all of a sudden. Despite the rumors, some Japanese people actually understand English – and even worse: While those urbex tourists are all high and mighty about not revealing places while in their home countries, they apparently couldn’t care less when in Japan. “Sorry, we don’t reveal location names!” Dude, you have the logo with the name of the place on two or three of your photos! There are stores visible in the background! Yes, YOU can’t read Japanese and YOU are too lazy to run your photos through basic Google functions, but there are about 127 million people who can speak Japanese and potentially billions who are familiar with the internet, especially now in the days of smartphones and AI… FFS!
Anyway, one of the locations the urbex tourists presented was a really cool gym/spa facility. They didn’t reveal the name on pictures in this case, but the building looked strangely familiar and there were big company logos visible in the background. I started to google one and their locations, when it hit me suddenly: That Konami Sports Club! This could be the Konami Sports Club from back in 2014! 30 seconds later I had the location confirmed and an urgent exploration scheduled. Why did those morons not reveal the name of this place? Because it closed in August 2014 and by March 2015 Konami had the branding removed from the building! I’m not sure who owns the building now, but of course a company like Konami didn’t risk to be associated with a large abandoned fitness club. The tourists probably didn’t even know that it was a Konami Sports Club, because as it turned out, the facility was basically empty. All the training machines were gone, all the equipment was gone. The star was the building, which I am totally fine with. The location should always be the star of urbex… and if only the building is left, so be it. Unfortunately the building wasn’t just empty, it already had been vandalized, most likely by metal thieves and bored local youth. Japan is in steady decline, vandalism and graffiti become more common by the month. With the vandalism came the water and with the water came the mold. As cool as some of the photos of this set look, it was a really nasty, uncomfortable exploration, especially since I went in the afternoon on an overcast and slightly rainy day – and I’m glad that I didn’t wait till August… Not much else to say about this solo exploration though. Empty, spectacular building, nasty conditions. I wish I would have not forgotten about the place and gone there right after the metal thieves swept in, probably sometime during the pandemic or just after Japan opened the floodgates.
Oh, and in case you wonder why I’m rather open with pictures and information about this place now: Last weekend, about 4 weeks after my initial exploration of the Konami Sports Club Kansai, I went back with an old urbex buddy for a quick look to show him around. Turns out that the place had gotten a lot worse in the month that had passed. We could smell the mould and decay from the street as there were more windows broken. There was more graffiti everywhere, there was a lot more vandalism – and as a result whole areas were flooded. Only a few centimeters, but it’s not the kind of water that you want to be exposed to or even touch. I guess I wasn’t the only person after all who recognized the place based on a bunch of shitty flash photos taken with mobile phones. (I don’t know a single even somewhat serious explorer in Japan who doesn’t use a proper camera…) So why wait with an article? I don’t reveal much of the surrounding area, the full real name or even a pin on a map… If you are good enough to find the place based on my article and you really want to go: Be my guest! Enjoy your lung full of black mould air and shoe full of still water…

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Nagano Wedding Church

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Church, Haikyo, Japan, Nagano, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2026/01/01| 5 Comments »

Usually the first article of the year is about an abandoned shrine to honor the tradition of hatsumode, the first shrine visit of the year. Unfortunately I am running out of abandoned shrines, so here’s an abandoned church instead!

The longest Christian tradition in Japan? Nailing believers to the cross! It’s not practiced anymore, but it was pretty common between the middle of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century; at least more common than in the rest of the world. Nowadays Japan still doesn’t care much about Christianity – except for weddings; and Christmas sales. The average Japanese woman wants her big white dress and feel like a Disney princess for an hour or two; not even for the whole day, just enough to snap some photos for social media. And that’s why there are a few abandoned churches all across Japan. Well… “churches”. The vast majority of them are part of wedding venues and therefore as much of a church as the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland is a castle… But hey, people treat Japan as one big amusement park, so it’s only natural that the churches here are not really real.

Unfortunately it was the last location of a very, very, very long day and therefore a little bit rushed. But I only knew about the place and not where it was, so I won’t complain – usually I find my own places, so being shown one is something I really, really appreciate. Not only was it shown to me by someone, but that co-explorer had a personal connection to the location – their parents actually got married there a few decades prior! No kidding, I’ve seen photos!

The sun was already setting when we finally arrived at the Nagano Wedding Church, somewhere deep in the Japanese Alps. Much to our surprise there were still some patches of snow on the ground, which, along with the birch trees and some other vegetation, gave the whole area a very Hokkaido vibe – and that’s always a good thing in my book, given that Hokkaido is one of my favorite prefectures. Unfortunately that also meant that we were running out of time soon, making indoor shots impossible quickly and outdoor shots rather unpleasant. Midday this would have been a wonderful exploration, but under the given circumstances, it was an easy, but rushed one. The church was actually part of a resort complex that started with a lease system in 1974 – when the owners weren’t there, they could rent it out and get 50% of the lodging fee, kind of making it an early Airbnb, I guess. The 123 units were able to host up to 300 guests, supported by two restaurants, a bar, a heated pool, a sauna, several tennis courts as well as a beauty clinic. Around the turn of the century the complex was renovated and turned into a dieting resort, which in Japan at the time sounds like a recipe for disaster. And so the thing was shut down about ten years later – though 40 years of business isn’t a bad thing in a country where you can punch through a lot of walls and where mold is almost guaranteed after a while, unless you take really good care of your building. Needless to say that there was absolutely no time to explore any of these, but you can still see some elements in the background of a few photos.
Exploring places I am only peripherally aware of is always a big win, so I really enjoyed exploring the Nagano Wedding Church, despite the circumstances. In addition, accessible abandoned churches, fake or not, are rather rare in Japan overall, which was an added bonus. Not a bad last location of a 24 hour round trip! Yes, a one day trip from Osaka to Nagano prefecture, which consisted of a total of five locations, including the *Failed Health Resort*…

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Sakura Spa Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Mie, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2025/11/26| 1 Comment »

It’s finally autumn, but I know we all already long for spring. So let’s look at a spring exploration today. A hot spring exploration… with cherry blossoms!

I love a good rotenburo! There is nothing like letting the family jewels dangle while standing knee-deep in hot water, enjoying a (hopefully) spectacular view. Especially after an exhausting day of exploring! You feel like the king of the world, laying your eyes on the conquered land below you!
Exploring an abandoned rotenburo is quite a different experience though – no dangling jewels, no hot water… and you are still in the middle of the exhaustion part of the day. The rotenburo (an outdoor hot spring, clothing usually not optional, but strictly forbidden) I had in mind when writing the previous paragraph was part of a large spa hotel somewhere in Kansai and offered spectacular views of the valley below, especially on that hot sunny spring day a few years back. Before I got to this though I had to walk through a whole abandoned hotel, which is not exactly my favorite thing to do, as most of you know by now. I found an open door in the back of the hotel, right next to the surprisingly unspectacular outdoor pool. But then again: How much use can you get out of an outdoor pool in the mountains of Kansai? 2 months a year? And who wants to use it even then, when there are much nicer options both indoor and outdoor?
The Sakura Spa Hotel was one of those rather rare, rather high-end “private tub outside of your room” place that are surprisingly uncommon to find abandoned. Since I kinda came in through the bathroom window (props to those who got the reference!) I went straight to the top, where I found a huge outdoor space with a bar. From there I made my way downstairs again – through the shared indoor baths and the private indoor baths that came with certain rooms to the rotenburo in the back… and then I left through the slightly vandalized lobby. Basically a backwards exploration. But there are no rules in urbex. Only good locations and bad locations. And this was a rather good one, because… private baths as part of the rooms. You don’t see those very often. So enjoy! And maybe share with a loved one…

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Kampground of Japan

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiroshima, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex on 2025/10/28| 10 Comments »

You would think that an abandoned place along a popular car, motorbike and bicycle route would be all over the internet. But no. It was upon yours truly again to explore yet another original find…

Camping is surprisingly popular in Japan, a country with about 92% urban dwellers. Or maybe it’s that way because of it – from the concrete jungle to a real forest. There are about 1300 campsites from Hokkaido to Okinawa, everything from “just pitch your tent” to luxury glamping sites. Especially the latter ones have become insanely popular ever since the beginning of Covid, or maybe just before it. Glamping sites have been popping up everywhere, some even at coordinates where just years prior you could have enjoyed an abandoned place…
When I first saw the Kampground / KOA sign on the garbage containers at the entrance I was highly irritated – the similar German word Kampfgrund came to mind, which could mean “reason to fight” or “battleground”… if it existed. Weird English words starting with a K of course also remind me of the KKK. So I expected something really strange, like a camping place for racists. Turns out that KOA stands for Kampgrounds of America, a real campground franchise founded in 1962 by a few white businessmen  in Montana. The company grew fast and was bought by Oscar Liu-Chien Tang in 1979. At the height of its growth the franchise had almost 900 locations, but due to higher quality standards it shrunk to under 500. The official website lists locations in the States (not really united recently, are they?) and Canada (or as we Germans call it more appropriately, especially in this context: Kanada), but no word about grounds in Japan. The rest of the internet also didn’t have any information, not even Google’s AI, which I didn’t ask, but who unsuccessfully chipped in anyway. It’s like the place never existed, except on StreetView, where is oldest records are from 2011 – and it already looked abandoned back then, for at least a few years. Which amazing, considering that the place was right at the Shimanami Kaido, Japan’s most famous bike tour, usually done in two days. But nothing. Not from the active days, and nothing about the abandoned phase either. Urban explorers in Japan must have passed it hundreds or thousands of times… yet nothing.
So I guess we can keep the rest short: I came. I saw. I took photos. There were about a dozen huts, a couple of larger block houses with several units, a few BBQ places, plus a communal area with sinks, showers, rest rooms, and a hot tub. Not much more to say. Beautiful outdoor exploration on a gorgeous spring afternoon. A rare original find apparently. I enjoyed it very much, and I hope you will, too!

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View of Yotei Ski-Jumping Hill

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, Japan, Photography, Ski, Travel, Urbex on 2025/09/23| 2 Comments »

The long-awaited video game Ghost of Yotei will be out soon, so let’s celebrate the release with an abandoned place not on Mount Yotei, but with nice views of Hokkaido’s famous mountain! (Personally I’m more of an Onimusha guy – super excited for the new installment “Way of the Sword”, especially since you couldn’t pay me enough to go Kyoto these days…)

A few years ago I developed a strange fascination with abandoned ski-jumping hills – or rather the constructions use to jump from those hills, called Schanze in German; not to be confused with the military fortification, sconce (most famously used in Wolfsschanze, but let’s not go down that dark road). In the autumn of 2021 I did my own Vierschanzentournee (Four Hills Tournament) when visiting four abandoned ski-jumping hills during one Hokkaido trip. The most famous one probably being the View of Yotei Ski-Jumping Hill, also known as Asahigaoka Park Ski-Jumping Hill in Kutchan.
It’s absolutely beyond me why this abandoned place is not more famous in the first place as it is part of a ski area and visible from Kutchan Station, right next to Little Australia, the bogan winter wonderland called Niseko. Tens of thousands of people must see the large red metal construction every year, yet neither tourists nor urban explorers seem to pay much attention to it, despite it being a dream to explore – easy access, outdoors, no fences or Keep Out! signs (except for the welded-up main inrun tower), spectacular views of Mount Yotei – an active stratovolcano nicknamed Yezo Fuji for its shape and one of the “100 famous mountains in Japan” (a list compiled for a book by mountaineer Kyuya Fukada in 1964 and made popular by then Crown Prince and now Emperor Naruhito). To me Mount Yotei was just another mountain at the time when I took pictures of the abandoned structures, and it was pure coincidence that it ended up in some of them – I was there in October of 2021, the game was announced a year ago, on September 24th 2024…
The hill was first used for ski jumps back in 1934. In 1952 a new inrun tower was set up at the current location, a larger one followed in 1963, which was later enlarged to the red monster we see abandoned now. Between 1964 and 1996 the most famous competition on the Schanze was the Major’s Cup of Kutchan Town, which attracted famous ski jumpers like Hiroya Saito, who won the cup in 1992 – and a gold medal with the Japanese team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano (fun fact – Saito was born in nearby Yoichi, mostly known for the Nikka whisky distillery). The exploration itself was relaxed and uneventful for the most part. Nice autumn day, which means a lot of elements of the ski-jumping hill (inrun towers, observation tower for the judges, landing slope, out-run…) were mostly overgrown. Vegetation grows fast in Japan, even in Hokkaido, but autumn leaves were just past their peak, so the whole area was beautiful. In winter you can see much more of the facility, and you can use the lift to get up the darn hill, but overall it was a very pleasant exploration, a bit reminiscent of *Sapporo Dreamland*. If you are now curious about other abandoned ski-jumping hills, I recommend checking out my articles about the *Hokkaido Ski-Jumping Hill* and the *Sprungschanze Katzenbuckel*.
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