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Sankei Hospital

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, Hospital, Japan, Night, Photography, Snow, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/01/22| 44 Comments »

Japanese doctors are the worst in the world! Well, probably not in the world, but most likely in the industrialized world. If you think that Japan is all about lasers and robots and modern technology… then think again! Sometimes it’s shocking how far behind the rest of the (industrialized…) world Japan already is – and it’s rather getting worse than better.
It’s a complex topic, so where do I start? Probably with the fact that I have never heard of a single doctor who just calls himself a doctor – every doctor in Japan seems to have a clinic or even a hospital, even if it’s just a general practitioner working all by himself. They work long hours (usually closing Wednesday afternoons and Sundays), but one of the reasons for that is the fact that they love to make patients come back as often as possible. Constant check-ups, even on rather long-term treatments like high blood pressure. The standard health insurance here covers 70% of the costs, 30% have to be paid by the patient right after each treatment – so when you get charged 15 bucks, the health insurance pays another 35. For minor things it beats the high insurance rates in my (almost) all-inclusive home country of Germany, but if you get seriously sick it can ruin you financially like in the States, especially since there are no sick days in Japan. If you spend a day in a hospital or at a clinic (or at home with a cold for that matter) you have to use a paid vacation day – and if you are running out, the missed day comes right out of your paycheck. But that’s an insurance thing and has little to nothing to do with the medical staff. So why was I bashing Japanese doctors right at the beginning? Oh, because they are terrible and have a bad reputation even amongst the obedient Japanese populace.
I am lucky for having a good constitution in general, but about 4.5 years ago I injured my ankle playing airsoft with a couple of colleagues. I was jumping into a ditch and heard a loud noise when hitting the ground, instantly feeling serious pain. My American colleagues were all like “Don’t worry, just a sprained ankle!” and continued to play instead of bringing me to a hospital while the Japanese colleagues couldn’t care less. I never had a sprained ankle, so I believed them. Two days later when getting ready for work I almost blacked out, but I though that’s normal. When the “sprained ankle” was still a bit swollen and hurting after two months (yeah, I’ve been naive…) I finally asked a Japanese colleague to accompany me to see a doctor – a “clinic” where they took X-rays. They confirmed that it wasn’t a sprained ankle (really?!), but were unable to say what it was and how to treat it. So they transferred me to a hospital, specialized on fractured bones and stuff. When we went there a couple of days later the doc in charge was really eager to talk me into surgery as quickly as possible after he told me that I fractured my ankle and had torn a ligament. (Yes, I walked to the office with a torn ligament for 2 months! I always knew that I was a tough cookie, but that was suffering through a lot of pain, even for a foreigner in Japan…) His way to solve the problem: A one week stay at the hospital, transferring bone material from my hip to my ankle! (The reaction of my Japanese colleague when I said that I didn’t like that idea very much: “Don’t worry, I can bring you work to the hospital!”) And if it would have been for the Japanese Dr. Frankenstein I would have started treatment right the next day. I asked for a couple of days respite and then the guy admitted that after 2 months it was not that urgent anyway. And that he couldn’t guarantee that I will ever walk without pain even with that operation. What the heck? Was that the island of Japan or the island of Doctor Moreau? My school education started a deafening alarm and all I was able to think of was Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet On The Western Front”… That doc would never ruin my foot! Later that day an American ex-colleague told me how a woman at his new company did the same operation, except that they took bone material from her wrist. One year later she still wasn’t able to walk without pain – neither could she fully move her hand! And with that the surgery wasn’t even an option anymore and I relied on the natural healing power of my body. Half a year later I did 25km hiking day trips to the mountains (which I had never done before, because I was couch potato for most of my life…) and another six months later I started urban exploration. So if you ever need medical treatment while in Japan, ask your embassy for advice and get a second or third opinion. But even that might not be the solution in some cases – look forward to a future article where I will describe how a business trip to Germany probably saved my life when I contracted Lyme Disease, which seems to be undetectable and not treatable in Osaka, although it is native to the northern parts of Japan…

Sankei Hospital

Of course I don’t know if the doctors at the Sankei Hospital were as bad as the ones I had to deal with so far, but they definitely had to deal with some serious problems. And by that I don’t mean their own education or their patients’ quirks, kinks and serious illnesses (the Sankei Hospital was a mental hospital!), but Mother Nature. As beautiful as nature is in Japan (or everywhere else in the world for that matter…) one thing is pretty clear: Nature hates Japan! If you ever spent a summer in Kyoto, a winter in Hokkaido, or if you look at all the typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis… then it’s pretty clear that Japan isn’t God’s own country, nevertheless the Emperor still claims to be a descendant of Amaterasu, the sun goddess of the Shinto religion. (Although it’s more likely that he is of Korean descent…)
In 1910 the volcano Mount Usu erupted and lead to the establishment of an observatory under the leadership of Prof. Fusakichi Omori, a pioneer seismologist of his time. In 1945 the eruption of Mount Usu created Showa-shinzan, a volcanic lava dome next to Mount Usu – I took a photo of it and published it with the *haikyo trip to Hokkaido* article a while ago. When Mount Usu erupted a third time in the 20th century on August 7th 1977 the observation registered precursors up to 32 hours prior – luckily the hospital’s founder and director Kazuo Kato wasn’t mental at all. He came up with an emergency plan involving both his staff and officials of Sobetsu, where the hospital was located. When the eruption started at 9.12 a.m. the prearranged evacuation program kicked into gear and all 230 inpatients were taken to safety at a former school 12 kilometers away. At first the hospital suffered only minor damage (some small cracks here and there) when the northern flank of Mount Usu was severely deformed, being thrust 200 meters to the northeast. The process continued for months and due to magmatic intrusions the cracks widened further till the building finally collapsed almost a year later. (It goes without saying that the Sankei Hospital is famous amongst Japanese ghost hunters. Nobody was even injured during the evacuation, but a collapsed and abandoned mental hospital? That is as good as it gets if you are into that kind of stuff…)

Going Mental

By the time *Michael* and I arrived at the hospital, via a forest road since we had no clue that we were approaching a publicly known spot, the sun was already really low and behind a mountain range, so I took a quick and rather ugly video from the outside before it was too late to shoot any video at all. Michael was already entering through the back and by the time I jumped the fence and was ready to get in myself I received the advice to climb in through the front to avoid the vegetation in the back – nobody would show up at that time of the day anyway; and nobody did. Running out of light it was a quick exploration – the first part felt like walking in a picture by M. C. Escher as the floor was completely twisted; the fact that the Sankei Hospital was a mental hospital made the whole thing even more bizarre. Thanks to the level function of my camera all the floors on the daylight photos should be perfectly horizontal – but they aren’t, because they weren’t. When it got dark I left the collapsed eastern part and strolled through the (mostly) not collapsed western part. Not a pleasant exploration, especially when Michael was on the floor above me – it sounded like he could crash through the ceiling at any time, as if the whole building could come down at any time. The fences outside were there for a reason and I strongly recommend to respect them and to not enter the Sankei Hospital. That’s why I won’t add it to *my map of abandoned places*, although technically it was another tourist attraction, much like the *Horonai Mine* or the wonderful island of *Okunoshima* – fenced off and equipped with several large information signs in both Japanese and English, nevertheless way more dangerous than all the other locations on that map.
Given that we were running out of time the Sankei Hospital was a nice way to end the second day of explorations in Hokkaido. There wasn’t much to see, but it was a truly unique place and in the end way more interesting than the Xth abandoned hotel with the same moldy rooms and the same interior…

(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*…)

Sankei Hospital

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Horonai Coal Mine, Substation & Shrine

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Demolished, Factory, Haikyo, Hiking, Hokkaido, Japan, Mine, Photography, Power Station, Prison, Sacred Site, Shrine, Snow, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/01/15| 27 Comments »

More often than not I barely have any information about the places I visit in advance. Sometimes I only saw a photo and have a general idea where to look for the location. It was like that when visiting the *Bibai Bio Center* – and the Horonai Substation was not much different. A red brick building somewhere in the middle of nowhere – and a road leading there. That was it. I didn’t expect a spectacular location… and I didn’t find one. Nevertheless it was a good exploration with an interesting history, the first one on my *haikyo trip to Hokkaido*. *Michael* thought so, too – although he almost paid a steep price for making a snow angel…

History

The Horonai Mine has an incredibly and unusually long history, dating back to the early years of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Back then it was a time of new departures and Hokkaido still was kind of unknown territory. Japan recently opened itself to the world after more than two and a half centuries of information and immigration control, relying heavily on foreign experts to accomplish in a couple of decades what Europe and the States took about a century – industrialization. Just a decade prior Hokkaido was still known as Ezochi and for its renitent inhabitants, but the new government in the newly appointed capital Tokyo pushed for the development of Japan’s most northern prefecture… and population rose from 58.000 to 240.000 in the mere ten years of the 1870s. Agriculture and mining became the prefecture’s most important industries – and while agriculture is still important (especially wheat, potatoes, pumpkins, corn, raw milk, and beef), mining isn’t. The amount of abandoned mines in Hokkaido is incredible, but since most of them are in extremely rural areas, often hours away from bigger cities, we decided to visit the Horonai Coal Mine as an example – because it wasn’t completely out of the way, came with an electrical substation and, to our surprise, with the Horonai Shrine.
It wasn’t until writing this article though that I found out that the Horonai Mine was actually Hokkaido’s oldest modern mine and that Hokkaido’s first railroad, the Horonai Railway, was built to establish and operate the Horonai Mine. It’s said that in 1868 a local resident discovered coal in Horonai, but it wasn’t until 1872 that the village received any attention, leading to a survey in 1873. Expecting massive amounts of high quality coal in Horonai plans were made concrete in 1877 and money was raised through industrial bonds in 1878 after important statesmen like Ito Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo visited the area in previous years and campaigned to establish a mine. Further surveys were conducted in May of 1878 and the mine was opened on December 18th 1878, reaching full production almost four years later in June of 1882.
Plans for the Horonai Railway, necessary to transport the coal mined in Horonai to places where it could be used, were finalized in December of 1879, so construction of the railway began in January of 1880, installation began in July of the same year – technology and knowledge was imported from the United States by J.U. Crawford, who oversaw the railway construction project for the Japanese government; the line was officially opened on September 13th 1883 and was used for the transportation of passengers as well as coal.
In 1889 both the mine and the railroad were privatized, probably for little money, as both of them were not profitable at all. This happened a lot in the late 19th century in Japan, strengthening the so-called zaibatsu (gigantic family controlled holding companies, amongst them still famous corporations like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Kawasaki), but also countless mid-sized companies (although sometimes even profitable companies were given away for a fraction of what they were worth…). Business continued for another 100 years and ended in 1989, when most of the buildings were demolished for security reasons – and because back then industrial heritage wasn’t considered worthy of preservation. (The Völklingen Ironworks in Völklingen, Germany, and the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen, Germany, were actually spearheading the idea of maintaining old industrial buildings, becoming UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1994 and 2001 respectively.)
A not so fun “fun fact”: Like many other mines in Hokkaido, Horonai was taking advantage of prison labor. Not only during times of war, but in the early years, both before and after privatization. In 1883 250 prisoners worked next to 228 general laborers. In 1890 there were 1.043 prisoners and 183 normal workers “employed”, the forced labor accounting for more than 80% of the work force, extraction and transportation almost exclusively relying on prison labor! (It was actually thanks to the prison laborers that the Horonai Mine survived the first couple of years. From 1882 to 1888 the mine was deep in the red with only one profitable year and couldn’t even afford to implement mechanized coal transport – that actually happened only after it was privatized and exploited prisoners as cheap labor for years. And after the extraction costs per ton of coal were cut down to one sixth over the course of six years till privatization in 1889.)
The Horonai Mine also gathered some local fame in Japan when it was used as the setting of the second Season of Survivor (サバイバー) in 2002 – after Palau, but before the Philippines and North Mariana. Probably the most original setting ever and by now much more exotic than all those islands in the Pacific Ocean; they look all the same to me anyway! (I usually don’t link to other people’s Youtube videos, but *here is the intro to that season* in 240p. Don’t miss the *video I took at mine in late November* in 720p!)

Exploration

When we arrived on location the initial situation wasn’t promising. Several hundred meters before we reached the substation we had to park the car as the road was completely snowed in. Luckily there were tire tracks (we were able to walk in) from a more suitable vehicle, but the road itself wasn’t accessible with the small car we rented. As we got ready to walk up the hill we saw a guy and his dog coming back to their car. Nothing unusual, until we saw that the guy was carrying a rifle. Not the usual BB guns you have everywhere in Japan. A real friggin rifle! Even if he wasn’t shooting trespassers we were wondering what he was hunting in the forest ahead of us… and if his prey might want to get a shot at hunting us…
Nevertheless we followed the previously mentioned tire tracks deeper into the valley. To the right we saw several concrete ruins of the Horonai Mine, abandoned in 1989, when the mine was closed after 110 years. Everywhere along the road we found information signs (Japanese only…) and it seems like the area was converted into a “coal mine scene park” in 2005. It turned out that the first abandoned place on our trip wasn’t actually that abandoned, more like a tourist attraction – like the *Shime Coal Mine*, a.k.a. the *Anti-Zombie Fortress*. Of course there were no tourists seen anywhere, so I guess the place is only of interest in the snow-free summer months… and basically inaccessible the rest of the year. Michael of course was eager to head over to concrete remains, but given the deep snow and the unknown terrain I was able to convince him to look for the substation first – especially since the grey leftovers didn’t look like they contained anything interesting.

It took us about half an hour to walk from the parking lot to the substation and the tire tracks ended a couple of dozen meters before reaching our destination thanks to a collapsed tree on the road – from that point on we had to walk through the snow which was about 30 centimeters deep.
The Horonai Substation, a two-storey brick-clad concrete building, was built in the 1920s, more than 40 years after the mine was opened, and received its electricity from a coal fired power plant in Shimizusawa. That plant, which was fuelled by coal from the Yubari Mine, not the Horonai Mine, is still in existence and closed in 1991, but was not visited by yours truly as the roads leading there would have required a separate day trip.
Sadly there wasn’t that much to see: The metal constructions of the transformers and the brick covered building – locked by a solid chain, but luckily Michael found another way in. The building clearly was in use during summer months, featuring some kind of exhibition with lots of exhibits and huge control panels from the good old days.
More interesting was the Horonai Shrine, which obviously was completely covered by snow, too, and probably as half-abandoned as the Horonai Substation. Located right next to the substation on a small plateau up a slope, the shrine offered a nice view at the remains below. At that point it started to snow and I don’t know why, but there is an amazing peacefulness about deserted snow-covered shrines. Michael was still down at the substation, so all I heard was snow falling – perfect tranquility.
Overall the Horonai location wasn’t spectacular, but at that point I hadn’t explored many snow covered (more or less) abandoned places, so it was a good start into the trip!

Snow Angel

Oh, after all those paragraphs about the mine’s history I almost forgot about the snow angel! It seems like either Michael or I have a serious amount of bad luck when exploring together. In spring I broke my D90 on our *haikyo trip to southern Honshu* – and I already mentioned Michael’s misstep at the *Hokkaido Sex Museum*. His bad luck started earlier though, when he insisted on making a snow angel on the way back to the car. I thought it was a bad idea in the first place as it was cold and he was jumping spine first onto unknown ground (concrete, rocks, metal, …), but everything went fine until the point when Michael first took off his glasses and then stood up shortly after, realizing that his glasses were gone. In a comedy movie kind of situation he asked me to watch my steps – the last words barely left his mouth when he moved one of his legs and we both heard a crushing sound. The spectacle frame under his boot wasn’t only bent, but broken. Well, bent and broken. Michael, the designated driver on this tour since my license isn’t valid in Japan, had some contact lenses with him, but they would have only last for two or three days – shorter than the trip. So on the way to our second hotel we were looking for a glasses store. 5 minutes to 8 p.m. (i.e. closing time) on a national holiday (!) I spotted one. Not only were they able to fix Michael’s glasses in a miracle operation taking almost half an hour, they did it for free and also give mine a new polish. Quite a few people complain about the (lack of post-buy) service in Japan (and I admit that sometimes it can drive you nuts!), but the glasses shops here are amazing and saved not only the day, but kind of the whole trip…

(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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Fuji Foods Bibai Bio Center Co., Ltd.

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Factory, Haikyo, Hokkaido, House, Japan, Photography, Snow, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/01/08| 21 Comments »

All I knew about the Bibai Bio Center when I added it to the itinerary of the *haikyo trip to Hokkaido* was its name and a photo similar to the first one I published myself – just without the snow. I was intrigued by the strange looking tower and the ripped upper floor of what seemed to be the main building. At that time the GoogleMaps satellite image was so blurry that it was basically useless. So when *Michael Gakuran* and I drove up to the place we had no idea what to expect – or how to get in…

Blessing and curse of visiting Hokkaido in late November is the fact that most of the huge island is already covered by snow; which is nice to look at, but limits the accessibility of certain areas and buildings. The Bibai Bio Center, way bigger than expected (about 100 meters by 200 meters!), was one of those areas / buildings. Well, there was an easy way in, but luck wasn’t on our side as we found a whole crew of workers repairing the street and / or lamp posts right in front of the bio center! So we had to find another way in, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult as there were several houses and companies nearby, the surroundings of the buildings were completely overgrown with all kinds of plants – and the whole area was covered by 20 to 30 centimeters of snow. At this point I was actually willing to call it a day and move on to the next location. It was cold, we had to deal with unknown terrain, the building looked rubbish and we were in constant danger of being spotted by workers, local residents or even cars passing by. Michael on the other insisted on getting in somehow, clearing the way from the backyard of a private home like a minesweeper, using his tripod to find possibly dangerous spots under the snow – which worked out surprisingly well, except for one or two missteps… and the fact that we gained about two meters of ground per minute.

Once inside the Bibai Bio Center my impression of the place changed completely! Sure, it was run down and there was not much to see, at least not much you could describe as spectacular or even unusual, but for some reason I totally fell in love with the level of decay, the little things here and there, and especially the colors. The colors were amazing! Most of the rooms had a wooden floor and were severely damaged, moss and mold had taken over, so it was basically impossible to step inside. The more interesting and challenging were the shots I was able to take from the hallway. I fondly remember a ceiling lamp lying on the ground, surrounded by moss and mushrooms. Or a stack of tatami mats rotting away at different levels of decay – the side on the hallway was still intact, the middle was black and the window side was already green thanks to growing moss… and all of that in late November in Hokkaido!
Usually I am the one who finishes shooting a place first, but this time it was Michael who got bored and made me hurry a bit. I shot a quick video at the first building, which seemed to be kind of a dormitory or a school (or maybe both?), and then we moved on to other parts of the vast area.
Through a corridor we reached a lower building connected to the first one. Here we found several offices with stacks of scientific magazines from the 1980s about plants. Since most ceilings in that part of the building must have collapsed years ago the offices were in horrible condition, but one of them had a calendar on the wall, dating back to 1992.

Sadly there are not many sources anywhere revealing information about the Bibai Bio Center – and I won’t go down the slippery Resident Evil, T-virus, Umbrella Corporation road…
Its full name must have been “Fuji Foods Bibai Bio Center Co., Ltd.” and it looks like it was a company that produced processed food and perishable goods, like enokitake – enoki mushrooms, a key ingredient in Japanese, Chinese and Korean cuisine. Originally the land was used by a company called White Birch Wooden Yarn (白樺毛糸) before Fujishokuhin (= Fuji Foods) took over and added quite a few buildings and machinery.
Those buildings Michael and I were exploring after leaving the office area, but first we had a quick look at the shiny silver sphere on top of a tall pillar that caught my eyes months earlier and was basically the main reason for me to go to the Bibai Bio Center. I am still not sure what it was exactly, I guess a water tower, but there was some strange antenna attached to one side… maybe a lightning rod?
On the way there we found a vandalized and tagged abandoned car partly covered by snow. I guess no abandoned place is complete without an abandoned car!
The factory buildings with all kinds of tanks, boilers and containers attached to their sides weren’t in good condition either. Some of them were damaged by fires, other must have been collapsed thanks to the masses of snow they had to deal with for 20 Hokkaido winters. One of the huge halls, featuring wooden tiles on the floor, was filled with dozens of huge trash bags (the white boxes on that photo I took were supposed to be filled with enoki mushrooms according to their labeling), another one was basically empty. There weren’t a lot of shelves or production machinery, so I guess a lot of the interior was sold – either to other companies or for scrap. Or maybe we missed some stuff as we were rushing through the gigantic area way too big to squeeze it into a three location per day exploration schedule. Places like a growth chamber I was only able to see from the corner of my eye. Definitely a place to come back to if I ever get the opportunity to travel to Hokkaido again!

As leaving the Bibai Bio Center the way we came in (or just waltzing outside the front gate since the workers were gone at that point…) would have been way too easy, Michael decided to explore new territory… again. Attached to the huge halls were some kinds of metal covered supply tunnels. We saw a collapsed one from the outside, so when Michael saw a small opening in a wall from the inside to explore an intact one of course he was gone before I had the opportunity to yell “Objection!”. Being about 50% older, taller and heavier than Michael I don’t like narrow spaces and maybe I should have just left via a more secure way, but of course I acted against my conscience and followed him. Big mistake. The supply tunnel ended in a collapsed part from where we had to jump down back into the snow. From there we had to climb through a window into another building and from there we went outside again, back to the area we came in – but about 150 meters to the east. Walking along another one of those snow covered supply tunnels (outside this time…) we got miserably cold and wet within minutes and I almost poked an eye out thanks to the resilient plants. And as if being cold and wet and wearing snow filled hiking boots wasn’t bad enough I slipped down a tiny slope at the final drainage and landed straight on my behind, filling my jeans with snow from the top, too. The fun of urban exploration in winter! At that point I thought I couldn’t get any colder – little did I know that the *Canadian World* an hour later would easily top that…

(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*…)

Bibai Bio Center
Bibai Bio Center

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Canadian World Park

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Closed, Haikyo, Hokkaido, House, Japan, Night, Photography, Snow, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012, Zombies on 2013/01/01| 28 Comments »

Canadian World (current full name: Canadian World Park) was the third location I visited with my haikyo buddy Michael Gakuran on the first day of our *haikyo trip to Hokkaido*. It was an unsual exploration for many reasons… One could even say it’s a zombie park!

First of all: Unlike most of the locations I visit Canadian World wasn’t really abandoned. Not because it was guarded by security, but because it was more like on a winter hiatus. Located in a beautiful mountain landscape in the center of Hokkaido the Canadian themed park was snowed in completely in late November already, hence the rather short season from early April to mid October and the equally short opening hours from 10 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. – not much time to make some money. And not the best location either since bigger cities are about an hour away and even the closest train station requires a 20 minute long car ride… To make things even worse: Unlike the already closed or abandoned *Tenkaen*, *Hiroshima New Zealand Farm* and *Yamaguchi New Zealand Village* Canadian World actually doesn’t charge an entrance fee!
So how does the Canadian zombie park survive? And why do I keep calling it a zombie park? Well, because Canadian World Park originally was a privately run themed park called Canadian World. It was (and still is…) based on the book Anne of Green Gables by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery and in private hand until its bankruptcy in 1997, including typical themed park attractions like restaurants, an art museum, BBQ areas and a mini train; there even is a “Anne in Canadian World” logo… When Canadian World went bust the city of Ashibetsu took over and gave new life to the dead park, basically making it a zombie park. Or a Frankenstein park. Just without zombies or Frankenstein monsters. Still kind of spooky though, especially in winter. But this explains the lack of an entrance fee and the rather short service time – Canadian World Park is publicly funded and run! (With the co-operation of locals, supporting the park on volunteer days once or twice a year…) Luckily the staff there is really polite, even when you show up at a time when you shouldn’t be there…

Michael and I arrived at Canadian World Park rather late in the day. The sun was already going down, so we stopped for a quick couple of shots at the parking lot and entrance area before we followed a mostly snow free road down the valley and deep into the park – most likely not for public use, but the gate was open and Michael was in an adventurous mood… so down the hill we went. Just to find two park employees at some kind of green house at the end of the road. Michael talked to them for a while and they seemed to be fine with us taking a couple of photos, so we drove back up halfway to get as close to the central plaza as possible. We parked the car in a small lay-by and waded through the shin-deep snow deep into the Canadian World Park, only to find all the buildings boarded up. We didn’t intend to enter any of them anyway, but we wondered if it was a winter closing security measure or if it was permanently, because let’s be honest – it’s only a matter of time till Canadian World will be closed again and this time there will be nobody in line to step in! For the time being the atmosphere there is magical though, especially when covered by snow and no chatterboxes there. The sunset was beautiful and the air was ice cold and crisp. After dark it was the coldest I have ever been in Japan and I don’t feel cold easily. First Michael mentioned that his fingers felt tingly, then my ears felt like popsicles – which reduced the usual old “just one more photo” banter from about 30 minutes to an estimated 5 minutes; plus another 5 for the way back cross country to the car. Not all shortcuts are a good idea, but in the end we made it back to warmth without suffering permanent damage, though a change of our soaked socks was in order…

(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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Furuichi Love Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Love Hotel, Photography, Sex, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2012/12/24| 29 Comments »

When Conan was asked “What is best in life?” he answered “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” – I’m pretty sure if the Mongol general would have asked him “What is worst in life?” Conan would have answered “To marry a Japanese woman, see her taking your paycheck, and to hear the lamentation about setting the AC to a ‘freezing’ 28° C in the middle of summer.”

Please forgive this provocative generalization of an introduction, but whenever I stumble across an abandoned love hotel I can’t help but be reminded of how different Japan is in so many ways to my home country Germany. Especially in the relationship department. What I wrote so far and will write in the lines to come is not an analysis of the Japanese society or even just its love life – I’m just describing what I see and hear as an expat living in Japan, which is quite different from the things one sees and hears as a tourist visiting Japan. After six years in Japan I tend to compare this country to a big amusement park – it’s shiny, it’s tidy, it’s expensive and everybody seems to be nice. But visiting an amusement park and working in an amusement park are two completely different things…

Last time I visited an abandoned love Hotel (*Love Hotel Gion*) I wrote about the love hotel industry in Japan in general – this time I will rant a little bit about relationships in Japan. Back home in Germany, when you talk about your girlfriend or wife, you are usually in the range of being honest to being more positive than it actually is; unless you have a beer with your best buddy, then it might turn into a bitchfest. Not so in Japan! The vast majority of people married to a Japanese woman, no matter if they are foreigners or Japanese, bitch openly about their significant others to everybody – constantly! For every happily married couple I can name two or three where the guy calls his wife “The Dictator” or at least doesn’t feel that it is a waste of time to feed his new-born kid after being pressured into having children… It’s depressing sometimes. (Maybe I should add that I never did any of the above and find Japanese women rather sweet and caring… but I was never married to one.)
While pretty much every woman’s biological clock starts to tick at a certain age that certain age is definitely lower in Japan. The big 3-0 seems to be the current number where cute, open-minded girls turn into little monsters obsessed with marriage – if you meet a woman past 35 you better look for rings right away and get prepared to father a child or two. But that actually is progress in comparison to a derogatory term popular for decades in Japan: Leftover Christmas Cake. Leftover Christmas Cake was a not so flattering way to call an unmarried Japanese woman over the age 25. In Japan Christmas is kind of an additional Valentine’s Day you spend with your significant other eating a beautiful, but extremely overpriced cake – and Leftover Christmas Cake is something nobody wants… Since the ticking deadline is now 30 instead of 25 the term isn’t as popular anymore and you can always see the surprise or even shock on a Japanese person’s face when you mention it.

But even if you get married before the age of 30 it seems like people just follow set behaviors, no matter if they make sense or not; like hardly anybody goes swimming in the ocean after September 1st because according to Japanese definition it’s autumn now – it doesn’t matter that it’s still 32° C outside, you don’t go swimming in autumn since it’s a summer thing to do. And it’s the same with married Japanese women. They quit their jobs, they dress differently, they behave differently. Again: Not all of them, but a lot. A couple of years ago a Japanese friend of mine, a cute girl in her mid 20s, wrote me something along these lines: “I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but I don’t want to work anymore. Maybe I should get married…” – I’m not making this up! In Japan the women have control over the money. No matter how much the husband makes or how high he is on the career ladder: The woman gets the paycheck and the husband gets some pocket money. And if he needs more he has to ask his wife – if he’s lucky enough to have access to a bank account he better remembers when and why he used the ATM, because it’s highly likely that he will have the justify the use of that card. One of the reasons guys married to Japanese women tend to bitch about their wives…

Wives that they sometimes barely know. While arranged marriages are not common in Japan it is not exactly unusual that parents introduce their daughters to suitable candidates – especially when their daughters have passed the devilish age of 30. Traditionally men and women are not platonic friends with each other – and if a couple isn’t working at the same company it’s not really rare that they see each other only once or twice a week, because they are both super busy at work; especially the guys. And that’s another big difference to what I’m used to – unless you are having a long distance relationship you see (and get to know) your significant other on 5, 6, 7 days a week where I come from; way more often than in Japan. With the result that a lot of men (including foreigners) are marrying Japanese women they don’t know nearly as much about as if they would have been in a relationship with a woman in a western country for the same amount of time. On the other hand that fact makes it easier to stay at work till 9, 10 or 11 p.m. every night… Who wants to go home to a wife and kids they barely know…?
For a lot of Japanese men it almost seems to be a hassle to have a relationship after all – the so-called Herbivore Men (草食(系)男子, sōshoku(-kei) danshi) are described as having an “indifferent attitude towards desire of flesh”. Whenever you think you’ve heard it all…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are many, many, many happy (happy!) marriages in Japan, but when I listen to co-workers and friends hardly anybody seems to be really happy in their marriage – and a lot of them cheat on their wives.

And that finally brings us to the exploration of the Furuichi Love Hotel in Hyogo prefecture – an original find I’ve never seen anywhere else before, including Japanese haikyo blogs! Like the *Love Hotel Gion* the Furuichi Love Hotel was more like a motel. You drove into a garage (this one even had closable doors!) and entered a small apartment from there – on the right side was a Japanese style toilet, on the left side a bathroom, straight ahead the fun room with the king size bed and all the other extras. Like the Love Hotel Gion the Furuichi Love Hotel was in pretty bad shape. Most garages were locked and the dozen rooms were accessible via a two small hallways in abysmal state – some vandals used a pickaxe for some remodeling. They did surprisingly little damage to most of the rooms, so I was able to take photos in three of them. Sadly the light from the hallway wasn’t enough to see anything there, so I had to use my flashlight again to bring some light to those abandoned love caves.

The rest of the area was in a state of destruction, too. Right at the entrance was a small house for the manager of the hotel, the interior covered by some smelly pink powder – most likely somebody emptied a fire extinguisher there. The backyard was turned into a junkyard, but if you are looking for a Japanese style toilet you might find an undamaged one there. Glass shards and pieces of porcelain were all over the place, but what really caught my eyes was a sex toy with a cable remote hanging in one of the trees – Merry XXX-Mas everybody!

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Tenkaen – Japan’s Lost China Theme Park

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, House, Japan, Museum, Photography, Restaurant, Sacred Site, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2012/12/17| 50 Comments »

The Tenkaen, literally Flower Garden of Heaven (but also known as China Park of Heaven), was probably the biggest location *Michael* and I visited on our *haikyo trip to Hokkaido*. Opened in 1992 and closed in 1999 this deserted China themed park now is longer abandoned than it was in business – and it showed…

Japan and China have a long common history full of complications – and the recent election of the Japanese House of Representatives most likely won’t change the situation, especially regarding the Senkaku Islands. Nevertheless Japanese people seem to love themed parks that are not necessarily theme parks. Unlike famous theme parks like Disneyland or Universal Studios the dozens of themed parks all over Japan don’t have fast and expensive rides. They really are just themed parks that offer a more or less authentic look at the theme they chose – usually other countries like Germany (Doitsu no Mura Kronenberg), Spain (Spain Mura / Parque Espana), the Netherlands (Huis Ten Bosch) or New Zealand (Tohoku New Zealand Mura). Most of them were build during the real estate bubble in the late 1980s/90s and a lot of them were already closed (like the *Hiroshima New Zealand Farm* and the *Yamaguchi New Zealand Village*) or even leveled.

The Tenkaen is not much different in that regard. Opened in 1992 as one of four big theme(d) parks in Noboribetsu (the other being the Noboribetsu Bear Park (opened in 1958), the Noboribetsu Marine Park Nixe (opened in 1990), and the Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura – a Edo era themed park opened in 1992), the Tenkaen was modeled after a garden court from the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1912) and in addition included a 5-storey pagoda with a height of 40 meters and a bell donated by China to commemorate 20 years of rather friendly diplomatic relations. Sadly the Tenkaen didn’t last nearly as long, probably due the steep entrance fee of 1,900 Yen (1,100 Yen for senior citizens and elementary school students). In the first business year (1992/1993) only 270,000 people visited the 40,000 square meter site – and it went only downhill from there. In 1995 the attendance numbers were down to half in comparison to the first record year and in 1998 the opening days were reduced and a winter closing was introduced – on October 31st 1999, only seven and a half years after the grand opening, the Tenkaen was closed for good and now is one of the most famous abandoned places in Hokkaido.

Michael and I arrived at a reasonable time in the morning at the Tenkaen, expecting a rather long day of shooting there, but we had no idea what the layout of the location would really be since this China themed park is located in a rural area where even GoogleMaps isn’t much of a help. The weather was sunny, but nevertheless strangely gloomy, offering lighting conditions I have never seen before at an abandoned place. The whole area was dusted with a thin layer of snow, so we chose our ways carefully not to leave to many visible footprints. After we spent about half an hour at the garden palace area the sun began hiding behind some clouds and we were hit by a snowstorm. The atmosphere changed completely and the photos we took looked like they were taken at a different day. The storm lasted for about half an hour and ended abruptly when the sun came back with a vengeance, melting the freshly fallen snow along with the one we found at our arrival – so much for walking carefully not to leave footprint.

But that wasn’t the last time the weather would change. It seemed like the Tenkaen wanted to live up to its name – there weren’t a lot of flowers, but heaven changed about every 30 minutes, switching between gorgeous sunlight and almost blizzard like snowstorms. Which was great for us *haikyoists*, because whatever part of the Tenkaen we explored, we always had a variety of weather conditions to take pictures of. Altogether we spent 4.5 hours at the Tenkaen, and if it wouldn’t have been for a long list of other locations to be visited on the same day (and the ice cold wind, especially on the higher floors of the pagoda!) we probably would have stayed much longer…

Personally I loved the Tenkaen – it was my kind of abandoned place: in the middle of nowhere, open space, nice weather, interesting location, not that much vandalism, lots of natural decay, unique theme. The two major streets with dozens of cars passing by were a little bit annoying at times, especially when exploring the floors of the pagoda, but overall it was a great experience, not least because of the constantly changing weather conditions. I would love to come back one day in a warmer season of the year, to see some more green and maybe to take some night shots!

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Tenkaen

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The Olympic Ruins Of Sapporo 1972

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Hokkaido, Japan, Olympia, Photography, Sapporo, Sports, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2012/12/11| 31 Comments »

Some locations just have a sound to them that is irresistible, places you want to visit purely based on their names. Like the *Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum*, *Nara Dreamland* or the *Zone of Alienation* – names that create images even without knowing anything about them. When I heard about the Olympic Ruins Of Sapporo I knew I had to see them at one point or the other. There have been only 21 Olympic Winter Games so far and although the ones in Sapporo were held 40 years ago I was stunned to hear that some of the locations were abandoned – which, admittedly, is kind of naïve given the fact that even some event locations of the Olympic Summer Games in Athens (2004!) are already abandoned!

Since my first day in Sapporo was surprisingly sunny and I had some time to kill till my fellow explorer would arrive, I took the opportunity to not wait for a second trip to Hokkaido and have a look at the Olympic ruins right away. Sadly the whole thing sounded a lot better in theory than it ended up to be…
First of all: The skiing season in Hokkaido starts in early December, but I was in Sapporo in late November – so there were no buses running, only taxis. When I told the (female) train station staff that I will walk instead I was taken away by a prime example of a typical wave of Japanese surprise and disbelief. Still hilarious even after six years…

5 kilometers, 400 meters altitude difference and 1.5 hours later (I took my time…) I finally reached the Olympic Ruins Of Sapporo 1972. In the 1972 Winter Olympics this area was the bobsleigh goal house – the track was constructed from reinforced concrete between October 1969 and January 1972 for 433 million Yen and highlighted by 127 lamps for night runs. After Nagano was rewarded the 1998 Winter Olympics the bobsleigh track in Sapporo (1563 meters long, 132 meters vertical drop, 14 turns) was dismantled in 1991, but the goal house wasn’t.
Since I was stopping by at another location first it was already getting dark by the time I arrived halfway up Mount Teine. The area around the bobsleigh goal house was covered by snow completely, making it difficult to approach safely and impossible to reach the back area and the green shack halfway up a slope. I was able to enter the basement though, where all kinds of crap and some heavy machines were rotting and rusting. Sadly I forgot my flashlight at the hotel, so I wasn’t able to enter the ground floor or the first floor, both in a quite dilapidated state anyway. It also made me hurry quite a bit so I would get back to civilization at daylight to limit the risk of breaking some body part due to black ice or getting run over by one of the few cars speeding up and down the mountain. Furthermore I am a jeans and T-shirt guy all year round, not well prepared for winters since there are no winters in Osaka… and it got pretty friggin cold up there after a while, especially after the sun was hiding from about 3 p.m. on!
So in the end it was a quick look at an unspectacular location, but I was able to take some photos of an abandoned building with the Olympic rings on it – and that made me feel like a winner!

(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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Haikyo in Hokkaido – Urbex in Japan’s Most Northern Prefecture

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Closed, Haikyo, Hiking, Hokkaido, Hospital, House, Japan, Mine, Night, Photography, Power Station, Restaurant, Sapporo, Sex, Sports, Transportation, Urbex, Visited in 2012 on 2012/12/04| 12 Comments »

Abandoned Kansai in Hokkaido… Who would have thought that? Up till now I never made it further east than the center of Japan’s main island Honshu. I limited myself to the western half of Japan, because that was the reason I started this blog. Heck, initially I wanted to limit myself to the Kansai region; hence “Abandoned Kansai”, not “Abandoned Japan” or “Abandoned West Japan”. But then the “once in a while” hobby urban exploration turned into a regular thing and only weeks later I went to different regions, then to different islands – and in spring of 2012 I did a *haikyo trip to Okinawa* together with my urbex buddy *Michael Gakuran*. “What’s next?” was the big question, and the answer was found quickly – we already explored Japan’s most western prefecture, so we kind of had to explore Japan’s most eastern prefecture, Hokkaido!

Usually I plan my urbex trips on short notice. One time I brought my urbex equipment to work on Friday to see how I feel during the day, booked a hotel in the afternoon and left for a weekend trip right after work. Flexibility like that is impossible when partnering up for a long distance trip, so Michael and I booked plane tickets weeks ahead – and according to the weather forecast we ended up with a rainy weekend; a long weekend even, to which we added some days. Luckily the forecast was as reliable as always in Japan and so 4 out of my 5 days in Hokkaido were sunny and slightly snowy, only the last one came with 8° Celsius and rain.

Since I arrived almost a day earlier than Michael the original plan for me was to do some sightseeing in Sapporo. To my surprise the weather was sunny to cloudy, no rain at all, so instead of visiting indoor classics like the Sapporo Clock Tower, the Ishiya Chocolate Factory or the Sapporo Beer Museum I opted for a little hike to Mount Teine, once home to some of the sports events at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo. One day of good weather? I had to take advantage of that! Then it turned out that the next three days were pretty nice, too – which is a big advantage when doing urban exploration as you spend a lot of time outdoors…
On the last day Michael and I split – while he drove for hours to infiltrate a location he asked me to keep secret for now, I went on to do some really touristy stuff, like visiting the old harbor town of Otaru and taking a glass blowing lesson. My favorite touristic place though was the Sapporo night view from the freshly renovated observation platform on top of Mount Moiwa – stunningly beautiful! It was soooooo cold up there, but the view was absolutely amazing! I went there on the first day before visiting the Sapporo White Illumination and I strongly recommend to pay Mt. Moiwa a visit – I would love to shoot a time-lapse video from up there…
Overall the trip to Hokkaido was a great mix of urbex and tourist stuff. Five days I really enjoyed, probably more than any five consecutive days I spent in Osaka this year… So this is a list of the abandoned places I ended up visiting:
Advantest Research Institute
Bibai Bio Center
Canadian World Park
Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures
Horonai Coal Mine Substation
Mt. Teine Ski Lift
National Sanatorium Sapporo
Olympic Ruins Of Sapporo 1972
Sankei Hospital
Sapporo Art Village
Showa-Shinzan Tropical Plant Garden
Tenkaen – Japan’s Lost China Theme Park

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Tenkaen

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Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures – Japan’s Second Abandoned Sex Museum

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, House, Japan, Museum, NSFW, Photography, Sex, Taxidermy, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2012/11/27| 30 Comments »

When I wrote about the *Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum* in spring a lot of people seemed to enjoy my article – on Sunday I had the chance to visit the Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures, Japan’s other abandoned sex museum. It wasn’t bigger, but it was less artsy and a lot more explicit! This haikyo gave the term “ruins porn” a way deeper meaning…

“House of hidden treasures” – a Japanese euphemism to describe sex museums. In the 1960s pretty much every of the 47 prefectures in Japan had a sex museum, usually located in a small spa town somewhere in the mountains. Video did not only kill the radio star, it also made pornography widely available and started the decline of many sex museums – the internet finished the job 20 years later. Nowadays there are only a handful of sex museums in Japan (although you can barely call them museums as most of them are bizarre collections of art and what some weird people think art is…) and they are fighting for survival. The Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures (HHOHT) was no exception in that regard. Opened at a time when other sex museums started to close (1980), the HHOHT was equipped with the latest technology of the time (including a huge 3D pussy, created by a plastic, a gigantic lens and a mirror), but ran into financial trouble in the new millennium – closing was considered in 2007 (after lowering the entrance fee by 1000 Yen to 1500 Yen), but it seems like it was kept open for business until March of 2010, when thieves stole a Marilyn Monroe wax figure, a female wax figure with a snake around her neck, a belly dance doll and two travelers’ guardian deities. While most other sex museums get rid of their exhibits (by throwing them away or selling them) and then become another parking lot, the Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures became the haikyo Hokkaido House of Hidden Treasures – one of two known abandoned sex museums in Japan.

Much to my surprise the HHOHD was quite different from the *Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum* in Japan’s south. Instead of featuring dozens of wooden and stone statues the Hokkaido House of Hidden Treasures was stuffed with taxidermy animals – most of them copulating: Horses, elks, zebras, boars, lions, monkeys, all kinds of birds… I’ve never seen that many stuffed animals anywhere. And while most of the sculptures at this museum didn’t even seem to be made from real stone, all the taxidermy animals were real and in pretty good condition – if not for the sex part the museum should have been famous for its stuffed animals. But of course there was so much more to see: paintings, drawings, animatronics, a shooting game called “French Ponpon” (5 shots with a gun: 100 Yen), a huge vibrating penis to sit on, sculptures, shrines (dedicated to birth or equipped with penis shaped statues), and wax figures in a bizarre forest scene – starring a big red demon (with a surprisingly small dick) and a naked woman, being watched by horny, peeping or even mating animals. The most strange thing though was found on the basement floor – it appeared to be another shooting game. This time participants had to shoot “water” from a huge golden penis at a naked female doll. I’m sure when the Hokkaido House of Hidden Treasures was still in business it was all fun and games, but this time there was a victim. My haikyo buddy *Michael Gakuran* wanted to have a closer look at the naked woman and stepped into what seemed to be a concrete pool – except that the surface wasn’t concrete, but gypsum floating on top of the still intact pool; resulting in a mild shock and lots of wet clothes. In hindsight the water in the shooting game must have been colored white for a more “realistic” approach; a closer look at the female doll confirmed that assumption. (Luckily Michael’s equipment wasn’t damaged thanks to a water-proof camera!) Instead of going back to the car and changing clothes Michael dried himself and his stuff up as good as possible and continued shooting for 45 minutes with one bare foot! What a trooper, especially since the place was literally freezing cold. Most of the rooms had dripping water, and on the lower floor the water froze to icicles or drops on the ground! It was so cold I could see my own breath and after a while my fingers started to hurt – I can only imagine how Michael must have felt; who even refused to leave right away when we both heard some noise from the upper floor, followed by footsteps – because he hadn’t shot a pitch black room in the back yet…

The Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasure was a massive location and a real photography challenge thanks to lots of dark areas, massive amounts of glass and really weird setups; not challenging but weird BTW was the sukiyaki and ramen restaurant above the museum – I left that part out completely as it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the sex museum itself. All in all Michael and I spent almost 5 hours at the HHOHT – more time than at any other place before except for the *Nakagusuku Hotel* in *Okinawa*. And it was well worth it – I barely ever shot as many interesting and unique photos before. I also recommend watching the walking tour I shot as it shows the setup of the museum much better than I could describe it with words and photos. Speaking of which – here they are…

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Addendum 2014-07-11: According friends of mine the museum has been severely vandalized since I visited it – R.I.P.!
Addendum 2015-08-18: I revisited the sex museum in late 2014 and wrote an article about it – Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures Revisited (The Rape And Death Of An Abandoned Sex Museum)

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Papierfabrik Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. (Paper Mill)

Posted in Abandoned, Factory, Germany, House, Monochrome, Photography, Rhineland-Palatinate, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011 on 2012/11/19| 11 Comments »

The Papierfabrik Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. (Papierfabrik = paper mill) was without the shadow of a doubt the urbex highlight of my vacation to Germany in 2011. Ever since I moved to Japan in 2006 I spend a couple of weeks in summer back home in Germany, visiting family and friends. As much as I love Japan – I really hate the summers there. It’s hot, it’s humid and it’s dark at 8 p.m. the latest. German summers are less hot, way less humid and you can have a BBQ outside till 10 p.m. or even later. There’s actually stuff you can do after work, not just crawling under the next air-condition – which most likely is set to a smoldering 28° Celsius anyway since Japan pretends to save energy ever since Fukushima happened. (Ironically the ACs are set to 28°C in winter, too – heating is no problem, but if you wanna have some cool air you are considered the devil…) I started with urban exploration in late 2009 and when I came back to Germany in 2010 I visited *Pripyat and Chernobyl* as well as two locations in Luxembourg I yet have to write about. No urbex in Germany in 2010 for me. 2011 on the other hand saw me visiting places like the *Clubhotel Messel* and the *Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne* – and the latter one almost prevented me from actually entering the Papierfabrik Knoeckel as I ran into some security trouble at the CFK the day before I visited the paper mill with my old friend *Gil*.

Located on both sides of a valley in the Palatinate region of Germany the Papierfabrik Knoeckel is virtually impossible to miss – if you found the right valley you are golden. The downside of that fact is the traffic ahead and behind you. Getting a parking spot is not the problem – entering the factory without being seen is. Like I said, I ran into some trouble the day before (on a former military basis, to make things worse), so I wasn’t exactly eager to jump a fence and run while being watched by potentially dozens of people. The backside of the factory seemed to be a bit quieter, so we walked along a forest road up a slope… only to run into a house where a dog started to bark and didn’t stop for at least an hour! We followed another road leading down to the factory, the damn dog still barking. Now we were separated from the factory by a small river (maybe three meters wide), once a fundamental element of every paper mill as water ran machines. Two bridges and a building span across that river, but our options were limited soon – one bridge was fenced off and the other was equipped with a modern security camera. Caught the day before, dog barking in the background, an active security system. My urge to enter the factory went down to zero and in the end it became another key moment regarding my dislike of infiltration. Not nearly as bad as the experiences at the *Noga Hotel* or the *Sunset View Inn Shah Bay Resort*, but another stepstone…
To make a long story short: We entered somehow, it was an amazing location, and it took us four hours to leave. Four overly cautious, nerve-wrecking hours that weren’t really fun at all – in hindsight it’s always easy to say that it was totally worth it since nothing went wrong, but the potential for disaster was there…
In the end I took some really neat photos at the Papierfabrik Knoeckel. Photos that work very well in both monochrome and color – which makes it one of my favorite locations in Germany, at least now that I am sitting in front of my PC. The reasons why the photos turned out that way, is because the Papierfabrik has a lot of history and grew organically. Old buildings weren’t demolished, they were reused and new buildings were constructed in addition. Some buildings still had large ciphers fitted to their walls – 1914 and 1952 I remember vividly. But the paper mill was older. Much older. 1888 saw the founding of the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. GmbH (GmbH = Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, which equals a modern Limited = company with limited liability) which turned into the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. Papierfabriken AG on January 29th of 1923. (Papierfabriken means paper factories, AG = Aktiengesellschaft = joint-stock company) In 1945/46 production was partially stopped due to a shortage of raw materials and coal – the company survived World War 2 without any damages. Which is even more surprising since the factory had its own railway siding. The reason for that is the fact that paper is incredibly heavy and larger amounts are easier and more cheaply transported by trains. At one point the rival Robert Cordier AG (which produces paper since 1836!) bought 99.78 percent of the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. shares (which was turned back into a GmbH in 1995 after a loss of 1.4 million Deutschmarks (0.7 million Euros) within half a year), but on August 18th of 2000 the Robert Cordier AG filed for bankruptcy. Knoeckel, producing glassine, translucent vellum paper and special papers for technical applications, wasn’t making money anymore after 112 years…
On May 30th of 2006 a conflagration that took 9 hours to extinguish destroyed several disused production sheds, making the abandoned buildings even more dangerous due to a higher risk of collapse.
Today the Papierfabrik Knoeckel shares the fate of many abandoned buildings – potential private investors, local politicians and citizens’ groups are arguing what to do with the 55.000 square meter area, but can’t agree on anything. And so the paper mill continues to decay, attracting more and more urban explorers, graffiti sprayers and vandals…

This is the *second time* I decided to publish a photo set in monochrome. I actually converted all photos and selected two sets – one in color, one in monochrome. There were hardly any overlaps, so I might publish a color set in the future, maybe along with an update on the state of the paper mill. I even converted the videos to monochrome, just for the sake of atmosphere. Exploring this location I felt like being transferred back in time to the 40s, 50s or 60s; decades most of us associate with monochrome photography. I hope you welcome this decision…

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