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Niigata Russian Village

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Demolished, Haikyo, Japan, Niigata, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2015 on 2016/05/31| 3 Comments »

The relationship between Japan and Russia has pretty much always been either non-existent or full of conflicts – so whoever thought that building a Russian themed park in Japan would be a good idea… probably was a moron with too much money.

When the Empire of Japan acted like the prototype version of current day *North Korea* from the early 1600s till the 1850/60s, it tried to keep out pretty much all foreigners, with the exception of a few Chinese and Dutch, who were strongly restricted in where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to do (sounds familiar?). Back then most Russian settlements were too far away from Japan to make contact easily as cities like Khabarovsk (1858), Vladivostok (1860) and Magadan (1930) had yet to be founded – and so it was Yakutsk merchant Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin who first tried to establish a Russian-Japanese contact 1778 in Hokkaido. He was told to come back one year, only to be turned away again (sounds familiar?). In the early 19th century the Russians tried again several times without success – this time reacting with brute force when the shogunate stalled again; of course without much success. In 1860 Vladivostok was founded, but since it was not an ice-free port, the Russians were looking for a more convenient location and decided to seize Tsushima, an island under Japanese control, located between Korea and Kyushu. At this point the relationship turned really sour, and after being ignored by the consul Goshkevitch, the Japanese asked the British for help, finally forcing the Russians to leave Tsushima. Over the next few decades, Japan gave up its isolation policy and turned from an agrarian state to an industrialized nation; with the massive help of countries like Prussia, the United States, France, Great Britain and many more, of course. The Japanese-Russian relationships on the other hand didn’t develop for the better though, culminating in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05; the first time an Asian country significantly and surprisingly defeated a Western superpower. In World War 2 Japan fought less successful overall – and more than 70 years later, both countries are still arguing over the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril chain of islands. According to a 2012 survey, 72% of Japanese people view Russia unfavorably, a number that most likely rose since then, making Japan the country with the biggest anti-Russian sentiments of all participating countries.
So why a Russian themed park in Niigata? Because a banker said so! (Oh… so it was indeed a moron with too much money…)

Niigata Russian Village (1993 – 2003/04) was pretty much the borscht version of the *Tenkaen – Japan’s Lost China Themed Park* (1992 – 1999). Cultural exchange, “exotic” weddings, demonstrations of folk dances, sale of artisan craftwork… and carft beer. Financed with the help of and heavily supported by Ryutaro Omori, then president of the Niigata Chuo Bank, the Niigata Russian Village opened on September 1st 1993 and was heavily expanded in 1994… and then again in 2000 – a year after the financing Niigata Chuo Bank collapsed. The park closed in December 2003 for a winter break and didn’t open again as originally scheduled in April 2004.
The rather remote location of the Niigata Russian Village (6 km away from the next train station, 30 km outside of Niigata, almost 400 km away from Tokyo and therefore out of day trip range) was its downfall twice – first it wasn’t able to attract enough visitors / customers… and then it attracted too many visitors / vandals. Photos from 2008 already showed significant signs of vandalism, in September 2009 the hotel was partly destroyed by fire, and since nobody ever used a fake name for it, the Niigata Russian Village went to hell in a handbasket in record time.

By the time I started exploring in 2009/10 people started rumors about tight security and demolition to prevent bigger masses from trampling through like Siberian mammoths, but at the time I never thought I would ever explore outside of Kansai (hence the blog name, *Abandoned Kansai*) – in addition to that, Niigata is probably the worst area to go to from Kansai as flights are insanely expensive (32500 Yen!) and trains take about 7 hours at a price of 22500 Yen… per direction! 700 bucks for one location? Hell no!
Speaking of hell: As satellite photos more and more confirmed the demolition of the Niigata Russian Village, I more and more regretted that I was never able to take a picture or two of that iconic church that was part of the park; apparently a copy of Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Suzdal. Years later, in 2015, I was compiling locations for a three day urbex road trip starting in Tokyo. Of course there are plenty of great abandoned places around Tokyo… but Niigata is in perfect range for a three day trip. Exploring stuff on the way north, heading to the coast after dark, exploring Niigata Russian Village and some stuff on the way south, spending the night in Fukushima or Tochigi, continue exploring on the third day on the way back to Tokyo… Since satellite photos can be rather old and outdated I confirmed that the cathedral was still standing via a quick photo search and added Niigata Russian Village to our schedule – as the first thing on the second day!
Arriving at the Russian Village was exciting and sobering at the same time. The road up to the park was blocked by a massive gate fortified with tons of tree trunks and branches, all held together by barbed wire; signs informing about the start of further demolition work just days prior and the existence of camera surveillance. I traveled 650 km to fail 650 meters away from the church? Hell no! So my buddy *Hamish* and I went on to find an alternative way in, successfully… after a while.
As so often, the reality about the Niigata Russian Village lied between the reports of total demolition and the dozen buildings visible on satellite photos. At the time of our visit the lower area with the village part was pretty much gone already, little more than large piles of rubble and a small monument left behind. The upper area was missing several buildings, too – but the two most famous structures were still there, the church and the hotel. Despite the fact that 80 to 90% of the Niigata Russian Village had been demolished, it was still fun taking pictures there – especially the church was everything I was hoping for… and I don’t think I ever had as much fun in a religious building before or after! Overall for sure not nearly as spectacular as the *Tenkaen* or any of the *New Zealand Villages*, but still worth the detour…

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Crocodile School

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2015 on 2016/05/24| 11 Comments »

Giant hornets, large spiders, wild boars, monkeys, deers, snakes, mosquitos, bumble bees, regular bees, rats, mice, cats, pigeons, dragonflies, raccoons… and maybe even a bear – you have to love animals if you want to do urbex in Japan!

Japanese people are very proud of their four seasons and some of them actually think that Japan is the only country in the world with four distinctive seasons – which is ridiculous, because not only are there many other countries with four distinctive seasons, but Japan stretches over a length of about 3000 kilometers – there are definitely not four seasons in Okinawa; and in Hokkaido they are anything but equally spread. Furthermore the majority of Japan is affected by a thing called tsuyu; literally plum rain, but commonly translated as (East Asian) rainy season… bringing the count to five seasons. Living in Osaka, “winters” can be cool and windy between late December and mid-March (hardly any snow, but temperatures can drop below the freezing point shortly, but tend to stay between 5°C and 10°C), while summers tend to be hot and humid nightmares between early July and late September with daytime temperatures reaching 35°C and nighttime temperatures not falling below 30°C for countless weeks in a row. The time between “winter” and hell (and vice versa) is usually really nice though – warm autumns with colorful maple leaves and springs with clear skies and millions of blooming cheery trees. Personally I like spring a little bit better as nature is still slumbering, which means that abandoned places tend to be more accessible and the previously mentioned local fauna is still awakening, too. Well… and then there is tsuyu, the rainy season, squished in between spring and hell, usually starting in early June and ending early July – give or take a week or two. About one month of torrential rain on about 5 out of 7 days a week… and a significant rise in humidity, making urbex not only unpredictable, but also not fun at all for the next four months; including the hellish summer. (And I go from one weekend per month not exploring to one weekend per month exploring… at best.)

Exploring the Crocodile School marked the beginning of tsuyu and the end of my spring urbex season last year, 2015. At first sight it was just another abandoned elementary school, the main entrance covered by a wide green net to prevent animals from entering; flexible and large enough to allow humans to gain access easily. The main area was still in decent condition, despite the fact that there were visible signs of vandalism and progressing decay in the back. While somebody was still mowing the lawn and kept things like the net intact, nobody was able or willing to spend money repairing rotting wood or the partly collapsed roof. At the end of a hallway, close to the nurse’s room, was a (b)locked door – luckily there was a separate entrance available from the outside… and that room turned out to be the highlight of the school. Most likely used for storage and maybe as a staff room, this end of the Crocodile School was packed with all kinds of items – including the name-giving taxidermy crocodile! But of course that was not all. Next to a table saw and what looked like a pottery oven (maybe?) I found a taxidermy turtle, countless pieces of china, several sea creatures preserved in half-empty glass tubes and much, much more…
When it comes to season endings, this was one of the better ones – for sure better than the ending of the sixth season of Lost! 😉 It was the first weekend of tsuyu… and I paid the price for it. It was hot, it was humid… and exploring the *Silent Hill Hotel* on the day before was much spookier than necessary. Luckily it didn’t rain on the morning of Day 2, nevertheless getting up to and exploring the Crocodile School was a sweat-inducing endeavor, rewarded by a beautiful view, an interesting amount of decay and plenty of unusual items left behind.

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Kurhotel Stromberg

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Germany, Hotel / Ryokan, Photography, Rhineland-Palatinate, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2015 on 2016/05/17| 4 Comments »

Do you like beer? So much that you would like to bathe in it? No, because it sounds like a horrible idea?! If only somebody would have told the last owners of the Kurhaus Stromberg…

The history of the Kurhaus (“cure house”) or Kurhotel (“spa hotel”) in Stromberg began in 1909, when a teachers’ association revealed plans to build a convalescent home in the picturesque small town near Bingen, Germany. Planning and financing took five years (almost everything was a bit slower a century ago…), but on April 16th 1914 the laying of the foundation stone took place. After “the Great War” erupted, construction was put on hiatus, and finally finished in 1921 – mainly as a recreation home for the “Rheinischen Provinziallehrerverband” (that teachers’ association…), but also as a hotel and restaurant for the general public. In 1933 the Nazis took over pretty much all associations, including this one, and only years later the spa hotel became a military hospital. After the even less great war (WW2) and shorts stints under American and French military management, the Kurhotel was turned into a pulmonary health institute for released German POWs. State control continued in the 1940s, but switched from military to civilian use in 1948 when Rhineland-Palatinate’s ministry for social afairs took over… and finally returned the Kurhaus to the teachers in 1953. Turmoil continued as the hotel at first lost money and then was sold to the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (DRK, “German Red Cross”). In the following year the institution apparently made money and was expanded several times, until it was closed in 1983. After six years of maintenance without being used, the Kurhaus Stromberg was repurposed as a transition dormitory for ethnic German immigrants to Germany, when the Iron Curtain came down in 1989. In the mid-90s the DRK sold the hotel to a private investor, who did nothing with it until 1997, when the Hotel- und Restaurantbetrieb Kurhaus Stromberg GmbH (Hotel and Restaurant Kurhaus Stromberg Limited) introduced the previously mentioned beer spa… The sobering awakening followed in 2001, when the beery dream ended once and for all.
Originally built in a style called Domestic Revival and equipped with a mansard hip roof, the Kurhaus Stromberg is now considered a national heritage site under monument protection – at the same time it suffered from almost a decade of vandalism and 15 years without maintenance, which means that it can’t be quickly demolished, but it’s also highly unlikely that anybody would invest in the rundown building and its ragged garden the size of a park.

Since I focus on urban exploration in Japan, looking for abandoned places in other countries doesn’t have high priority to me… especially as I usually don’t have much time to travel within a vacation anyway. When I’m back home in Germany for two or three weeks per year, I usually explore in the southwestern part as this is the area where most of my family and friends live. The Kurhotel Stromberg looked kind of interesting, but the information I found was contradictive – some said the place was inaccessible, some claimed it was completely vandalized. Well, it turned out that the latter was true. Upon arrival my sister Sabine and I had the place to ourselves, but it took less than half an hour for about a dozen teenagers to arrive – on the one hand claiming to be surprised that the hotel was accessible at all, on the other hand making noise like a wrecking crew. It got even worse after they dragged it some boxes and bags, and it turned that they were trying to shoot an amateur horror movie. I told them that I would shoot some videos and that they might want to be quiet if they don’t want to end up on Youtube, but much like the noisy tourists at *Nara Dreamland* and the *Former Embassy of Iraq in East Berlin* they claimed that they don’t care and that I should just shoot whenever I want…

Both the Kurhotel Stromberg’s changeful history as well as the grand structure with its gorgeous white exterior reminded me of the *Maya Tourist Hotel*, probably the most traditional abandoned place in all of Japan. Both places are pretty much empty and quite vandalized now, both are used for photo and video shoots, both offer a couple of interesting angles, yet both are only shadows of their former glory. It’s a shame what happened to the hotel, but I guess that is what happens to the low hanging fruits. So if you ever wondered why I more and more often use generic names like *Kanto Hospital* or *Japanese Luxury Spa Hotel* – places like the Kurhotel Stromberg are the answer…

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Hokkaido Hospital

Posted in Abandoned, Haikyo, Hokkaido, Hospital, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2014 on 2016/05/10| 14 Comments »

“Holy s#it, are you f*ing serious?!”, I thought to myself when I first arrived at the Hokkaido Hospital, a small orthopedic clinic and rehabilitation center in one of those countless rundown former mining towns on Japan’s most northern main island. It was a bright cold day in November, and the clocks were silent on this dry morning.

The building in front of me consisted of two parts, connected by a small hallway: A three-storey building, most likely brick, approximately eight by 15 meters, with the exterior rendering falling off in huge chunks – and a rusty metal container, about six by eight meters and 1.5-storeys tall, held two meters above ground by six metal pillars; the space underneath carelessly and recklessly used to park cars and store equipment. The hospital was underground famous for its well-lit, white tiled operation room in good condition, but from the outside the building looked like a deathtrap, a place that could collapse any second – not because of an earthquake, but because of a gust of wind created by a speeding car. I was finally about to explore an abandoned hospital on Japan’s fourth main island, but this was not at all what I expected…

While I was checking out the exterior, a neighborhood dog apparently became aware of my presence and didn’t acknowledge me “leaving” (inside) for at least half an hour; a fact that just added another layer of uneasiness to this uncomfortable and rather cold exploration.
The ground floor was in bad condition, there is no other way to describe or even sugarcoat it. About half of it was dark and moldy, wood and ceiling panels rotting, paint flaking off the walls – unfortunately it was the most interesting part of the floor… or maybe even the whole hospital; the part with the X-ray machine. At least I assume it was an old X-ray machine, judging by the left behind blue lead-weighed jacket and the control panels in that tiny neighboring room. I spent almost an hour in this dark area, taking photos all by myself in an extremely eerie atmosphere – wondering if I found the right hospital, because this rundown piece of something surely didn’t look like it was still home to a surgery. And when I finally moved on, the staircase leading up didn’t exactly reinforce my confidence in the structural integrity of the building or raise my expectations on the higher floors!
But as we all know: Books shouldn’t be judged by their covers – and some of them not even by their first couple of chapters. About 1.5 hours after my arrival I finally found the operating room… and it was almost as bright and shiny as I had hoped it would be. Now please keep in mind that I am writing about an exploration that happened 18 months ago – since then I’ve been to a couple of abandoned hospitals with fully stocked operation theaters, but back then I was only used to countryside clinics run by small town doctors, like the legendary *Tokushima Countryside Clinic*. In hindsight (and visible in the photos) the surgery room had some flaws – a lot of instruments were scattered all over the floor (signs of other visitors…), pretty much all of them were rusting away, and the operation bed / stretcher had seen better days, too. But it was nevertheless an exciting place to be after the dark, nerve-wrecking rooms on the ground floor! (Especially since the neighborhood cur was finally quiet…)
Not much of an exciting place to be was the metal container past the staircase. The darn thing was obviously leaking and a good part of the floor was under water, especially the room with the abandoned rehabilitation equipment. The whole area smelled of mold, it was visible almost everywhere… and I also was a bit worried about crashing through the floor and ruining a car parked underneath, so I left as quickly as possible; which explains why some of the photos are not aligned well and tend to be a bit too bright or dark.
Back in the main building I went up to the third floor – interestingly enough by far in best condition, but not interesting enough to spend much time there; mostly patient rooms with little furniture and other interior left behind, but I already had spent 50% more time there than allocated anyway, and I was swiftly running out of it.

Exploring the Hokkaido Hospital was a pretty amazing experience, especially since I knew little to nothing about it beforehand – two or three photos of the white surgery room and a recommendation… that was all I had. How to get there, how to get inside, finding the good parts? That was up to me, and only up to me. Over the course of the past 18 months this little gem has appeared here and there, and photographers still seem to be fascinated by the operation room… but my favorite part was the X-ray area. It was dark, it was old, it was spooky – the kind of place you just want to get out off, but then you stay for “just one more photo” in hope to take another good one… Luckily I had the chance to explore the Hokkaido Hospital before it became too well known – and so I was able to move on to other abandoned hospitals, some of which I liked even better… like *this one here*! 🙂

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Nara Dreamland 2016

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Japan, Nara, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/05/03| 11 Comments »

Nara Dreamland and Abandoned Kansai are inseparable… A long time ago I brought you the first pictures (taken in 2009!) and now I publish the latest – none of the photos in the gallery below is older than 24 hours; some have been taken barely half a day ago, literally this morning, May 3rd!

My visits to *Nara Dreamland* have always been troublesome. I’ve been cut short by security twice and afterwards went to great lengths to avoid that damn guard(s). As much as I love the place, my visits there were never relaxed and barely ever a good experience. The same goes for the so-called *Golden Week*, an agglomeration of national holidays in Japan that causes the whole country to travel, which means that hotels, trains and tourist spots are crowded and overpriced as heck – which causes a lot of people to travel abroad, this year including my regular urbex buddies: honeymoon, vernissage, surprise marriage. Facing another disastrous week of binge-watching overrated TV shows or playing the Xth installment of a video game series I lost interest in half a decade ago, I decided to make the best of the situation. What better time of the year to mess with my biorhythm than the time of the year I actually have nothing better to do than to recover from a night and early morning stay at Nara Dreamland?
Last year it took me 10 days between exploring Nara Dreamland and publishing the photos here on Abandoned Kansai… 9.5 to be exact. On a regular weekend I would be able to reduce it to 2.5 days – but thanks to Golden Week I was actually able to lower that delay to half a day; which is as fast as I will ever get since I don’t take pictures with a smartphone… mainly because I don’t have one. 🙂
(Though I am sure you don’t really care how old the photos are. If I learned one thing over the last couple of years, then that Nara Dreamland pictures are always are crowd-pleaser – one I probably should have milked more often, as I still have whole sets of old unpublished NDL photos; not to mention the hundreds of photos of used sets I never published…)

My main goal for this visit was to duplicate some shots I took back in 2010 to illustrate the insane amount of vandalism Nara Dreamland has suffered from just within a few years – those I saved for a future article, but of course I took a lot more photos; some in areas I have missed during my first few visits.
If you follow the news closely, you might have heard that *Nara Dreamland* has been sold in November of 2015 to SK Housing, a real estate company based in Osaka. The previous owner owed the city of Nara something like 650 million Yen in property tax – and the only way to get the money was to foreclose the former theme park. After a failed public auction a year prior, SK Housing was the only bidder willing to pay the minimum amount of 730 million Yen, pretty much 6 million USD. This looks like a steal considering the property size of 297,000 square meters (3.2 million square feet!) and the fact that it comes with 75 buildings and other structures (that’s less than 20 EUR per sqm!), BUT the deal comes with some serious drawbacks. First of all: None of the buildings / structures are usable anymore – most of them are actually beyond repair. But even if you would level the whole park (which SK Housing has no plans for, according to a friend of mine who contacted them recently!) you’d have to invest several hundred million Yen more and then deal with nightmarish zoning regulations: new buildings are not allowed to be taller than 10 meters (the wooden rollercoaster Aska is 30 meter high!) and have to be used for libraries, museums, schools, sporting grounds, welfare facilities or a zoo – commercial, hotel, residential and retail developments are prohibited. So what is SK Housing going to do with their six million dollar investment? I have no idea…

(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the *Nara Dreamland Special*. *Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)

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Japanese Youth Hostel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2014 on 2016/04/26| 6 Comments »

You can’t throw a stone without hitting an abandoned hotel in some parts of Japan, deserted youth hostels on the other hand are rather rare…

There are about 300 youth hostels all across Nippon, which is not a lot in comparison to the 500 hostels in Germany (Japan: 127 million people, Germany: 82 million inhabitants) – probably because youth hostels tend to be more expensive in the land of the rising sun, while low-price competition in the form of minshuku and business hotels is much bigger. The lack of cheap places to stay for young people and families was actually the reason why youth hostels were invented – by German teacher Richard Schirrmann, who liked to go on hiking trips with his students and often had to spend the nights in barns or school buildings. As a proof of concept, Schirrmann opened the first youth hostel in an old school on a trial basis in 1907. In 1910 he presented his idea of an exhaustive network of affordable accommodations in an article for the Kölnische Zeitung (back then a big nationwide newspaper) and received lots of support. With that Schirrmann was able to move his provisional youth hostel to the renovated Altena Castle in 1912, making it the first permanent (and still existing!) youth hostel – and him becoming its warden. (Sadly the annual details differ depending on the sources… I went with the numbers that made the most sense to me.) Soon after the idea was picked up internationally and today there are more than 4000 youth hostels all over the world, organized by an association called Hostelling International.

The Japanese Youth Hostel I explored with my buddy *Hamish* was in the outskirts of a famous resort town, in the middle of a forest, surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of retreats for rich people and companies. From the outside the building was still in good condition and only the CLOSED sign in a window and the massive amount of foliage gave away that this JYH youth hostel was actually abandoned. Both the exterior and interior looked a bit outdated, probably 1950s or 60s, but there were no signs of vandalism, which is even more impressive as the place had been abandoned for almost 25 years at the time of our visit. Sure, some previous visitors obviously moved around a couple of items, but nothing had been smashed or covered with spray paint. It was almost like a time capsule… strangely beautiful in its own way – yet kind of eerie, as in: all of a sudden you could be trapped inside, like in a supernatural horror movie…

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Asama Observatory & Volcano Museum

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Demolished, Gunma, Haikyo, Japan, Museum, Non-Urbex, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2016/04/19| 8 Comments »

Urbex is a dangerous hobby – even more so in Japan, where wildlife can be nasty and deadly earthquakes are a constant threat that can strike anywhere at any time (most recently last weekend in Kumamoto). How to up the ante? By exploring near one of the country’s many active volcanoes…

I always wanted to travel to the mountains of central Japan – not just for urban exploration, but for sightseeing, too: Matsumoto, Nagano, Karuizawa. And while the area is easy to access from Kansai, it’s also a time-consuming endeavor of up to six hours each way (plus one for the bus to Mount Asama). With winter looming, I finally took last trains to Matsumoto on a Friday after work in early November of 2012, and from there I made my way through the valley of the Chikuma River to Karuizawa and Mount Asama, the most active volcano on Japan’s main island Honshu.
Luckily the weather played along on both days, so I had a really good time in the Chubu area, though I made a couple of mistakes that affected this article and some future ones: First of all, I forgot my trusty video camera, so I had to use the video mode of my D7000 – and I wasn’t familiar with it at all. The second, even worse mistake was that I thought it would be a good idea to shoot in NEF and only take some “safety shots” in JPG, despite me never doing any enhancing post-production – as a result it took me 3.5 years to write about this trip for the first time… and only because I took plenty of safety shots at Mount Asama. When will I write about the other half a dozen locations I visited during that weekend? It might take a while. Probably never, as I still have zero interest in photo editing! (Luckily I never repeated this lapse of judgment and from the following weekend on I started to shoot in NEF and JPG simultaneously, using the JPGs and archiving the NEFs just in case I ever need them…)

Arriving at Mount Asama I had a quick look at the new Asama Volcano Museum (opened in 1993 to replace the old Asama (Garden) Observatory and Volcano Museum), but only at the gift store and for a couple of minutes, because my time in the middle of nowhere was limited – I had to catch a certain bus back to Karuizawa to still be able to make it home the same day.
At first I was worried that it would take me a while to find the old, at that point abandoned museum as other people wrote they hiked for like an hour to get there… luckily the old museum was right next to the new one – and both of them were right next to the Onioshidashi Park. Oni-oshi-dashi means something like “demons pushing rocks” and is a huge area of Mount Asama’s northeastern slope covered by volcanic rocks as a result of the Tenmei Eruption in 1783, killing more than 1400 locals and intensifying a famine that lasted several years, causing nearby provinces to under-produce for half a decade. In 1958 a temple dedicated to Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, was built – and in 1974 a wheelchair-friendly hiking trail with several routes was opened in the oni-oshi-dashi, creating Onioshidashi Park.
Between the temple and the hiking trail, an observatory and museum about the history of Mount Asama and volcanoes in general was built between 1965 and 1967 – and closed / abandoned in 1993, when the new museum opened in the shadow of the old one. Since Mount Asama is an active volcano (with most recent eruptions in 2004, 2008, and 2009) that causes up to +1000 earthquakes per month (!), you can imagine that the exposed concrete observatory / museum had a tough time being hit by rocks and standing on shaky ground. And though the abandoned old museum was easily accessible for many, many years, it wasn’t anymore upon my visit in November of 2012 – the whole damn thing was thoroughly boarded up on all possible levels of entry.
Given the extremely dilapidated condition of the building and its location right next to two (!) tourist attractions I couldn’t blame the people in charge, but I was nevertheless a little bit disappointed. Not for long though, because it was an incredibly beautiful autumn day and I was in a touristy mood anyway, so I enjoyed a wonderful stroll through the Onioshidashi Park… until I wanted to cross the suspension bridge at the end of the course, the one that would get me back to the parking lot / bus stop within 5 minutes. Unfortunately the thing was closed! Whether for maintenance or for good I wasn’t able to find out, but it didn’t matter, because either way I had to rush back to make it home on time…

Despite not being able to enter the old Asama Observatory & Volcano Museum I had a great time out there at Mount Asama. The weather was gorgeous and the area so stunningly beautiful in its very own way. And the old building… was just perfect the way it was, crumbling before my eyes. (It was actually demolished just months later, in June of 2013, and replaced by yet another observation platform.)
The Onioshidashi Park was a treat by itself and it’s definitely a stop you should include on your next off the beaten tracks tour of Japan. (Be aware though that the new museum and the hiking trails are closed between December and March, both included.) Having to pass concrete shelters every couple of dozen meters was a strange feeling! You know that the volcano can erupt at any time, but seeing those shelters makes it a lot more real than just having book knowledge. Having experienced time and again how unnerving earthquakes can be, I really don’t want to be near a volcano when it erupts…

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Jozankei Go-Kart

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hokkaido, Japan, Photography, Sports, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2014 on 2016/04/12| 2 Comments »

Abandoned race tracks tend to be rather unspectacular – which isn’t much of a loss when they are part of an amusement park, like most of them are. Two or three decent photos and you can move on to the next attraction. An abandoned go-kart track as a standalone article kind of stretches it a little bit though, but… well… shoganai, eh? 🙂
It seems like the Jozankei Go-Kart once had been part of a bigger sports park called Leisure Land, but little to none information is available on this often and rightly overlooked location. I paid this virtually unknown place a short visit after I bid farewell to the once amazing *Hokkaido House of Hidden Treasures* one and a half years ago – and there is actually not much I can tell you about it. Located a bit outside of Jozankei Onsen, the atmosphere around dusk on a late autumn day was rather spooky, as if wildlife could attack any minute. Sadly there was not much left to see. The track, marked by old tires, was covered by several layers of foliage and severely overgrown. The former restrooms were vandalized, some small shacks held office furniture and other garbage. A bit further up the hill I found a collapsed house, most likely a restaurant gift shop – and a rather big boat, also overgrown. Since it was getting dark and I was increasingly worried about ending up as dinner for a bear, I hurried up and got the heck out of there after less than half an hour…
Leisure Land obviously had nothing to do with the fantastic *Kejonuma Leisure Land* – but unlike the *Kart Pista Hiroshima*, Jozankei Go-Kart was actually 100% abandoned! Nothing worth traveling to Hokkaido for, barely worth stopping for when you are in the area; which is rather unlikely, given that *the infamous sex museum just down the road has been demolished in January of 2015*.

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Utopia Lift, Lower Terminus

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kyushu, Oita, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2016/04/05| 4 Comments »

A couple of months ago I wrote an article about the *Utopia Lift* near *Shidaka Utopia*. Well, about the upper terminus… but of course I also took photos of the lower terminus, which is often overlooked by other explorers – it’s easier to reach, but harder to find, since the area is much more overgrown than its counterpart up the hill.
So you already know the history of the lift… and the history of the nearby amusement park. What’s left to say? Not much. Looking back, it was one of the best days of solo explorations ever. Four rather rare locations (including an amusement park), countryside, spring, hiking, beautiful weather, a wild fox on the kart track below – it barely ever gets better than that! So please enjoy the photos and the video below…

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Mikobata Mine

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Mine, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2016/03/29| 17 Comments »

Fossil fuels have been on the decline for quite some time now in industrialized countries, with coal leading the way – and so it’s not a surprise that North America and Europe, but also Japan, are littered with closed / abandoned mines. The Mikobata Mine in central Hyogo is one of them…

Deserted mines are very close to my heart as it was one of them that re-ignited my slumbering interest in abandoned places – though this very specific one was everything but deserted. In the winter of 2004 I attended a bi-weekly seminar at the Zeche Zollverein (*Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex on Wikipedia*) in Essen, Germany. Unlike many other mines that were closed since the 1950s, this gigantic conglomerate was saved by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – when the coal mine close in 1986 it bought the land and declared Shaft 12 a heritage site. Cleaning up and renovation began instantly and continued till 1999, from the mid-90s on also involving the massive cokery closed in 1993 (after selling it to China fell through). In 2001 the Zeche Zollverein became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and now houses a visitor center for the Industrial Heritage Trail (part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage), the Ruhr Museum, the Red Dot Design Museum, a performing arts center (PACT Zollverein), as well as several other spaces for artists and lecturer – and of course some eateries. Initially hardly anybody liked the idea, because the mining industry was associated with dirty, hard labour and many hazards… who needed to be reminded? Now the Zeche Zollverein and its unique mix of architecture (based on the 1932 Bauhaus style Shaft 12) and culture is a popular destination for all kinds of activities and hopefully the model for similar projects all over the world.
Japan is still lacking this kind of foresight for the most part. There are tourist mines here and there all over the country (for example the *Osarizawa Mine*), but little is done to effectively preserve large structures – probably because most of them will be extremely expensive and difficult to preserve, like the concrete jungle on *Gunkanjima*. Most other closed / abandoned Japanese mines are made of wood and corrugated iron, destined to slowly fade away. To make preservation financially feasible, most of those mines get stripped of all those costly, dangerous areas – some machines are salvaged, former administrative buildings are turned into mini-museums; done! Even on location you can only guesstimate the former glory of those places… unless you enter areas not supposed to be accessible for the general public.

The Mikobata Mine in Central Japan was actually one of those closed mines that were rotting for more than a decade, before some local historians and technicians turned them into a safe tourist attraction. Founded in 1878 as an offspring of the nearby Ikuno Mine, the whole mining conglomerate (Ikuno, Mikobata and the recently presented *Akenobe Mine*) was sold to Mitsubishi in 1898 (or 1896, according to other sources). All three of them were closed 1987 and in 2001 restoration began; resulting in the demolition of the Mikobata Processing Site in 2004. The bright grey concrete stumps were fenced off, nearby houses were restored, a mini train and several bilingual info signs put up, machines hidden under tarps, …
Due to my somewhat sloppy research ahead of time, Dan and I were not aware of all of this, and kind of expected a fully abandoned mine, *Taro* style. But it was a beautiful spring day in the mountains, so of course we made the best of it. First we headed over to the gigantic concrete UFOs and slipped through the fence to have a closer look – plenty of salvaged equipment, just waiting to be placed into more old restored wooden buildings. Nice!
Then we headed to the other direction, the part of the slope that still had plenty of trees. There we found all kinds of semi-overgrown concrete and metal remains, including an outdoor lamp in pieces… and tiny paths leading up the mountain. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade – and when urbex gives you a slope, you climb it. Even when the tiny paths disappear and you only think that there might be something up there… you go anyway. Basic rules of life, you know.
Half an hour and me fully out of breath later, we indeed found a road – and it lead us back to the mine! Of course there was a gate, but again… If urbex gives you gates, you climb them or find a way around them – I’m not making the rules, I am just following them! The view from up there down the valley was absolutely gorgeous, but we were very well away that this wasn’t abandoned anymore; rather part of a museum – so we headed across the open space and followed the road down the mountain, hoping that it would lead us back to the big street at the foot. On the way we found an old mining railway, partly covered by rock fall. Fantastic! As much as I love barely touched abandoned place like the *Wakayama Hospital*… there is something very special about a sunny day outside in the mountains, about massive concrete construction, about brittle wood and rusty metal – about a couple of dozen meters of bend old railroad tracks.
When we finally got back to the car I had gone from disappointment to pleasant surprise – the Mikobata Mine wasn’t really one of those classic abandoned mines, but nevertheless we were able to do some real exploration, seeing some things and getting to some areas that probably not a lot of eyes had seen in previous years. We didn’t know it at the time, but we should end our day at the *Akenobe Mine* a little bit deeper down into the mountains – two mines that not only belonged to the same company, Mitsubishi, but that were actually connected by endless kilometers of tunnels…

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