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Old Higashi-Aoyama Station

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Mie, Photography, Transportation, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2013/09/03| 31 Comments »

“Why?”

More than once I asked myself that question when getting up way too early on a Saturday morning to head out to an abandoned place I have barely information on, once in a while not even the exact location. On some days it’s even a “WHY?!” – especially when it’s cold outside and I have to go all by myself. But then I grab my equipment packed the evening before and head out to the middle of nowhere, using up to four railway companies on a trip that takes up to four hours… each way.
The Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was my goal on one of those “WHY?!” days. A 2.5 hour long trip on three different lines to the Mie countryside, plus a 5 km hike in the mountains to the final destination. None of my friends wanted to come along, but at least the weather forecast was decent – sunny 12 degrees in the middle of December, not too bad while Europe was covered in snow. GoogleMaps, back in 2010 my most reliable haikyo partner, was rather useless in this case since my place of interest was really off the beaten tracks…

Opened on December 20th 1930 the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was already in the middle of nowhere in 1971, when it hit the news big time. Located in a beautiful valley between two pretty long one track tunnels, it must have been extremely popular amongst day-trip hikers. Probably only with hikers, as there is or was no bigger town or even village in reasonable walking distance; and there are no hints of parking lots close to the station.
One track tunnels always involve the danger of train accidents and one of those sealed the destiny of the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station: On October 25th 1971 at around 4 p.m. an express train to Nagoya collided with a limited express going to Namba / Kyoto (I guess it was supposed to be separated later along the track…). 25 fatalities, 218 wounded, cause: human error.
To avoid an accident like that could ever happen again, Kintetsu, the company owning the line and its stations, planned a huge new two-track tunnel, avoiding the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station and the valley it was located in, building the current Higashi-Aoyama Station a few kilometers away. On November 22nd 1975 the new station was opened, while in the following months the railroad tracks of the old line were stripped down and all buildings except the platforms as well as the tunnels were demolished.

At first sight, after huffing and puffing up a steep forgotten road that once must have been used to transport supplies to (build) the station, the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station was a big disappointment. Although I hadn’t seen anything but seven years old photos of two abandoned train station platforms on a hiking blog, I was kind of hoping for something more. I took a couple of quick pictures of what I had already seen on the internet, looking for more signs of the past.
Luckily the disappointment disappeared in no time as I quickly found a side-track and then something that must have been a kiosk four decades ago – including a fridge and several empty glass bottles of “Morinaga Twist”, a soda I’ve never heard of before, and other drinks. That’s when the mental cinema screen started to work again. Left of the kiosk I found a shrine, so overgrown that I wasn’t able to see it from the platforms. To the right was a concrete flight of stairs leading up the mountain – I guess that was the starting point for the hikers once buying Morinaga Twist. What could it have been like to follow that trail 40 years ago? I tried to get a taste by climbing the stairs, only to find a reminder of how dangerous even the most harmless *haikyo* can be when having bad luck – a huge rock, at least 60 cm in diameter was “blocking” the stairs; some things can just hit you without a warning… I went around the boulder and climbed the mountain for about 15 minutes, concrete step after concrete step. Up there I found the typical leftovers of what must have been another kiosk when the train station was still down in the valley – lots of corrugated iron, some broken bottles and dented pots as well as a rusty gas canister.
This discovery just fueled my imagination, so I followed what I assumed once was the hiking trail, now covered by leaves. After about another 10 minutes I reached the top of the mountain and there I found more leftovers from hikers passing by decades ago – bottles and cans once holding tea, juice and sodas. A couple of meters along the ridge I startled up a bigger specimen of the local wildlife (I guess it was a deer), so I decided to turn around and go back down to the station for a couple of more photos, still wondering what it would have been like to be an autumn hiker 60, 70 years ago. At that point I was actually happy being alone on that exploration, because I didn’t have to talk to anybody and could fully enjoy the atmosphere of this wonderful location on that amazing late autumn day. Eight hours prior I asked myself “WHY?!” – leaving the Old Higashi-Aoyama Station behind, I knew why…

(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* and *follow this blog on Twitter* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

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Hochspeyer Munitions Storage

Posted in Abandoned, Depot, Europe, Germany, Military, Photography, Rhineland-Palatinate, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/08/27| 31 Comments »

The Hochspeyer Munitions Storage (HMS, a.k.a. Ammunition Storage Annex Hochspeyer) was one of the most fascinating and mysterious military installations I visited during my trip to Germany in the summer of 2013. I actually wanted to visit the place two years prior right after exploring of what was left of *Sembach Air Base*, but sadly we ran out of time back then after my buddy Gil and I were surprised by a cloudburst…

Just a couple of weeks ago I came back with my friend Catherine. The Palatine area is perfect to combine long walks with urban exploration, so I chose the forests around K-Town (commonly known as Kaiserslautern) for a little catch up trip. The first location we went to turned out to be proof of Germany’s interesting energy policy and a terrible disaster for fans of abandoned military bases as it was converted into a gigantic solar farm; the next one, Hochspeyer Munitions Storage, on the other hand was kind of a jackpot.
We entered the premises via a road blocked by two concrete barriers – no cars allowed, only bikes and pedestrians. We actually didn’t see a single “Don’t trespass!” or “Trespassers will be shot!” sign, so we felt very comfortable there, despite the fact that there was not much to see at first. Just a single green building, the interior smashed to pieces, and a big asphalted area with only basic foundations left – probably a motor pool half a century ago. Heck, even the fence was mostly gone, with only a couple of concrete posts left. Although I did quite a bit of research on the Hochspeyer Munitions Storage I am still not sure whether or not this area was officially part of it – if it was, it was mostly demolished and abandoned decades ago. But the HMS dates back to the 1960s, so it’s rather likely that both area saw activity at the same time back in the days. And while one part was left deserted, the other got modernized again and again…
Deeper into the forest Catherine and I found a locked gate, part of a really tall barbed-wire fence with a series of lamp posts every 25 meters set 5 meters behind the fence. Despite its location in the middle of the woods this area was carefully deforested and secured – trespassers could be seen easily from large distances. Abandoned or not, the people who planned this area knew what they were doing, eager to keep people out. Everything there was in great condition at first sight: the fence, the gate, the locks, the lamp posts, the security perimeter… only some open doors at a building in the distance indicated that the area really might have been abandoned. So we looked for a way in and indeed found one.
We quickly approached the green building, eager not to be seen from people on or off the premises – with Ramstein Air Base not being far away we saw plenty of stuff flying across our heads. The flat part consisted of a machinery room, restrooms and a couple of office / conference rooms, the rather high part seemed to have been a storage and / garage, probably to de/load vehicles. SIgns were either in English or bilingual, English and German. The most interesting one was just airbrushed onto the wall:
Explosive Limits
1.1  5,000  lbs
1.2  5,000  lbs
1.3  10,000  lbs
1.4  Physical Capacity
Personnel Limits
2 Supervisors
5 Workers
2 Casuals
Okay… this definitely wasn’t the average administrative building you see when entering abandoned military bases, this was serious stuff! And everything looked pretty new, aside from some vandalism. Was this area really abandoned?

Catherine and I continued to explore the area. Next we found the former main gate with the gatehouse. One window open, others smashed – raw violence, because those windows were made from bulletproof glass. Again, serious stuff. When I opened a small door on the back I could feel that it was really heavy, despite the fact that it opened smoothly. The interior of the building was mostly gone, but you could see that once it must have been stuffed with tons of electronic devices. Probably not too long ago, given that you could basically start to reuse the building after a couple of hours of repairs. Nothing too serious, but probably costly.

I have to admit that I felt a bit more more uneasy inside the fenced area than outside in the 60s foundation area, and that didn’t change when finally reached the bunker area, tire tracks still on the ground, low vegetation, filled water reservoirs after a hot summer, the pool liner still in great condition. This site was definitely closed, but was it really abandoned? That thought resounded my mind like spoken words in the open bunkers. The acoustics there were fantastic, especially since I am so used to shut bunkers, sitting there inaccessibly everywhere in forests all over German. Finally being able to enter some of them was amazing, one of those minor urbex highlights you stumble across every once in a while. As was a nearby tool shack, where the silhouettes of the equipment were painted onto the wall, so even Private Paula would know where to put things back. Another minor highlight was that one bunker that was built differently in many ways and had a gigantic safe built in, installed by Garny – founded 200 years ago in 1813. (This was a newer model, of course…)

Usually it takes me months, sometimes even years, to write about my explorations, but the Hochspeyer Munitions Storage was a truly exciting exploration, one that made me write this article while I was still in Germany, taking an afternoon of doing research about what the place really was.
Sadly not much is known about the Hochspeyer Munitions Storage. At first I thought it was related to the *Sembach Air Base* I mentioned earlier, which it probably was at one point, but since the airfield there was closed it seems like the HMS was part of the famous Ramstein Air Base; some guy in a German internet forum claimed at one point it was a sub-camp of the USAF Depot Morbach-Wenigerath, now known as Energiepark Morbach (energy park Morbach).
The few facts are that the HMS was 88 acres big (about 356000 square meters), had 30 bunkers, was part of the USAFE (United States Air Forces in Europe), that the road there was built in 1957 thanks to a Captain Joseph T. Sampson – and that it was closed in 2007 as part of “Air Force Smart Operations for the 21 Century” (AFSO21) to save a couple of bucks. In early 2007 Ramstein’s 435th Munitions Squadron started transporting material from Hochspeyer to their main base, the last truck leaving on October 12th of the same year. Apparantly most of it were BLU-109 bombs, nasty buggers that are used against HDBTs (Hard and Deep Buried Targets) and can break through 1.8 meters of ferroconcrete before exploding. Which explains the setup of the facility – it’s the kind of technology you don’t want to have fallen into wrong hands… and the kind of technology local civilians shouldn’t know about.
The rest is vague. Some people claim that the area was returned to Germany, others say that it is still under the control of the USAFE. (Since there were no warning signs in German I assume the area still belongs to the US. In cases like that the Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (BIMA, Institute for Federal Real Estate) usually takes over – and they are pretty good at putting up signs. Making good use of the area? Not so much. Putting up signs? Hell yeah!) Some people claim the premises are abandoned, others say that they are still used for emergency drills and patrolled by security – or in this case rather security police.

Whatever is true, I am happy that I was able to explore the Hochspeyer Munitions Storage without causing trouble for me and my companion. It was a very memorable experience and I did as much research as possible afterwards, but if you know more about the place, having worked there or being a (hobby) historian, please feel free to add facts and anecdotes in the comments section!

(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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Red Factory

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chugoku, Factory, Haikyo, Japan, Okayama, Photography, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/08/20| 10 Comments »

June is probably the worst month to spend in Japan. While the temperatures are still at a bearable level (25 to 30 degrees Celsius / about 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit) the humidity goes crazy thanks to the rainy season. Six weeks of rain, probably on five days a week. Not fun when you like to spend your time outdoors.
Four weeks into the 2012 rainy season the weather forecast announced a whole weekend without rain and I got excited. Finally some urbex again, even an overnight trip for two days. Of course on Friday the forecast changed from two days of sun to sunny on Saturday and rainy on Sunday, but one day of exploration is better than none, so decided to finally visit the “Red Factory”, a favorite of Japanese blogs in the first half of 2012. It was in day trip range, but nevertheless a pain in the ass to get to due to its remote location. The closest train station was about 11 kilometers away, with buses running twice a day on weekends, at 12.30 p.m. and 5 p.m., going back to the station at 7.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. – which meant a pretty long walk on the way back…

At least I was able to sleep in on Saturday, only to find the weather wasn’t sunny at all. Not even cloudy. It was overcast, pretty much the worst weather for photography. June in Japan…

3 hours later (2 hours on several trains, then half an hour waiting for another 30 minutes on a bus) I finally reached the Red Factory on this hot and humid, but not sunny, Saturday – and I was a bit disappointed, to say the least. The place was not nearly as big and not nearly as red as I imagined it to be (I picked the “most red” photos for this article…). And the road there was impassable for cars due to a retractable road block I hadn’t seen on any photo before. The first factory building, empty on old Japanese blog entries, usually not to be seen on newer ones (a fact I didn’t realize during my research, of course) was filled with all kinds of canisters, tools and cars with white and yellow license plates – which means privately, not commercially, used vehicles. It looked like somebody started to use the factory as storage buildings. Great… infiltration, not exploration.
Cautiously I continued to walk up the mountain. Next building – a brand-new midget tractor. All the other buildings were pretty much broom-clean. Not exactly what I expected. And what about the partly overgrown house on the other side of the small river running through the factory area? Hastily I quickened my pace to reach the top of the factory area, not sure anymore if it was still abandoned. 50 meters of elevation gain later I reached the end of the factory area. Nobody there, so at least I was sure no human surprises were waiting for me in the back. An animal surprise was there though. A dead animal. Well, more than dead – the skeleton of a deer, most likely a Sika Deer or Japanese Deer, cervus nippon nippon. At least a dozen Japanese urban explorers went to the Red Factory that year and none did care to mention that the place was in use and that parts of a deer skeleton were lying in front of one of the buildings. What the heck…?!

From that point on the exploration was pretty much easy going. Of course I was still worried that somebody would show up, but I was way too busy to avoid spiders, snakes and other animals in the buzzing summer season.

Sadly there is not much I can tell you about the history of the Red Factory. In Japanese it is usually called the Red Ochre Factory, so given the looks of the factory it’s safe to say that the facility was used to produce red ochre from yellow ochre. Captain Obvious strikes again!

Aaaand… that’s pretty much it. Unspectacular exploration, getting there and back took much longer and was much more of an effort than actually exploring the Red Factory. A bit disappointing since I had great expectations, but after sitting at home for several weeks due to the weather it was a welcome change… (The walk back though wasn’t fun at all. Jeans, hiking boots, full camera equipment on an extremely humid day along a river – 11 kilometers in under two hours or I would have missed the train, running every 60 to 90 minutes.)

(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*…)

I planned to publish a video with this article, but Youtube seems to be a bit bitchy again on this computer – I will upload it most likely on August 26th.

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Alpen Rose Ski Resort

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, House, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Ski, Sports, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/08/13| 13 Comments »

Abandoned ski resorts are everywhere in Japan! I never specifically wanted to go to one, nevertheless I ended up at about half a dozen of them on the way to other places; one of them being the Alpen Rose Ski Resort.

The Alpen Rose Ski Resort is (or rather: was) a nursery slope in the middle of a busy skiing area in northern Hyogo prefecture. It opened in 1965 under a different name and apparently without a lift. In 1970 a lift was built, extended to the summit in 1971. In 1978 the ski resort was renamed to Alpen Rose, before it was closed in March 2000 or some time in 2001, depending on the source. (Since an abandoned vending machine still has “collectible” Star Wars Episode 1: Phantom Menace Pepsi Cola cans on display, the 2000 date is more likely, as the movie was released in Japan on July 10th 1999.)

After 13 years of abandonment and with the lower part of the ski lift gone, the Alpen Rose Ski Resort became one of those *haikyo* perfect for a break on the way to other places. After an hour or two in a car it’s nice to stretch your legs and take photos for a couple of minutes – in that case you don’t need a spectacular location that keeps you busy for several hours, just some dilapidated building with a couple of items and a landscape easy on the eyes.
Before entering the lodge I had a look at the surroundings – a little shack near the end of the former slope and a rather big foundation made of solid concrete; most likely the lower station of the now demolished lift. Not really much to see.
The lodge on the other hand was pretty nice, despite being partly collapsed already – and I guess the rest will follow soon, given that the building was almost completely constructed on pillars; especially the handful of guest rooms on the southern side. Partly covered by a crashed projecting roof and now exposed to Mother Nature were dozens of skis and skiing boots, right next to a Coke machine in decent condition. Next to it on the veranda was the already mentioned Pepsi machine and quite a few other items, like a Technics amplifier and a Panasonic hi-fi system – nothing fancy, but probably still working. The price list inside the lodge displayed rather steep, touristy prices. 350 Yen for a Coke and 800 Yen for curry rice would be normal prices today, but we are talking 13 years ago… Also definitely worth mentioning were the two snowmobiles right at the entrance, getting rusty and dusty.

The Alpen Rose Ski Resort was exactly what I hoped it would be – a nice break on a long car ride to the Sea of Japan. Nothing spectacular, but then again, not all of them can be like the *Abandoned Dynamite Mine* or the *Japanese Sex Museum*…

(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*…)

I planned to publish a video with this article, but Youtube seems to be a bit bitchy again on this computer – I will upload it most likely on August 26th.

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Okayama Hospital Haikyo

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Chugoku, Haikyo, Hospital, House, Japan, Monochrome, Okayama, Photography, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/08/06| 26 Comments »

The abandoned Okayama Hospital is a place of many names. Okayama Countryside Clinic (like the *Tokushima Countryside Clinic*) would have been an appropriate name, too, but Japanese blogs usually call it the Setouchi Clinic – which I think is a rather risky name as, in my humble opinion, it gives away too much about its location…

I was trying really hard to write an entertaining text about the Okayama Hospital Haikyo, but sadly there is little to nothing known about the clinic – and the current humid heat here in Osaka (up to 37°C and up to 84% humidity) didn’t exactly help either. Judging by the mansion-like looks of the estate it must have been built during the Meiji or Taisho era – a traditional Japanese style complex with massive boundary walls. I don’t know when the clinic was abandoned, but I guess it was about 20 years ago. Overall it was in good condition, but nature was claiming back the living room and I saw a decently sized hole in the floor of the reception – probably a previous explorer crashing through the wooden planks.
The owner definitely moved out, but left behind quite a bit of both medical as well as everyday life items. Since I visited the clinic, well hidden by a completely overgrown garden, on a rainy summer day, it was quite uncomfortable to explore – not nearly as bad as the mosquito ridden hellhole known as *Doctor’s Shack*, but still bad enough. It obviously also affected the lighting in the clinic, so I decided to publish this set in monochrome. For some reason monochrome works well with abandoned countryside clinics. (If you watch the video and think “But the sun is shining outside!” – yeah, for about ten minutes while I was there… and then for the rest of the day right after I left the clinic!)
Since the weather is killing me and there is not much to say about the clinic anyway, I will keep it short this week – overall it was a good location with some neat little details (I love the clock, the two phones and the katakana eye test!), but the *Tokushima Countryside Clinic* is still unrivaled when it comes to abandoned village doctor houses…

(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*…)

Okayama Hospital Haikyo

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Asahi Sports Center

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Sports, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012 on 2013/07/30| 20 Comments »

Asahi beer is popular all over the world, the Asahi Shimbun is a famous Japanese newspaper and Asahi TV is a somewhat known TV station – but the Asahi Sports Center nobody seems to know. Or seemed to know at the time my buddy Dan and I explored the place in October 2012. (If you google the term you will find tons of fitness clubs in Germany and Japan, despite the fact that I use the real name of the place here.)

Japanese summers are hot, humid, full of insects… and they drag on forever, especially in the Kansai region. While back home in Germany friends and family start to complain about grey days and having to wear windbreakers, I spend most late autumn days wearing T-shirts – and risking sunburns. Last year October was no different when Dan and I were approaching the Asahi Sports Center somewhere in the Japanese mountains. Despite wearing a T-shirt I was sweating like a hog, the vegetation still lush, green and thick. Before going to the sports center I only had seen a handful of bad photos on a Japanese blog, the satellite view on GoogleMaps basically useless due to its blurriness. With only a vague idea of what to expect the sheer size of the Asahi Sports Center took us by surprise, making it an all-time favorite at the time of its exploration.

After paying some serious amount of money for highway fees and driving for half an hour through tiniest towns and past forgotten fields we finally reached the Asahi Sports Center – being kilometers away from the next living soul we just parked the car in front of the first building we saw and headed in. It seemed like this was some kind of service center / administrative building. The kitchen on the ground floor was half unrigged, half ripped apart, the restrooms were dark and gloomy, vandalism everywhere; not exactly a warm welcome. The first floor, too, had not been spared by vandals and mould, but at least there we found some flyers and posters including maps, giving us an idea how big the sports center really was – the answer: about 450 by 200 meters. Pretty friggin big!
Two things on the map caught our eyes immediately: the huge swimming pool and the tennis courts. To our misfortune the combination of a drawn map (including artistic freedom…) and rampant nature didn’t make it easy to navigate, so it took a while until we found our way south via several flights of steps and an overpass – across a now completely overgrown kart track!

It was actually this outdoor area that made the Asahi Sports Center so spectacular. The service center was vandalized, but the sports area was just abandoned and overgrown. This part looked like people just didn’t show up anymore and nature took over again – natural decay at its best.
You should think that an abandoned tennis court wouldn’t be very interesting. The ones I saw on *Okunoshima* and near an abandoned retirement home in Germany (yet to come…) were actually quite dull places, but these courts here… amazing! They were located down a slope, lower than the visitor center, and the fences were almost completely overgrown, while the courts including the nets were… well… withered and rusted, but overall in decent condition. Somebody dragged the rusty umpire chairs away, but other than that everything looked eerily normal. The atmosphere was just wonderful, with the sun shining and birds singing; a perfect place to go to for reading a book without getting disturbed.
The huge pool west of the tennis courts was even spookier, thanks to a couple of little buildings surrounding the place, most vandalized and / or overgrown. A perfect place to shoot a horror movie on a grey hazy day… The dark green water looked like you could dump a body there without it ever being seen again once it sank down half a meter or so – a strong contrast to the white painted edge surrounding the creatively shaped pool. Just in sight of the pool we found about half a dozen wooden huts the sports center called Swiss Chalets. (The first video shows a walking tour of both the chalets and the pool.)
Shimmering through the profuse vegetation were some metal constructions, most likely part of the amusement park like rides visible on the posters and tickets at the visitor center. Sadly there was no way to get through, the undergrowth was just still too thick.

Dan and I went back up to the main road and followed it for a while. There we found another set of bungalows and some other buildings. Sadly they were completely vandalized and I had no motivation to take any photos there after enjoying the gorgeous sports area – but I kept the video camera rolling while I was going through the buildings for the first time. Usually I do the walking tours after I have seen everything, so this is a rare opportunity to explore live with me. To see what I saw when I actually saw it for the first time. After about 3 hours on the premises I didn’t expect any trouble anymore, exploring a building for the first time nevertheless is an exciting experience, even if the building is far from being spectacular!
In the neighborhood we also found the so-called convention center – basically a party space with an open fireplace on the ground floor and some rooms with tons of bunk beds upstairs. The Christmas party photos I found at the visitor center were clearly taken here.

Last but not least we followed a road down the mountain to what once was the goal of a summer ski slope – but this area was also completely overgrown, making it rather likely that I will revisit the sports center again one winter; before it starts to snow, but after the vegetation is weakened… 🙂

(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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Abandoned Dynamite Mine

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hiking, Japan, Mine, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/23| 44 Comments »

My favorite abandoned place in Japan? The Abandoned Dynamite Mine! It was love at first sight, in spring somewhere in the Japanese mountains…

2013 started slow for me, only two urbex day trips until late April, but then my buddy Dan and I decided to go on a weekend trip, a mere four days before I left for *North Korea*. I planned a little roundtrip to the countryside – some schools without children, some abandoned houses, a snowless ski resort or two… and that mine I had seen on a Japanese blog a while ago. It didn’t look spectacular there, and it was in the middle of nowhere, so my expectations were low, but I added it to the itinerary anyway. I like mines, big or small…
Halfway through the second day we finally drove up that tiny little countryside road – so off the beaten tracks that we weren’t even sure whether we would find anything or not. Maybe we missed a turnoff and the remains were out of sight just a couple of hundred meters away? But we continued, just to reach a dilapidated bridge across a tiny mountain river, the steep road we were on not deserving that term anymore – so we stopped and parked… right next to another car, with a dude reading fishing magazines!
We ignored him, he ignored us – and we continued on foot up the mountain, the grey sky slightly drizzling. Some hundred meters later it turned out that it was a good idea to have parked the car: A landslide washed away half of the road, reducing it to a path. Again several hundred meters later. And again and again. There was no way that any car would ever go up here again! We followed what now looked like a street that hadn’t seen traffic in decades, deeper into a valley and up the mountain; and then we saw it for the first time, partly hidden by clouds – the abandoned mine we were hoping to explore.

To some degree abandoned places are like people – with some you connect, with some you don’t. Some you find attractive, some you don’t. Some you want to spend more time with, some you just want to get away from. I looked up the steep slope, this time barely passable thanks to several mudslides, saw a couple of rusty, metal-cladded wooden shacks (I have a thing for redheads… uhm… red roofs!) and somehow had the feeling that this would be a fantastic exploration; especially since the place didn’t look much like on the tiny photos I saw before.

I couldn’t wait to have a closer look, so I picked up the speed, virtually flying up the slightly damp mountain. By the time I reached the first buildings, the low hanging clouds started to retreat and the sun came out – even nature was smiling at us… (The weather kept changing though, much like at the amazing *abandoned China themed park Tenkaen*.)
The first storage shack I entered already had some promising items, like a phone with a hand crank and an old lamp with the paint flaking off; old, rusty technology I really like. So while I was taking photos, my buddy Dan and his friend Spencer went ahead to have a look around. By the time I was done taking photos inside the storage my friends told me to have a look at the next building, as they found a special item there I should really see.
I hurried up the steep, raw steps to a little wooden shack filled with all kinds of electronic installations – and there it was sitting on the ground, a box labeled “新桐ダイナマイト“ – new ammonia gelatine dynamite. DYNAMITE?! Luckily the box was open and empty, but although I had been to several mines before, I had never seen a crate of dynamite. This was getting better by the minute! (Later on it turned out that this wasn’t the only dynamite box left behind…)
Since Dan and Spencer were going on a much faster pace, I was basically on my own at the Abandoned Dynamite Mine – exploring by myself while having the security of fellow explorers nearby is actually my favorite way to approach abandoned places. Especially in this case, where every step was dangerous; all the metal was rusty, all the wood was brittle, lots of corners were dark.

Rusty, brittle and dark, that also applied to my next destination, the loading dock at the bottom of the main building. Sadly there wasn’t much to see, except for conveyer belts and about a dozen 20 liter buckets of Hidiesel S-3, a patented lubricant produced by the Nippon Oil Company.

I left the loading dock, climbed another raw set of steps and entered the main building through what turned out to be a repair and assembly shop, right next to a system of machinery. Of course none of them were powered anymore, nevertheless there was a constant stream of water running through that part of the building. Actually it wasn’t constant, as it was getting stronger and weaker – I assumed my buddies were toying with some valves, but it turned out I was wrong. I still don’t know what was responsible for the variations, but it added to the atmosphere – the Abandoned Dynamite Mine might have been closed down, but it clearly wasn’t dead!
From this machine area with its thin rusty pathways I continued up the mountain inside the building, past more conveyer belts, more machines, more gauges. There I found two unopened cans of “Bireley’s Orange”, a non-carbonated orange soft drink more than a decade past its best before date; interestingly enough the can design didn’t change much since then.
The top of the main building was another interesting spot, offering a great view over the lower part of the Abandoned Dynamite Mine and holding a couple of interesting items, like more hand-cranked phones and a rusty shaving knife along with a pair of pincers.

To get to the upper part of the mine, where I assumed the mine entrance was, I had to go back down and follow a now somewhat overgrown path along the mountain slope. Three and a half hours into exploring this amazing place I was running out of time – luckily my friends were waiting for me up there, giving me advice on where to go and how to get there.
The view was amazing, but what really blew my mind were the wooden buildings – one looked like a one room apartment house, now filled with insect repellant. In April of 2013 bugs were not a problem, patches of snow still lying on the ground, but I can only imagine how the air must buzz of insects in the humid summer heat… The other building of interest must have been used for administrative purposes – there I found more dusty phones, but also old mining lamps, a large table with several chairs, lots of old LPs, books, safety guides, nude magazines… The back of the building smelled a bit chemical and when I left I could see more dynamite boxes from the corner of my eye – and that’s why I named the place Abandoned Dynamite Mine. (Given the stench I didn’t have a closer look at the boxes…)
Due to the known time restraints I only had a quick look at the surroundings, following some lorry rails along the mountain slope, but when the tracks lead me too far away from the buildings I turned around, only to find a really old mine entrance right next to the wooden administrative building – I am sure it wasn’t used to extract ores, at least not since the use of modern equipment, instead the tubes / hoses leading outside imply that it was used to handle the mine’s damps.
At that time the sun was about to set and so I had to leave my new favorite abandoned place in all of Japan before I was able to see everything; it took us about half an hour to get back to the car, plus another six hours to drive back Osaka (including a break at a conveyer belt sushi restaurant…).

The Abandoned Dynamite Mine was a perfect location, maybe THE perfect location; at least to me. I loved every second there, from the moment that I saw the first buildings through the mist till the last time I saw them 5 hours later from the same spot during golden hour. Most abandoned places unnerve me a bit for one reason or another, but here everything was perfect – the amazing condition of the mine, the variety of buildings and items, the tranquil atmosphere amidst the amazing landscape, the low expectations I had upon arrival; everything came together perfectly. As far as abandoned places go, this was true love at first sight… Even the bittersweet feeling of being cut short at the end contributed positively to the experience – leaving having seen everything would have been wonderful, but leaving while longing for more elevated the exploration to a whole new level!

(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*…)

Abandoned Dynamite Mine

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North Korea – Train To China (Pyongyang – Sinuiju – Dandong – Beijing)

Posted in Asia, Beijing, China, Dandong, DPRK, Korea, Map, Military, Night, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Transportation, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/17| 9 Comments »

It takes almost a whole day to go by train from Pyongyang to Beijing – and it’s quite an experience…

One of the few limitations Americans have when visiting the DPRK is the fact that they are not allowed to ride trains as the railway system is considered a military installation; so if you are American and you want to travel to North Korea you have to enter and exit by plane. All other nationalities usually take the plane in and the train out (or vice versa) – not because it is cheaper (it actually isn’t, at least not for the customer, probably for the travel agency though…), but because it is part of the fun. 23 hours on the train, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature! Well, to some people. Not to me necessarily. So I decided to split the train ride in half and have a 24 hour layover in Dandong, right at the border between China and the DPRK.

My last hours in North Korea began with the usual morning routine, but instead of going sightseeing after entering the bus, we went to Pyongyang Station – and I wish I had taken some photos outside instead of rushing inside with the flock as the square in front of the huge station looked quite modern, including some advertising and huge screens. Instead I spent another 15 to 20 minutes in the waiting room for international travelers, featuring the last gift shop before leaving the DPRK.

Pyongyang Station actually isn’t that busy and it seems to have only one platform – a gigantic platform where you can park buses crosswise. Nevertheless it serves four lines: One to Nampo, one to Rajin in the far North, one to Kaesong (theoretically to Busan via Seoul, but you know the problem there…) and one to Sinuiju; the one our group took.
The standard procedure is the following: The train leaves at around 10.30 in the morning for Sinuiju with several stops at stations along the way. At around 15.30 you arrive in Sinuiju, where you have to go through customs on the Korean side, which takes about two hours – sometimes more, sometimes less. Then the train crosses the river Yalu to Dandong, China. There you have to go through Chinese customs, which takes about 30 minutes. (Don’t forget to adjust you watch as China is in a different time zone!) Then you have about half an hour before the train continues at 18.30 to Beijing, where it arrives at 8.30 in the morning. At no time you have to leave the train – customs on both sides take care of everything on board. People going to Beijing directly are located in nice 4 bed compartments, travelers getting off at Dandong enjoy the 5 hour ride plus 2 hour long customs process in a smelly wagon with open 6 bed compartments. Since I opted for the layover in Dandong I was with the latter group…
We had seen lots of settlements and fields on the way to Kaesong and Nampo, but the northern part seemed to be a bit greener – and the train wasn’t nearly as shaky as that bus, so I was able to take some nicer photos and a really decent video.

The train ride through the North Korea countryside was actually quite relaxed, despite the fact that the 160 km long trip took a whopping 5 hours. The reason for that is the fact that the railway system was in abysmal condition. Like I said, we were not allowed to take photos and although we said goodbye to our Korean guides back in Pyongyang I stuck with it – out of respect and out of fear to get in trouble at customs. Our train was by far the most modern one on the way as all the other ones looked like they were from back in the days when Japan was still in charge of the country. The stations were in decent condition, but the trains… it’s actually hard to describe. First of all I don’t remember seeing many of them being in working condition, we saw only a couple of them with passengers in them. The trains and wagons parked within stations… half of them looked like they were involved in fires or explosions, the other half looked like they were rusting away for decades. I guess shock and surprise was another reason why I didn’t take photos. People thought the East German railway system was in bad condition when the FRG “bought” the GDR – but damn, this was a whole different level! Another sign that there was no to barely any railroad modernization since the 1930s or 1940s were the electricity posts along the track you can see in the video and on one of the photos. I’ve seen similar ones in Japan. Along railway tracks. Abandoned tracks! The DPRK must have spent quite a chunk of money on maintenance, but I am sure the railroad system in the 1960s was in better condition than it is now… except for the rather luxurious overnight wagon to Beijing.
Customs in Sinuiju took indeed a little bit more than two hours, but they weren’t really thorough. We occupied 5 or 6 beds in the smelly wagon, but they didn’t look at any of our photos and even forgot to look inside one of our suitcases…
Customs in Dandong were even faster, basically a passport and visa check, they didn’t even open any of our luggage. After the Chinese custom officers were done we left the train, said goodbye to our fellow travelers continuing to Beijing and left the station, where our 24 hours in Dandong began; three people from my group, four people of the other group. More about that on Friday!

24 hours later we were back at the station – well, me and my other two group members Patrick and Juliette as the group A guys actually stayed for 48 hours in Dandong.
This time we checked into one of those luxurious sleeper cars with four beds and a door, shared with a young Chinese woman travelling from Dandong to… somewhere in China. The train stopped every couple of hours and she left maybe two hours outside of Beijing. When I woke up in the middle of the night we just had stopped at one of those stations and I took a photo over my head aiming outside of the window – it turned out to be a quite nice one, so I added it to the gallery.

Overall the train ride to Beijing wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be, probably because I was able to split it into two halves. Arriving in Beijing though my bad luck in the city continued: While at the *Mansudae Art Studio* I bought a lithography too big to put in my suitcase, so I was having an eye on it for almost a week. At Beijing Railway Station I left in a hurry and after about three minutes I realized that I didn’t have the lithography in my hand anymore. Despite the masses, the heat and the humidity I immediately ran back to the train compartment where the cleaning personnel already started their work, less than five minutes after I left in this huge, loud, summer smelly crowd – of course nobody understood me or had seen anything. I don’t think I’ve ever lost anything since I was five years old! But that was just the beginning of another horrible, horrible stay in China’s capital…

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. 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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North Korea – Other Locations

Posted in Asia, DPRK, House, Kaesong, Korea, Map, Museum, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/15| Leave a Comment »

When I planned this series of articles about my trip to North Korea I realized quickly that I wouldn’t be able to dedicate each and every location its own article – there were just too many places I’ve visited. So I tried to limit myself to the most important ones, the most entertaining ones, the most impressive ones… and overall I did a decent job, I think. Some places I had to leave out because there was just not enough information about them, at others I wasn’t allowed to take photos or just didn’t have the time to do so. So here are a couple of locations I left out, but are actually worth mentioning…

Mangyongdae is one of the 19 districts of Pyongyang and considered Kim Il-sung’s birthplace by the North Korean authorities. We went there to see what was presented as the house where Kim Il-sung spent the first years of his life, before his family fled to Manchuria to escape the Japanese occupiers. The mini open-air museum was very popular among locals, but none of the foreign tourists seem to be much impressed, even when we heard the story that the family couldn’t afford a proper storage contained and had to buy a misformed cheap one still on display…

Kim Il-sung Square (completed in August 1954, 75000 m2) we saw several times, for example during the *Fun Run* and from the balcony at the *Grand People’s Study House*, but on day 2 we went there on purpose to go to the Foreign Language Book Store (where I didn’t take photos) and to the Ryongwang Coffee Shop. It was raining while we were there, but that didn’t keep locals from practicing for the Arirang Mass Games.

The Ryongwang Coffee Shop was kind of a fill-in since the rain prevented us from going up the *Juche Tower* for about an hour. Since I am not a coffee drinker I had to get a kick otherwise – luckily right next door was an import food store that had sausages and a hazelnut chocolate spread from Germany. I was tempted to buy some since it was actually cheaper than in Japan; where that kind of stuff usually isn’t even available. Two other things I liked were the Chelsea foosball table and the Sacher Kaffee sign at the wall. We also found out how buying stuff in the DPRK works: You go to the counter where you want to buy something (at a store, at a coffee shop, …) and say what you want. Then the clerk writes down the items and their prices. This piece of paper you take to another counter to pay and get the invoice stamped. Having a proof of pay you can go back to the first clerk where you get what you bought. In smaller shops those two counters might be ones, but goods and money are always handled by two different clerks.

The Paradise Department Store was a weird experience, because when we arrived the whole building was completely dark and only a handful of locals were having a look around. The place was stuffed with all kinds of goods, just like a real department store, but to us it seemed more like a show. Even more so since the clerks instantly asked us to stop taking photos once we started. Just as we were about to leave, the whole building came back to life – show or not, the place suffered from a blackout, which explained the lack of customers and the tenseness of the employees. Sadly nobody told us while we were exploring the building on our own, so everybody assumed it was a terrible show put up for us. Jumping to conclusions based on observations, not a good thing… (It was quite an expensive department store, BTW, located somewhere in the area where all the foreign embassies are.)

The National Gifts Exhibition House a.k.a. Pyongyang National Gift Palace was… something special. This building stores all the gifts Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un received from Koreans all over the world. From the most trivial things (I’ve heard a story that a British delegation once brought a souvenir plate they got for a couple of bucks in the streets of London) to the most amazing and original artwork you can imagine. And they really display anything, for example a Power Mac G4 and disks of some really old versions of Adobe Photoshop (5.0 IIRC). My absolutely favorite item though was a piece of art, probably the most amazing painting I have ever seen in my life. Do you know about *Larry Elmore*? Larry Elmore is one of the most famous fantasy artists, immortal thanks to his legendary artwork that is forever connected with the Dungeons & Dragons pen and paper role-playing games and the Dragonlance novels. Kim Jong-il on the other hand is famous and legendary for hand-taming tigers. (And holes-in-one when playing golf!) Now imagine Kim Jong-il sitting in the saddle of a pony sized tamed tiger wearing an ancient Korean armor on top of a snow covered Mount Baekdu – painted in Larry Elmore’s style! Mind-blowing, absolutely mind-blowing! I would pay good money for a print. Or a T-shirt. Or the opportunity to see it again. Sadly photography is strictly prohibited in the National Gift Palace and of course there is no way to get a look at it otherwise, like in a brochure or something like that.

The Museum of Metro Construction was one of those museums in Pyongyang that had quite a misleading name. Of course it was kind of about the construction of the *Pyongyang Metro*, but mainly it was about Kim Il-sung and his contributions to the metro construction. What he decided, when he visited the construction site, which ways he went in and out… Of course we saw some of the used machinery, too, but in the end it was mainly about the Dear Leader. Sadly photography was only permitted in one or two rooms, so there is not much I can show you – hence the place’s appearance in this article…

At the Mansudae Grand Monument Memorial on the other hand I took quite a few photos, but just not enough to justify a separate article. The memorial consists of several elements, the most important ones are bronze statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, both 20 meters tall. They stand in front of a mural depicting Mount Baekdu, 13 meters high and 70 meters wide, and are flanked by two memorials – “Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Struggle” and “Socialist Revolution and Socialist Construction”, both up to 22.5 meters tall and 50 meters long, with statues being 5 meters tall. Quite impressive!

A lot less impressive was the Kangso Mineral Water Factory we visited after the *Chongsan-ri Cooperative Farm* on the way to *Kaesong* via Pyongyang. I actually forgot my photo camera in the bus, so I only took a few snapshots with my video camera, but there was not much to see anyway. The water factory was a ROK/DPRK joint venture, but when the relationship between both countries went south during Lee Myung-bak’s presidency (2008-2013) the South Korean market was closed and the water factory… well, it wasn’t bottling water while we were there. Coincidence or not: I didn’t miss much, you didn’t miss much – but the water drinking bears were cute, so please check out the photo I took of those statues…

Next on the itinerary that day was the Arch of Reunification, a memorial at the beginning of the Reunification Highway a couple of kilometers outside of Pyongyang. The arch was built in 2001 to commemorate past Korean reunification proposals by Kim Il-sung and consists of two Korean women in traditional dresses, both leaning forward to hold up a sphere depicting the map of a reunited Korea. During the Sunshine Policy (1998-2008) the reunification was planned to happen in three steps: increased cooperation, nation unification with two autonomous governments, creation of a central national government – sadly those plans fell through, despite the fact that the increased cooperation part worked quite well for a while…

The final stop before reaching Kaesong was at the Pakyon Falls, one of three famous waterfalls in the DPRK. Located in the middle of nowhere about 25 kilometers north of Kaesong the falls connect the 8-meter-wide Pakyon Pool with the 37 meters lower Komo Pond. Sadly we arrived at dusk, so there were no local tourists around and we didn’t have time to climb up to have a look at the pool. Nevertheless a beautiful place indeed, with lots of characters carved into the rock forming the 8-meter-wide pool – sadly nobody asked about their meaning…

And with that you’ve seen pretty much all the places I have seen while in the DPRK. There were a handful of locations where I didn’t take photos at all (for example at the Paradise Microbrewery in Pyongyang), but those places weren’t spectacular anyway.

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. 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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North Korea – Pyongyang, Kaeson Youth Park

Posted in Amusement Park, Asia, DPRK, Korea, Map, Night, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Travel, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/14| 3 Comments »

The Kaeson Youth Park was the exciting final destination of my trip to North Korea. Visiting the most modern amusement park in Pyongyang’s city center was on our schedule almost every day, but every time it had to be pushed back; the first time it rained, the second time was “foreigners’ night” (which defeated the purpose of mingling with locals), the third time we were out of town overnight, …
After getting back from *Kaesong* and having dinner at the famous *duck restaurant in Pyongyang* we finally went to the Kaeson Youth Park on our last night – with the *Arch of Triumph* right across the street our tour basically ended where it began.

Originally opened in 1984, the 40 ha big park fell into disrepair quickly, giving all of North Korea’s theme parks a bad reputation. Being an avid urban explorer I was actually looking forward to seeing some quasi abandoned amusement parks, but it turned out that the ones we saw were all modernized recently. The Kaeson Youth Park for example received a whopping ten new attractions from Italy in April 2010, including a rollercoaster, bumper cars and a freefall tower. It wouldn’t be able to compete with elaborate theme parks like Universal Studios or Disneyland, but it’s attractions would be popular at any funfair in world – hence the place’s nickname Kaeson Funfair, because that’s what it basically is; a non-travelling funfair.
In an article by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun I’ve read that enjoying all ten rides costs locals 1600 won, more than half of what the average person in Pyongyang earns per month (3000 won) – two things about that:
1.) According to their article 1600 won were about 40 US cents in 2011, according to currency converters it was about 12 dollars back then! (A little less today… Maybe there is a different black market exchange rate?)
2.) What the article fails to mention is the fact that most people in Pyongyang don’t have to live off their 3000 won income, it’s kind of an allowance since the state provides accommodation and their place of work provides meals (though I am not sure if it’s just lunch or three meals a day).
So yes, visiting the Kaeson Youth Park is very expensive for locals (a ride on the subway costs 2 won…), but it is possible for them to enjoy an evening there. Not a whole day though, because the funfair opens at 7 p.m. and closes at midnight or 1 a.m., depending on which guide you asked… 😉

At the *Taesongsan Park & Funfair* we didn’t go on any rides, so our group was set loose and we were able to explore on our own – at the Kaeson Youth Park we had to stick together, nevertheless I was able to take an almost foreigner free video since the group stretched quite a bit. We basically walked to the end of the park and made our way back to the entrance, people hopping on the rides in mini groups; with VIP treatment, i.e. skipping the queue – which came at a price: 1.5 to 3 Euros per ride, according to a guide more than 30 times of what locals pay, which means that the whole exchange rate thing is off completely…
Despite the fact that we arrived past 9 p.m. there were still quite few children around (usually in groups), but overall it was a good mix of locals again (youth groups, couples, families, soldiers), so it felt kind of natural being there, despite the fact that clothing usually was less individual than what you are used to from amusement parks in Europe or the States. We even witnessed a heated argument between two guys, most likely military – much to the embarrassment of our Korean guides. Personally I enjoyed seeing that, it gave the experience quite a human touch.
The Kaeson Youth Park was another hint that things in the DPRK are changing. Like I said, amusement parks in North Korea have a horrible reputation and most articles on the net make fun of them, but all three parks I saw had been renovated since Kim Jong-un became the leader of the country. The KYP looked like a modern funfair and it seems like that the powers that be intend to keep it that way. An estimated half of the park’s staff was busy cleaning and swiping, contributing to the image that I had during my whole trip to the DPRK – a struggling but upcoming country that is trying extremely hard to make the best of a bad situation.

(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. 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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