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Zone Of Alienation – Chernobyl: All The Pretty Przewalski’s Horses

Posted in Animals, Chernobyl, Europe, Map, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/02/18| 9 Comments »

The Przewalski’s Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii, Dzungarian Horse), named after the Russian explorer and geographer Nicolai Przewalski, is a rare and endanger kind of wild horse and was first described in 1881 by L.S. Poliakov. The current world population of about 1500 animals are all descendants from nine horses kept in captivity in 1945 (total population then: 31). At one point extinct in the wild Przewalski’s Horses have been reintroduced to their former native habitat in Mongolia as well as to Hungary, China and Ukraine; the latter one offering space for the wild horses in Askania-Nova and the Zone Of Alienation.
On the first day, on our way from the 30km checkpoint of the Zone Of Alienation to Pripyat, Maxim told us how scientists returned several dozens of Przewalski’s Horses to the wild in the late 80s. The Exclusion Zone was already kind of a natural preserve, so the horses did well and their number raised to about 120. Nowadays, Maxim told us with some sadness in his voice, they are a rare sight since their number is down to about 60. Officially they migrated to the Belarus part of the Zone Of Alienation, but Maxim had a different explanation that involved bored militia and rifles…
On the second day, when we were driving from the monument at reactor #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to do some more exploration in Pripyat, Maxim and our driver all of a sudden had a quick conversation in Ukrainian. Close to a building in the middle of nowhere they stopped the car, got out and pointed to the road in front of us. Przewalski’s Horses. At first I had no clue what they were talking about, but then a horse’s head appeared behind a tree about 80 meters in front of us. The horse was carefully stepping on the street, followed by about half a dozen more. Maxim and the driver (sorry dude, forgot your name!) were really excited, taking pictures with their cell phone cameras. Luckily I had my 18-200mm lens mounted, so I was able to take some quite nice shots of those shy creatures. I’ve never seen wild horses before and it was very interesting to see how they behaved – they kept us under constant surveillance. While some of the horses nibbled on some grass now and then, at least half of them always had their eyes on us, making sure that we didn’t get too close.
Having urban exploration as a hobby I ran into all kinds of rather unusual wild animals before – snakes, boars, monkeys… but the Przewalski’s Horses were by far the most impressive ones. Another experience that took me completely by surprise.
After we got back into the van to continue our way to Pripyat Maxim told us that he hasn’t seen any Przewalski’s Horses in more than three years – and he spends half his life in the Zone Of Alienation as a guide…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)


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Zone Of Alienation – Chernobyl: CNPP Cooling Towers 5 & 6

Posted in Abandoned, Chernobyl, Map, Power Station, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/02/11| 5 Comments »

After spending the whole first day exploring Pripyat we started our second day by going to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to finally see the building where the tragic accident happened almost 25 years ago.
On the way to reactor 4, the one that blew up, we stopped at a water canal a couple of hundred meters away. From there we were able to have a look at reactors 5 and 6, under construction at the time of the accident, as well as their cooling towers. The original plan in the 70s and 80s was to have a huge power plant with up to 12 blocks, by far the biggest in the Soviet Union. After the accident the construction of the reactors 5 and 6 continued, but due the high levels of radiation in the area were put on hold on January 1st 1988 with most of the machinery left behind. When the Soviet Union dissolved a couple of years later and Ukraine became a sovereign state the plans of expanding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were finally scrapped and so the construction site became another abandoned place in that area.
The stop was rather underwhelming and when one of the Swiss guys wanted to get closer I just thought “Really?”… But Maxim, after thinking for a couple of seconds since it wasn’t part of the schedule he planned for us, agreed and so we got back in the van, drove closer, crossed some railroad tracks by foot and walked towards the cooling towers. They looked interesting, but I still wasn’t impressed. Being in front of the almost finished cooling tower Sebi and Michi looked happier than ever before. After standing around for a minute or two I asked, without being serious at all, if we were able to get inside – usually the asphalt and concrete surfaces were not so much contaminated whereas the Geiger counter went nuts once we stepped on moss, grass or soil. To my surprise Maxim said something like “Yes, just make sure to walk this way!”, making a gesture with his hand.
I walked the 30 meters from the street to the cooling tower and entering the giant open hyperboloid structure almost was like entering a cathedral – even if you are not into the purpose of the building the architecture is still mind-blowing, especially when looking up. And then it hit me: I was actually standing in the half finished cooling tower of a nuclear power plant, only 2.5 kilometers away from where one of the biggest man-made catastrophe in history happened! A very humbling, fascinating and knee-softening moment.
Since entering the cooling towers wasn’t planned we only had about 20 minutes there, but given that the lighting was quite difficult it was actually enough – although Maxim told me on the way to the van that he once spent more than 3 hours with a photographer there. Just to shoot the cooling tower. And although I spent two days in the zone, seeing maybe a third of the interesting locations, I often had the feeling that I’ve spent maybe a tenth of the time it deserves at every building…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)




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Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Police Station

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Map, Military, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/02/07| 14 Comments »

Although Pripyat was a city predominantly inhabited by educated and privileged people of course no city of that size could exist without a police station – it sounds so cliché, but most of the arrested people were accused of alcohol related deeds: making home-brew liquor (samogon, самого́н), driving under influence or being drunk in public. Pripyat’s police station was located at the western end of the town, right across the street from the fire department and in close proximity of the famous Jupiter factory we were visiting the next day. After visiting rather well-known touristy spots like the Swimming Pool “Azure” and Middle School #3 the Police Station was the last destination in Pripyat on the first day.
The Police Station was in as bad shape as the rest of the city, just with more books and files. We were only able to see the ground floor since time was running out and Maxim tried to keep the little group together to guide us through the prison part of the police station which was pitch black; and that’s why this time I’ll have to post some photos taken with flash. When I show people some pictures of my visit to Pripyat I often get reactions like “I would expect screaming zombies charging at me at any time!”. I actually never had that feeling, the whole city reminded me more of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Especially when walking through the dark prison hallway… You could almost see Winston Smith being interrogated in one of the cells and being tortured in another one. To my surprise I was the only one with those associations: My fellow Swiss travelers had only heard about the book, Maxim had no idea what I was talking about.
The door leading to freedom at the other end of the cell hallway actually released us to the backyard of the Police Station, once used as a repair shop for automobiles. There we found the remains of all kinds of trucks, broaching machines and even small reconnaissance tanks. Being contaminated too much to be used anymore, but not enough to be brought to the official vehicle graveyard, these wheels and chains were left behind to rust away. And that’s what they were doing. At least what was still left after looters removed the actual wheels as well as doors, headlights, wipers and even motors!
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)


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Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Middle School #3

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Map, Pripyat, School, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/02/03| 5 Comments »

Right next to the indoor Swimming Pool “Azure” was the Middle School #3 at Sportivnaya Street 14, one of 5 secondary schools in Pripyat. Due to its convenient location this school is part of the standard program not only for day tourists, but for pretty much everybody visiting the city.
While middle school #1 partly collapsed in July of 2005, #3 was still intact, but in pretty bad shape. Nowadays being one of the most visited places in town this school for several hundred children must have been a place of education at least up to par with western institutions of its time. I was especially surprised to see several small rooms with pianos, Beethoven sheet music still lying around. Back in the days my middle school had a piano, too. But only one, and I’ve never heard anybody playing…
The atmosphere at Middle School #3 was pretty creepy, maybe because the tone was set pretty close to the entrance: On the way to the kitchen we found several dozens gas masks scattered all over the floor. While I remember certain Cold War related drills at school (mine actually had a bunker including an emergency hospital underneath) I’m pretty sure we never dealt with gas masks, at least not outside of chemistry lessons. For Maxim, who was in his early 30s and therefore spent some of his school education in the communist system, it was perfectly normal to have gas masks at schools as they were part of his drills. I guess while the western hemisphere was “only” in fear of nuclear missiles, the Soviets were prepared for all kinds of attacks…
The gas masks were where once the cafeteria must have been as a kitchen was right next to it. From there I could get outside to an inner courtyard, but the floor outside was in really bad shape, so I didn’t risk a broken ankle and stayed inside. While the other guys already moved on to other parts of the building I went up one floor where I found the piano rooms and several class rooms. Parts of the floor were covered with books and documents up to 20 centimeters high, a really sad sight. It’s said that the powers that be systematically destroyed the interior of the buildings in Pripyat to discourage looters from entering the Zone Of Alienation – but it was nevertheless unpleasant to see printed knowledge been treated like that. Who would steal school books anyways?
The building itself was in a progressed state of natural decay. In addition to the paint peeling off a lot of the walls were mold-infested, putting the school on a fast track to collapse – after exploring Middle School #3 it didn’t surprise me at all that #1 was one of the first buildings in Pripyat that collapsed, even without having seen it myself. At that point school #3 was by far the most uncomfortable place I’ve seen in Pripyat. But not for long as the Police Station was next on our itinerary…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)



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Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Swimming Pool “Lazúrnyj” (“Lazurny” – Azure)

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Map, Pripyat, Spa / Onsen, Sports, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/01/31| 1 Comment »

After enjoying the stunning view from the roof top of an apartment building in Pripyat’s north we drove back to the center of the city to visit a classic sightseeing spot pretty much all visitors to the Zone Of Alienation and quite a few fans of video games know very well – the swimming pool “Lazúrnyj” (Azure).
Although being one of actually three indoor swimming pools in Pripyat, Azure is by far the most famous one in town since it was featured as a level in the video game “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” and now is part of the standard program for day groups. Furthermore Azure wasn’t just a swimming pool, it also housed a gymnasium – and it wasn’t abandoned right away with the city according to Maxim. Liquidators and other people working in the Zone Of Alienation used the pool as long as 1997 when it was finally abandoned – sadly there are no photos available anywhere about the that period of time.
Since I took some outdoor pictures first I lost contact with the other guys even before entering the building. The entrance area looked pretty run-down and vandalized, so I made my way up the first staircase I saw – it was covered in plastic sheeting, now scruffy and cracked. Public baths, especially in Japan where I currently live, are supposed to be spotlessly clean, but of course Azure was in as bad shape as the rest of the city and therefore the building felt even a little bit more depressing. The rather small gymnasium wasn’t nearly as impressive as the huge one with the great view at the Palace of Culture, but the swimming pool itself was quite a sight, even without having played the previously mentioned video game.
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)


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Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Apartment Building at Lesya Ukrainka Street 56

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, House, Map, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/01/27| 5 Comments »

Before going to Pripyat there were two things I badly wanted to do: I wanted to take a really good picture of the ferris wheel at the Amusement Park – and I wanted to have a good view over the city from the top of one of the buildings.
Of course officially it’s way too dangerous to allow people to go on top of any of those buildings, in countries like Germany and Japan they probably wouldn’t even let you inside most of them, but of course nobody really cares about those rules as seen many, many times in magazines, on TV and the internet. So after we left the supermarket we drove through the city for quite a while to get to the northwestern part of Pripyat. There was a 16-story building rather far away from the main attractions and in close proximity of some unfinished buildings. Maxim, who still looked a little bit… well… hungover… told us that he would “guard the car” and asked us to be careful and to stay away from the edges so we won’t be seen by the units policing the area occasionally – and he gave us 30 minutes to get back. (Strangely enough Maxim wasn’t worried that much about 35 minutes later when we running late a bit. We were on our way down and at around the 9th or 10th story we heard a car horn making quite some noise. Being used to unofficial explorations I panicked for about a second or two until I realized that I had no reason to really worry about anything. And neither had Maxim… obviously.)
The entrance of the building at Lesya Ukrainka Street 56 didn’t exactly look like a building you really want to enter, let alone stand on top of, but that didn’t cross the mind of either of us – we were eager to experience a view to remember. On the way to the roof I made a quick stop at one of the floors to see with my own eyes how much damage the liquidators and looters did to the apartments. Most of the rooms were indeed empty, electronics were nowhere to be seen and of course both wallpapers and paint were falling off the walls. At the top floor was a machinery room where we had to climb a wooden chair to get to the opening to actually get onto the flat roof. Climbing that chair and looking outside was another magic moment, almost as intense as when I saw the ferris wheel for the first time at the gymnasium of the Palace of Culture – not even two hours earlier, but it seemed like it had been weeks ago.
Stepping onto the roof I actually saw just green and grey-ish blue at first – the almost endless forest west of Pripyat and the impressive dramatic sky of that late summer day. The view was breathtaking and seeing Pripyat for the first time from that perspective I realized how big the city really was and how much of it was re-claimed by nature. Lots of the smaller buildings were completely swallowed by the sea of trees and even some of the bigger ones looked like they were drowning. In the south the Jupiter Factory was rising from the forest and at the horizon the remains of the Russian Woodpecker, part of the Soviet Union’s anti-ballistic missile program, were still defying nature. And in the distance in the southeast the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was reminding everybody why the city to our feet was abandoned…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)


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Zone Of Alienation – Pripyat: Amusement Park

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Europe, Map, Pripyat, Ukraine, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010, Zone Of Alienation on 2011/01/16| 20 Comments »

Did you ever wonder why the famous Pripyat amusement park is almost always about the ferris wheel? Well, the answer is simple: There is not a lot more to see.
The amusement park actually barely deserves that title, since it wasn’t a Disneyland or Universal Studios type of theme park, but more like a travelling, temporary kind of old-style amusement park. It was set up in celebration of May Day 1986, but the tragedy happening on April 26th was cause for a change of plans: The park was opened for one day to distract people from what was happening only a few kilometers away at the nuclear power plant. When the city of Pripyat was abandoned on April 27th so was the amusement park. (This is a fact widely unknown – most sources state that the park was never opened, but there are pictures in existence showing people standing in line in front of the rides.)
Now the (actually not so big, but nevertheless beautiful) ferris wheels rusts away next to a small and simple merry-go-round, a boat swing and a bumper car – hard to imagine that this small collection of rides was once considered an attraction for 50,000 people…
Another fact people usually don’t know about the amusement park: It’s one of the most contaminated areas in Pripyat. Parts of it are perfectly clean, but others are still highly radioactive. While the concrete parts are mostly safe nowadays, the surrounding moss can be as high as 25 µSv/h (microsievert per hour) – the radioactive particles were simply washed into the soil. Walking across such a spot like that won’t harm you instantly, but you don’t wanna build a house there as it is about 400 times the normal terrestrial radiation…
The amusement park is one of the standard locations included in pretty much every Pripyat tour – especially since it gained massive popularity after it was rebuilt in video games like “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl” and “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare”.
Before you start looking at the pictures below I hope you will enjoy an Abandoned Kansai first: I uploaded a short video of about 75 seconds to Youtube. Unedited, 720p. I hope it’s a worthy addition to this article…
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*. 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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Nara Dreamland Revisited: Daytime

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Nara, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2010/10/11| 10 Comments »

After spending a whole night at Nara Dreamland it dawned at around 5.30am, so Mike and I went straight to the entrance area near the Dreamstation to begin our second round through the park. The atmosphere at Dreamland early in the morning is almost creepier than it is at night. The light was kind of blue-ish, the sky slowly turned to overcast and we could finally have a closer look at the state of this huge abandoned amusement park – it looks horrible! The main street is so fake it would make an Ed Wood movie look cheap(er) and the amount of vandalism and decay is almost shocking considering the place was closed down for good only four years ago. If you want to see pictures of an undamaged Dreamland you’ll have to find some that are at least one or two years old. Pretty much all the windows in the park are smashed in, most of them just for the sake of destroying them – and that’s why places like Doggy Land or the Doctor’s Shack don’t get published with their real names or hints on how to find them… Too late for Dreamland though, the damage is done and I think it will get worse every month. And I totally understand now why the security guard was quite aggressive when he caught me taking pictures in February since it’s impossible to know who’s a vandal and who’s a harmless urban explorer. It would seriously piss me off and I guess even scare me when I’d come to work in the morning only to see doors and windows smashed in!
Mike and I, of course, just minded our own business and took a few pictures here and there – but to be fully honest, I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe it was because at that point we already spent four and a half hours there and of course we were tired and worried that security will show up at any minute, but Nara Dreamland (at daylight) is just a miserable place to be. It’s widespread, it’s run-down, it’s ugly and it’s full of weird items. Like the statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the castle, that doesn’t make sense at all. (Maybe it does – if you know an explanation please drop me a line!) The really shocking part about it is that the place most likely felt weird even when it was still open. I can see the Aska rollercoaster being fun, maybe the water park with the pools and slides, too. But the rest looks like a real embarrassment for everybody involved. Again, love and hate at the same time: It’s a huge amusement park with all the attractions still standing – but at the same time it feels like one of the cheap weird reality shows on TV you don’t really want to watch, but you do it anyways and feel a bit guilty for doing so. So I guess it was no surprise that Mike left after about an hour to wait for me outside and I followed maybe ten minutes later. For some reason the daytime version of Nara Dreamland wasn’t nearly as captivating as I hoped it would be – I defeated my haikyo nemesis, but it was a bitter-sweet victory to find out that “the enemy” didn’t live up to the expectations…
Overall my (most likely) last visit to Nara Dreamland was an ambiguous experience. It was great to hang out with Mike and being at an abandoned amusement park at night is an awesome experience – it just wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as my explorations of other places like the Taga Mine, the Takada Ranch Ruin or the mostly demolished Expoland.
And don’t even get me started on the Zone of Alienation, including Chernobyl and Pripyat! Oh… well… now that I think about it: Maybe it’s time to write up a couple of stories about radioactivity, gas masks and some of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to!
(For all your Nara Dreamland needs please have a look at the Nara Dreamland Special. For a look at the area around Nara Dreamland on GoogleMaps, including some fancy icons linking to articles on Abandoned Kansai and videos on YouTube, please *click here*. And since this article is quite popular: You can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIeBW2SYBg

 

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Expoland

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Demolished, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Map, Osaka, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2009 on 2010/06/14| 20 Comments »

It seems like abandoned amusement parks are not only my favorite locations, but people reading this blog are obviously fascinated by them, too – so today I’ll present you one that hasn’t shown up on the internet so far; neither Japanese nor English speaking. Expoland in Osaka.
Expoland (エキスポランド) covered an area of about 20 hectares and was opened in 1970 next to the fairground of the “Expo ’70“. Planned as a temporary installment it was extremely popular and thrived to be one of the most popular Japanese amusement parks for more than 30 years – the park actually re-opened on 1972-03-15 since it was closed after the Expo ’70 ended. Expoland made the news big time on May 5th of 2007 when a 19 year old student from Shiga prefecture died in an accident involving the Fujin Raijin II rollercoaster: One of the ride’s vehicles derailed due to a broken axle that wasn’t replaced in 15 years. After a series of safety inspections Expoland opened again but was closed on 2007-12-09 due to the lack of customers – 14 months later, on 2009-02-09, it was announced that the park was closed for good.
Later that year my interest in abandoned places started and when I talked to friends about it a colleague told me what happened at Expoland and that the park was closed down, but not dismantled due to the owner’s lack of money. Sadly the information about the financial trouble was wrong as I found out by chance a few weeks later when I saw a picture on the English homepage of a Japanese newspaper that showed how they were tearing down the huge ferris wheel.
I went to Expoland right away on the next weekend on my way to an illumination event in Kyoto, a cold and kind of rainy day in December, just to scout the place from the outside. Since Expoland was closed down rather recently there was no easy way in. The spiked fence around the whole area was still intact and of course there were no holes or open gates. Quite the opposite: Since the dismantling was still in progress the area was actually kind of busy with a few construction workers walking around even on a Saturday. After I circled the whole park once I saw two guys with a ladder, taking pictures over the fence. I talked to them for a bit, but they made it clear that there was no legal way in. On my way to the monorail station I realized that I was walking across a delivery entrance, so I made my way down there to check it out – and found it open for the construction workers to get in and out. The guard’s office was obviously still in use, but there was nobody there. So I entered Expoland, asking loudly if somebody was there to catch somebody’s attention – but again no reaction.
I made my way through the western and southern parts of the park. A stage and some buildings, including rest rooms, were still standing, but all rides were already dismantled. In the southwestern part I found the only big attraction still left: A waterland called “Caribbean Resort”. From there I went back to the delivery entrance and left the park. It was one of my first explorations, so I was high on adrenaline and torn apart by a decision: Leaving with what I got – or going back in to explore the rest of the park, risking getting caught? Well, I seized the day and went back in. To the main entrance, past a children’s playhouse and a restaurant, the former location of a water ride and up to where all the merry-go-rounds and the big ferris wheel were. I saw some construction workers in the distance, but I don’t think they saw me. I finished a circle counterclockwise to the east and north, past the old locomotive and to the playhouse. When I went back to the delivery entrance with its huge spiked gate my heart stopped for a second: It was almost dark, the gate was closed and the light in the guard’s office was on. I walked towards the gate to open it myself when the guard came out and addressed me in Japanese. To be honest, at that point I thought I was screwed as there was no way to escape. But to my surprise the guy was extremely nice, opened the gate to let me out and wished me a nice evening (at least I think he said something like that… Osaka dialect…).
Going to Expoland is one of my favorite urbex memories so far as it was a wonderful, exciting, positive experience from the beginning till the end. Or what I thought was the end. Because when I went back there a couple of months later to find out what happened to “Caribbean Resort” and the rest of the buildings I was extremely surprised to see what actually happened to Expoland.
But that’s a story for another time…
You can find out where Expoland was by clicking here.
(Since this article is quite popular: If you don’t want to miss the latest postings 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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Sekigahara Menard Land Revisited

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Chūbu, Demolished, Gifu, Haikyo, Japan, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2010 on 2010/05/24| Leave a Comment »

When I went to Sekigahara Menard Land for the first time in January of 2010 I was welcomed by a snowstorm. When I went there again in April of 2010 it turned out that the snowstorm was actually a blessing in disguise: Without the beautiful cold white blanket Sekigahara Menard Land is not much more than a bunch of concrete foundations…

As I walked along the almost familiar road to SML I saw a car parking right in front of the once so popular amusement park. Great, I thought, either security guards or people who have no clue at all about urban exploration. (As common sense should tell you: Never park right in front of the abandoned place you wanna commit trespassing at – especially if it is right along a country road!)

This time I entered SML via the back entrance a bit more down the road that was completely covered by snow last time. And as I assumed three months earlier the main part of the park was indeed inaccessible thanks to the snow masses. Too bad that it really didn’t matter that much since all that was left were concrete foundations. Every building was destroyed, every piece of metal that was cemented into the ground was clipped off and removed – and so was the rubble of the demolished buildings. The only things not broken were a couple of rusty fire extinguishers and two lonely plastic seats way off the main area.

When I got to area I assume once was the parking lot, the part I saw during my first visit, I saw the owners of the car – not security, but four Japanese people in their early 20s. A short, friendly nod and the group went straight to their car and left, leaving me alone to finally really explore what I’ve basically already seen before. This time the “bunkers”, concrete rooms built into the hill, were accessible – no snow and now open doors made it easy to have a look, only to be disappointed once again. Most rooms were empty and the rest was also unspectacular.

Sekigahara Menard Land is gone. Sure, you can still kind of guess a basic layout, but SML isn’t an abandoned or ruined amusement park – it’s a bunch of concrete foundations with a handfull of rusty items lying around. Maybe you will like it if you choose it as your first haikyo ever, but even then I doubt that you would be impressed.

Edit 2010-06-27: When I looked at the two picture sets I found a couple of photos that are quite similar. Time to put up my first comparison posting… to show what kind of a difference three months can make – and here it is: Sekigahara Menard Land – A Comparison.

(Sorry that some of the pictures are terribly bright / not very crisp this time. I shot the whole day with wrong settings without noticing it. At least it perfectly shows how bright of a day it was…)


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