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Archive for the ‘Visited in 2013’ Category

Pioneer Kaserne, Pioneer Housing & Sportsfield Housing

Posted in Closed, Depot, Europe, Germany, Hesse, House, Military, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/10/01| 120 Comments »

The Pioneer Kaserne in Hanau is one of those countless former American military bases that currently are in kind of a limbo – the US Army gave it back to Germany (under the management of the BImA), but the local government hasn’t decided what to do with it. During the Cold War Hanau was one of the biggest US garrisons in the area, in case the Red Army would try to break through the Fulda Gap and attack Frankfurt. Back then up to 30.000 soldiers and civilians were working at the Pioneer Kaserne and other locations like the Francois Kaserne (returned to Germany in 1992), Coleman Barracks (1992) Hessen-Homburg Kaserne (1992), Grossauheim Kaserne (1993), Hutier Kaserne (1994/2007), Fliegerhorst Langendiebach (2007) Hanau AAF, Wolfgang Kaserne (2008), York Hof (2008) and the Argonner Kaserne (2008) – one third of Hanau’s total population. While most of the other locations already found new purposes and are currently converted (or have been in the past), the destiny of the Pioneer Kaserne and its two housing areas is still up in the air. With a total size of more than 600.000 square meters the Pioneer area is gigantic, nevertheless it’s only about a quarter of all the military estate Hanau has / had to integrate into its city planning concept…

Like pretty much all closed military bases rather close to city centers (like the *Cambrai-Fritsch-Kaserne* in Darmstadt), the Pioneer Kaserne is kind of fortified – of course it is, it’s a huge former military base! But unlike most others, this one didn’t have any “Trespassing is strictly forbidden!” signs. No, the local security company is more subtle. They only put up signs stating “Das Betreten des Geländes erfolgt auf eigene Gefahr” (“Entering the premises happens at your own risk”) – right next to a sign warning about watchdogs… including a drawing of a German shepherd. I guess the message is clear!
Despite those threa–… announcements… I did my best to avoid the usual “fence from the outside” photos you can usually find on the internet, resulting in quite a few scratches and bruises… Oh, and if you ever worked at the Kaserne or nearby: the KFC is gone now, but the Café del Sol still is really popular. Thanks to the watchdogs and the security guards pretty much all the buildings are in fantastic condition, so let’s hope that the city of Hanau will find a new purpose for the Pioneer Kaserne soon!

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Anti-Zombie Fortress Revisited (a.k.a. The Winding Tower Of The Shime Coal Mine)

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Fukuoka, Haikyo, Japan, Kyushu, Map, Mine, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013, Zombies on 2013/09/17| 11 Comments »

The zombie apocalypse, no doubt, will start in Japan – some claim it actually already began; and if you’ve ever been in a train with salarymen you cannot help but wonder. Nevertheless zombies were the last thing on my mind when I first visited the *Shime Coal Mine* with my buddy Enric in March of 2010, a mere 4 month after I started doing urban exploration in Japan. Despite being a noob back then I realized quickly that the concrete construction was beautiful, but inaccessible, at least during daytime. The mine shaft entry was fenced off and the area was freshly converted into a sports center, with a new community building, playground and fields for soccer, baseball and other sports. I took a couple of quick photos and a short video before we left for *Gunkanjima*, now known as Skyfall Island thanks to the latest James Bond movie, without thinking much about the Shime Coal Mine. Until… it came back, but not to haunt us.

The Anti-Zombie Fortress meme started on April 1st 2011 (no joke!) when somebody on reddit by the nickname of Mitsjol posted a photo of the winding tower of the Shime Coal Mine, mentioning that it would make an awesome fortification against zombies. Back then zombies were the latest upcoming hot thing, so the board sucked up the idea like the previous trendy monster sucks blood. People were longing for more information and I have to thank the user bakerybob for linking to Abandoned Kansai – when the meme picked up speed in the following days my small and otherwise pretty much overlooked article about the Shime Coal Mine took off, too.
Since then I passed through Fukuoka several times, to visit *Ikeshima* and *Navelland*, but I never had the opportunity to have a look at the location that turned out to be my first 10k+ views article. Last weekend was different though. I hadn’t been on a rushed and packed urbex trip for a change, but on a short vacation to the south of Japan. So I took a couple of hours of my day in Fukuoka and went back to have a look at the now famous mine shaft.

As expected the situation hasn’t changed much. In the past 3.5 years a couple of local Japanese explorers were brave enough to sneak into the winding tower at night, taking some unique shots, but when I arrived around noon on a national holiday the same thing would have gotten me arrested in no time – the place was buzzing thanks to what appeared to be a soccer tournament for kids. Hundreds of children and the same amount of adults were enjoying the Respect-For-The-Aged Day, so I basically did what I did years before: I spent 15 minutes taking photos and a video – and then I left… not for Gunkanjima, but for a small bakery 2.5 kilometers down the road.

The Konditorei RothenBurg, undoubtably named after the stunningly beautiful German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, differs from your average local cake shop in two ways:
1.) It doesn’t suck up to the French (as 80% of the bakeries and pâtisseries in Japan do…), but chose a German setting with the same (or at least similar) concept, including German cook books in the store.
2.) It sells urbex cookies, which most likely makes it unique in all of Japan, probably in the world.

About a year ago I saw a small story about RothenBurg on a Japanese blog, not only mentioning but showing a cookie designed after the winding tower of the Shime coal mine. I knew I had to go there the next time I was in Fukuoka… and I did. (Thanks to my buddy Gen for making sure that the bakery was open for business on this national holiday!) Upon arrival I was a bit disappointed. RothenBurg was a really small store deep in the suburbs of Fukuoka – and apparently the cookie information was outdated. But then I saw two of them lying on a white plate, about 4 by 6 centimeters, 252 Yen each. Of course I bought both of them; one for Gen and one to try myself. Upon closer look it turned out that the small package contained two cookies, a brown one above a black one. Luckily the cookies were not just a novelty item, they actually tasted good. If you are a true urbex fan visiting Fukuoka, you have to go there and try them yourself! I added the location of RothenBurg to my *GoogleMap of Touristy and Demolished Haikyo*, but here is the address, too: ローテンブルグ, 福岡県糟屋郡志免町別府120-18, telephone 092-936-0009.

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Kyoto Countryside School

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Kyoto, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2013 on 2013/09/10| 24 Comments »

Schools are probably the most common abandoned places in Japan. Rare in populated areas, they can be found by the dozen in the countryside. In all of Japan there must be hundreds, nevertheless I only wrote about two of them so far (the *F# Elementary School* and the *North Korean School in Gifu*). The main reason for that is that until last year I did almost all of my explorations by using public transportation – and the vast majority of those abandoned schools are in the middle of nowhere, often part of (almost) deserted villages. By now I’ve been to about eight or ten *haikyo* schools (a.k.a. haikou), though most of them were either boarded up, under security supervision or in really bad condition.
The Kyoto Countryside School on the other hand turned out to be a hidden gem – and to keep it that way I gave it this rather generic name…

When my buddy Dan and I drove up to the Kyoto Countryside School in a stunningly beautiful picture book village in the middle of the mountains I kind of had a bad feeling. The school itself was in rather good condition and the grass in front of it was about 10 to 15 centimeters high – higher than usual, but not “abandoned for 20 years” high; implying that somebody was still taking care of the school and its side-buildings. But we were lucky… While the front entrance and all the windows were locked, the back entrance was open; and so was the kitchen building.
Sadly I don’t know much about the history of the school, only that it was closed 22 years prior to our visit – which was hard to believe as pretty much all rooms, despite being almost empty, looked like they were just closed for the summer. I am actually pretty sure that the school building is still used every once in a while, probably for some village celebrations or stuff like that.
Visiting the Kyoto Countryside School was part of a one day urbex trip in July; something I tend to avoid, because Japanese summers are nasty – hot, humid and full of insects as well as other animals you don’t want to run into. Luckily the school was in almost pristine condition, one of the cleanest places I have ever explored; bug free! But it was a typical summer day, just past high noon, and being in the mountains helped surprisingly little.
A sweaty, yet interesting exploration – opening that door was like stepping into the past, and in that regard it reminded me of the *Old Higashi-Aoyama Station* I wrote about last week. Most rooms were empty, except for the secretariat… and things on the walls. Photos, relics of art classes, info posters, mirrors. One room has a handwritten banner, showing Japanese number units. 10.000 = man, 100.000.000 = oku, and so on. The longest number was a 1 with 88 zeros, 4 kanji reading muryoutaisuu – I’m pretty sure 99.999% of the Japanese population haven’t heard of that number. But finds like that made this exploration so much fun. If you just looked through the windows you probably would have thought “Boooooring!”, but once inside the place revealed dozens of little things that caught me eye; my favorite part being the gorgeous wooden hallway, perfectly lit at that time of the day.
Surprisingly interesting was the most western part of the building, separated by a now locked door, but accessible from the outside: a small storage room full of left behind school books and the school’s toilet – with song sheets above the tiny pissoirs and old electric wiring along the wooden ceiling, probably added years after the school was built…

(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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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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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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Farewell, North Korea… Welcome back, Japan!

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, DPRK, Haikyo, Japan, Korea, Photography, Urbex, Visited in 2012, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/22| 4 Comments »

My trip to North Korea was an absolutely fantastic experience – and so was writing about it!
If you are a long-time reader of Abandoned Kansai I would like to thank you for sticking with me while I went off-topic! The last urban exploration article I wrote was about the *Abandoned Japanese Sex Museum* – just in case you want to jump back there without going through all the DPRK postings…
If you started reading this blog because of my postings about North Korea I hope you will keep on reading. I think I was able to show you a different side of the DPRK – I sure as heck will show you a different side of Japan, too!
From tomorrow on I will go back to one article per week, every Tuesday evening JST (= Tuesday afternoon in Europe and Tuesday morning in the States).
Forsaken hospitals, deserted amusement parks, forlorn mines, desolated resorts, rotting military bases, dilapidated factories, abandoned hotels, derelict train stations – you’ll see them all, and much more, on Abandoned Kansai!

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North Korea – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Posted in Asia, DPRK, Korea, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Pyongyang, Travel, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/21| 29 Comments »

Most of these questions I already answered in the previous articles, but not everybody reads everything… and some friends of mine obviously didn’t read anything, so here are a couple of questions I answered several times since I came back from the DPRK.

# Is it possible to visit North Korea?
Yes, it is. I just wrote 30 articles about it… 🙂

# Is it possible for Americans to travel to the DPRK?
Yes, it is. There are certain limitations though, for example Americans are not allowed to enter or leave the country by train – they have to fly in and out.

# Why are American not allowed to ride trains?
Trains in North Korea are considered of military importance and therefore American are not allowed to ride trains. *Subway* is no problem though…

# Did you go all by yourself?
Yes and no. I went without people I knew, but of course you can’t go to North Korea all by yourself. I joined a group tour – 10 other travelers from all over the world plus a British guide plus 3 Korean guides and a bus driver. (Yes, 11 tourists and 5 guides… It’s the first time I do the math, and I have to admit it looks strange. It didn’t feel strange though when being there.)

# Is it safe to travel to North Korea?
Yes, it is. Your contact to locals is limited anyway and none of them would dare to harm you – especially when the guides are present. I’ve never heard of any tourist being attacked or having things stolen. The few occasions we had unsupervised contact with locals was even better as Koreans are very hospitable and friendly people.
As for the political situation in general: I was more worried that the American would level the country than that the DPRK leadership would start a war…

# So you weren’t worried about taken hostage and used as a human shield?
(I actually got that question several times!) No, I wasn’t. I actually booked my trip during the rather big crisis in early 2013 and nevertheless wasn’t worried.

# How long in advance do you have to plan trips to North Korea?
Most tours stop accepting applications about 4 or 5 weeks before they begin as it takes a couple of weeks to organize the visa for the DPRK – and you have to organize the roundtrip including visa to Beijing, too…

# How long in advance did you book your tour?
I booked a couple of days before the application deadline in late March, so it was about 4 weeks before I had to be in Beijing.

# How long did you stay in North Korea?
I stayed for 8 days, 7 nights in late April / early May of 2013.

# How much does a trip to North Korea cost?
It depends on how long you stay, when you travel and which agency you use.
I paid 1690 Euros plus 50 for the North Korean visa plus 50 for the train to Beijing. The elevator up the *Juche Tower* was 5 Euros, so was the dog soup. As tips for the guides you have to calculate 5 Euros per day; some individual gifts (cigarettes, chocolates, …) for each guide and the bus driver are greatly appreciated. One beer per meal is included, if you want to have some extra it costs 50 Cents or a Euro. (How much you want to spend on souvenirs is totally up to you, I spent about 300 Euros, probably less.) In addition to that you have to organize a flight to, a visa for and an accommodation in Beijing, where the trip begins.
Overall I paid a little bit more than 3000 Euros for the whole trip including my time in China (12 days altogether) – this can be less for tours in early spring / later autumn, but quite a bit more during the Arirang Mass Games in summer. (The basic fare is higher and the mass games tickets are extra, starting at 80 Euros for the cheapest tickets.)

# Did you see the Arirang Mass Games?
No, only the May Day stadium from quite a distance…

# How much do souvenirs in North Korea cost?
North Korea isn’t exactly a shopping paradise, so there is a limited selection of things to buy. Nothing like Japan, where buying souvenirs (especially food items!) is a basic element of even day trips.
T-shirts were 10 or 15 Euros, sets of stamps between 3 Euros and about 40 Euros. Postcards were between 20 Cents and a Euro, cigarettes started at 5 Euros (per carton, not per pack!), hand-painted posters started at 40 Euros, paintings and lithographs at about 100 Euros (open end…) – ceramics, books and pins started at a Euro or two.
Most food you can buy in the so-called gift shops is actually imported – rare exceptions were the *Taegonggang Combined Fruit Farm*, the highway stop on the way to *Kaesong* and the Kumgangsan Store in Pyongyang – the latter being more of a regular shop, so I was able to buy some North Korean candy.

# Can I buy Coca Cola in North Korea?
Believe it or not – yes, you can buy Coca Cola in North Korea. So if you are a funny guy who wants to take some “’Merica, fuck yeah!” photos you won’t have to bring the high-fructose corn syrup / acid mix yourself… it’s already waiting for you.

# You can buy postcards in North Korea? Why didn’t you send me one?
Most likely because I didn’t have your address…

# Can I send postcards to (country of your choice)?
You can send postcards everywhere except South Korea – but be aware that the content might be read. (The stamps on the postcards I’ve sent were dated a week after I handed them in…)

# How long does a postcard take to get to (country of your choice)?
About 3 weeks to Asian countries, about 4 weeks to Europe, New Zealand and the States.

# Can I send letters and parcels, too?
I didn’t try to send letters or packages from North Korea, but I think you can. I saw a DHL car in the streets of Pyongyang and took a photo – scroll down… 🙂

# Do I need a visa to go to North Korea? If so, how do I get one?
Yes, you need a visa – for 99% of the foreign visitors to the DPRK the travel agency you book your tour at will take care of that formality. All you need to do is send them a copy of your passport and a scanned photo of yourself.

# How did you get to North Korea? Is there a direct flight from XYZ?
I flew into Pyongyang from Beijing and left by train at the border between the DPRK and China (Sinuiju / Dandong). There are only a couple of flights to Pyongyang, most likely not from the town you live in, so most of the tours to the DPRK start and end in Beijing. (There are other ways, too, but those are rarely used.)

# Did you use Air Koryo? If so, how was it?
I wrote a whole article about Air Koryo – please *click here to read it*. Overall it was quite a pleasant surprise.

# What is Pyongyang Airport like?
It was small, which wasn’t a surprise given that are about two planes starting or landing every day. Immigration was easy though. I had to fill out two or three standard forms and hand them over together with my visa and my passport. The guy there wasn’t exactly friendly, but not worse than in any other country. After picking up the luggage I had to hand in the baggage claim sticker and that was it – nobody had a closer look at what I brought into the DPRK.

# Can I bring a photo camera to North Korea?
Yes, of course. Lenses above 150 mm are technically not allowed, but nobody cared that I brought my 18-200 mm lens.

# Can I bring a laptop to North Korea?
Yes, that’s no problem at all. I even brought a USB hard-drive I kept separate from the laptop at all times. Nobody cared.

# Can I bring a mobile phone to North Korea?
Yes, but you won’t have reception most of the time. (You might be able to pick up a signal when going to the JSA.)

# How was the food in North Korea?
I loved it! So much that I wrote an article you can *read by clicking here*. 🙂

# What was your favorite dish there?
The kimchi in Pyongyang. It’s amazing!

# Do they have strange food in North Korea?
I guess there is strange food in every country. The only strange food we were offered to try was *Dog Meat Soup*. Oh, and the Petrol Clam BBQ was kind of strange…

# Are there birds in North Korea?
Uhm, yes?! Oh, I get it, the rumors that there are no birds in North Korea due to the famine in the 1990s… You can see plenty of birds’ nests on the photos I’ve uploaded, so yes, there are birds in North Korea. No pigeons in Pyongyang though, at least I can’t remember seeing any of the flying rats. But especially in the countryside I can remember seeing and hearing birds.

# Have you been spied on?
I don’t think so. I ran into motion detectors at the *Yanggakdo Hotel*, but I am pretty sure they have been there for security reasons. I’m an average guy, why should I be of any interest to the DPRK?
But well, that’s what I thought about the United States, too, before the 2013 mass surveillance scandal. Isn’t life friggin weird sometimes? Everybody was like “Oh, you shouldn’t go to North Korea, they are spying on you!” – then I come back and only a couple of weeks later that scandal breaks…

# What were the guards… uhm… guides like?
The guides were very kind and I never perceived them as guards. I actually find the description “guard” very derogatory and at least “my” guides didn’t deserve name-calling like that at all! They started out friendly, but distanced, which I actually liked, since I am not much of a people person myself – all-inclusive resort tummler type characters annoy the crap out of me! After a couple of days of mutual trust building all three of them were actually pretty cool. Being a guide in the DPRK is kind of a risky job as they are responsible for your actions – if you violate rules (like shoving a camera into some soldier’s face) the guide will be questioned how this could happen, not you. After they realized that we wouldn’t cause trouble the guides let their guard down (pun intended!) and we had rather open conversations about all kinds of topic. Some stuff still had to be avoided (like you wouldn’t start a discussion about certain topics with people you know…), but overall those guys were just fun to be around with.
The paragraph above applies only to my guides Mr. Yu, Mr. Kim and Ms. Park – I’ve heard about and sometimes observed other guides who were less friendly and open.

(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 – Dandong, China

Posted in Asia, China, Dandong, DPRK, Korea, Map, Museum, Night, Non-Urbex, North Korea, Photography, Visited in 2013 on 2013/07/19| 9 Comments »

Although I am living in Japan for almost seven years by now I had never been to any other Asian country before this trip – mainly because you don’t get many paid vacation days and no sick days in Japan (i.e. if you get sick, you have to take paid vacation days), so I always went back home to Germany to visit family and friends. When I planned the trip to the DPRK I had to go through Beijing both ways – and when I saw that Koryo Tours offered a layover in Dandong I sacrificed another paid vacation day (sorry, family and friends!) that will shorten my summer trip this year even further. But 23 hours on a train didn’t sound too tempting and I guess I will never have another chance to go to Dandong, so I jumped on the opportunity… and it was a good decision!

While I basically hated every second in Beijing, my 24 hours in Dandong were really enjoyable. We were seven people from Koryo Tours staying there, Patrick and Juliette from my group, four from the other group. Fresh blood, new stories – and a culture shock!
Dandong and North Korea have pretty much nothing in common, that was clear upon arrival. We met our local guide and checked in at the hotel – free WiFi, yay! After more than a week without internet I quickly scanned through almost 200 e-mails (most of them blog related!) and sent a quick one to my sister to let her know that I was okay and had a great time in the DPRK. We only had 1.5 hours till dinner, so I hurried a bit and went across the street to the waterfront as our hotel was right next to the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge and the tourist attraction “Broken Bridge”. The Broken Bridge was already closed and the waterfront looked too big for the 30 minutes I had left, so I went back to the hotel to sort and read more e-mails.
When I met my fellow travelers in the lobby it turned out that I was the only one who had left the hotel so far – the others said they didn’t dare to do so without permission; and I am pretty sure hardly any of them was joking…
Dinner at the nearby restaurant was a feast. The food in the DPRK was really good, but even after a week it started to become a bit repetitive (no complaint, especially given the situation, I am just saying as it is!) – having Chinese for dinner was… surreal. The flavors were so different, so much more intense. (The Snickers I had for dessert must have been the sweetest food item I ever ate after being mostly off sugar for 8 days…) Also surreal was the amount of food they brought to the table. We were eight people in total, but I think you could have fed 30 with what was brought to us. A shame considering that people are malnourished just half a kilometer away!
It’s amazing how quickly you adapt to situations, which is another reason why I was happy to get off the train immediately after leaving the DPRK – because China hits you like a hammer after a week in North Korea. Not just the food and the freedom of movement. Everything! While in Korea everything seemed normal. The lack of cars, the low noise level, that it is mostly dark once the sun was gone, that we were told to stay in the hotel… friggin everything, you just adapt to embrace the culture you want to experience. 500 meters down the road – BOOM! A buzzing megacity; gluttony and profligacy everywhere! The strange part was: Dandong is pretty similar to big Japanese cities regarding traffic, noise, lights, food, consumerism, so I should have been used to that. But it really hit me like a hammer, an unexpected culture shock.
After dinner we had a walk along the waterfront, huge apartment buildings lit up like Christmas trees. I didn’t have a tripod and still was able to take decent pictures. Candy town. And on the other side of the Yalu river? Not a single sound, barely any lights, low buildings in the dark. The next day I took a photo from the middle of the river while on a boat tour – left China, right DPRK. The countries could have hardly looked more different.

The second day in Dandong was full of touristy stuff. First we went to a reconstructed part of the Chinese Wall, once upon a time continuing on the now Korean side of the Yalu river. Since I didn’t have time to visit the wall near Beijing this was actually a very nice treat – and a very surreal one, since that part of the wall was right next to the border. Not only were there tons of bilingual warning signs (Chinese and English, obviously), but I was also able to take pictures of the Chinese Wall and North Korea at the same time! I had no idea that it was possible…
Why were there no signs in Korean, you ask? Because, and this is a dirty little secret nobody wants to talk about, Koreans don’t dare to cross the border here; at least not permanently. The reason for that is the fact they would be easily spotted by Chinese doing so – and the Chinese government not only sends defectors back to the DPRK, they also pay their own people to rat out fugitives! Yes, while every North Korean who made it to South Korea or the States is celebrated, the same people are everything but welcome in China. To a point that average Chinese people have them deported for money, very aware that caught defectors won’t have an easy life back in the DPRK… Morality is luxury.

Next stop of the tour was the „Museum of War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea“ or just simply the Korean War Museum, one of the most interesting places I have ever been to. As you know, history is written by the victors – in this case you had two victors (or none…), and we all know what the Americans are telling us. So it was extremely interesting to hear the Chinese side, a side that was presented with a surprisingly high amount of signs in English; given that Dandong only has a small airport, it’s not exactly a destination for Western tourists. Most of the texts were biased obviously, resulting in sentences stating that the Chinese and Koreans “overcame all the difficulties with incomparable heroism and inexhaustible wisdom and smashed the “strangling warfare” by the U.S. Army”. Stuff like that sounds hilarious to western socialized people, often not realizing that lies can be easily hidden with the help of pretended objectivity. To me the most interesting aspect brought up by the communist side was the aspect of biological warfare. A small section of the museum is dedicated to those allegations brought up by China, the Soviet Union and the DPRK, while the whole topic is denounced by the US government and its allies. The shocking thing about those accusations is that they make sense! When I wrote about the *Rabbit Island Okunoshima* a while ago I mentioned one of the most despicable human beings that ever lived, a Japanese military surgeon named Shiro Ishii. Ishii was the head of Unit 731, a Japanese research group that developed biological weapons in top secret Chinese facilities during World War 2 – by testing them on humans, including vivisections of infected victims! (I mentioned them, because Unit 731 related people also tested poison gas produced on Okunoshima.) Instead of executing Ishii as a war criminal, the Americans granted him immunity in exchange for the data he gained during the human experimentation – MacArthur knew about that plan in 1947 and it was concluded in 1948. In addition to their own biological weapons program in Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Americans now had the Japanese material. But that’s not all! While Ishii’s daughter says that her father spent the rest of his natural life in Japan, Richard Drayton, a senior lecturer in history at Cambridge University, claims that Ishii actually „came to Maryland to advise on bio-weapons”. Just for your information: The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953, the allegations are from the year 1952… Ishii died a converted Christian in 1959.
(Another surprising realization I had at the museum is DPRK related. You know how Western media are making fun of Kim Jong-un being a bit chubby and having a terrible haircut? Well, I was walking around, looking at things, when I saw that really old photo on the wall – of a guy that looked like Kim Jong-un; slightly chubby, unconventional haircut. It was Kim Il-sung, his grandfather. Kim Jong-un looks like Kim Il-sung around the time of the Korean War! Now it all makes sense, because given the personal cult in the DPRK of course that’s not a coincidence…)

Last but not least we went back to the waterfront and did a little cruise on the Yalu river that separates China and the DPRK. A few western tourists are claiming that they’ve visited North Korea after taking that 45 minute long boat tour – according to our guide they haven’t as the river is actually considered no man’s land…
The boat tour started just south of the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge (constructed when the whole area was occupied by Japan) and the Broken Bridge (built between 1909 and 1911) and first gave a good look at the bridges while heading north. Both bridges were repeatedly attacked and damaged by the United States during the Korean War and at first both of them were repaired, but then the communist side focused on repairing the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, leaving the Broken Bridge first a ruin and now a historical tourist attraction. Today the Friendship Bridge is one of the few ways to enter the DPRK by automobile or train. After passing the bridges it was bizarre to see gigantic apartment buildings on the Chinese side… and basically nothing on the other. Then we turned around, passed the two bridges again and got closer to the Korean side; pretty close actually… There we could see how the low tide left some old, rusty Korean ships on the shore and how workers loaded coal via small cranes. While the people around us were all excited about getting a glimpse at North Korea I wasn’t able to share that excitement. I actually felt bad, knowing how much Pyongyang needed that coal, wondering if the appointed train would actually make it there to keep one of the two coal power stations running. None of us had goose-bumps looking at “the Evil Empire” as if it was a tiger at a zoo more than a century ago. We had seen more than the waterfront, we had talked to the people; it was surreal looking back, while the Chinese tourists probably were judging the whole country by what they saw there and then, talking about each other instead of with each other. I think all of us Westerners felt a bit desperate and frustrated while on that boat – having enjoyed eight days in the DPRK we finally realized how far away from the global community the country really is; not only ideologically, but also economically…

(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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