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Archive for the ‘Visited in 2016’ Category

Alte Martinsschule

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Germany, Photography, School, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/12/06| 8 Comments »

Abandoned schools are a dime a dozen in Japan, but in Germany they are rather rare – welcome to the Alte Martinsschule!

The (Alte) Martinsschule ((Old) Martin’s School – named after St. Martin of Tours, one of the most well-known Christian saints) was founded in 1978 after the German federal states Hesse and Baden-Württemberg officially funded this institution for about 180 to 200 physically disabled pupils in Ladenburg, a rather rich suburb exactly halfway between Mannheim and Heidelberg. The Martinsschule was a huge success, so the number of students grew and grew until the location in the Wallstadter Straße became too small – and so in 2010 the Martinsschule moved from the city center into a shiny new complex (matter of expense: 28 million EUR!) in the outskirts of Ladenburg, where currently about 240 students are educated.
To make some of the money back, the inner city building now known as the Alte Martinsschule was supposed to be sold – 10000 square meters of prime real estate: 400 meters away from the train station, 3 kilometers to the next freeway entrance ramp and right across the street from a small shopping mall, the local fire station… and the cemetery. To have control over the new use of the area, the city of Ladenburg started restricted tender a.k.a. architectural competition on October 19th 2012 and set the price at 550 EUR per square meter; not cheap, especially since getting rid of the old school was the new owner’s responsibility. In July of 2013 Bouwfond (a.k.a. BPD Immobilienentwicklung GmbH, part of the Rabo Real Estate Group, a subsidiary of the Dutch Rabobank) won the bid against six competitors with a medical center; including a café, a pharmacy, 40 condos and 65 units for assisted living. But the city still had some reservations about the shape of the building as they wanted to avoid getting another large concrete block, so in August of 2013 asylum seekers were moved temporarily into the Alte Martinsschule. From January 15th till February 5th 2014 they were split up across neighboring communities, and on February 10th the school was returned to the city, which spent 415000 EUR on renovating and converting the Alte Martinsschule as temporary quarters for the Carl-Benz-Gymnasium (Carl Benz Grammar School). In July the investment plans almost failed, when Bouwfonds handed in their final plans and some councilmen weren’t 100% satisfied as they thought the building was too big and that there were not enough public parking spots. After some back and forth the plan was finally accepted… more than a year later in October of 2015. In early 2016 the renovation of the Carl-Benz-Gymnasium was finally done, so the Alte Martinsschule was finally ready to be taken over by the new investor – but not before making the news again in early February, when a couple of vandals broke into the school on a weekend and emptied some fire extinguishers, causing the police to show up the next Monday, publicly appealing for witnesses. In late February refugees helped cleaning out the school as the investor expected it to be broom-clean when taking over… for demolition.

A couple of months later my sister Sabine and I showed up at the Alte Martinsschule, knowing little to nothing about the long recent background story. I thought we were exploring an abandoned school for the physically disabled, so you can imagine my surprise when we found the whole school surrounded by construction site fences… and a huge gate wide open on the back. Since there were no “Do not enter!” signs anywhere and the gate was open, we had a closer look. The school looked like it had been abandoned for years, yet posters inside advertised a school Faschingsball (kind of a Mardi Gras party) earlier this year – very mixed messages that only made sense after I did some research; the Faschingsball was basically the farewell party of the grammar school.
Most breakage of glass had been fixed and the only apparent way in was an open window at the main street, where cars and pedestrians were passing by constantly. Sabine and I kept looking and found steps leading down to an indoor swimming pool with an open area in front of it, allowing daylight in through the large, massive glass windows. One of those windows, out of sight of the traffic three meters above us, was broken – and before I could say anything, Sabine slipped through and headed for the control room. Not expecting to find a way in and not sure how long we would stay I left the tripod in the car and followed my little sister. The pool was in nearly pristine condition, even covered to prevent accidents and further damage. Through the dark underbelly of the school we found our way to the main area of the Alte Martinsschule – which in many ways was so exemplary for every school in Germany I’ve ever been to. It had a couple of more ramps for obvious reasons, but other than that it looked like a German school, it smelled like a German school, it felt like a German school. A mostly empty school, as the investor was supposed to take over any day now, as we were not aware of. Nevertheless an exciting exploration – very familiar, yet a first time experience. Some walls still featured the results of group tasks, for example about the American Constitution, musicians, and what to expect from the new school (again, confusing at the time as we had no clue about the temporary stay of the grammar school). Via the ground floor we also found a way to the gymnasium / sports hall above the pool area – lots of large windows again, and with it the risk of being seen. Exploring back home should have been easier than in a foreign country, yet I was quite a bit more nervous than when exploring in Japan. Still don’t know why. Probably because I know the laws better and can’t play the “I don’t speak your language” card… Anyway, when we left a staircase to get back to a hallway I opened the heavy fire door, passed, handed it to Sabine and instead of closing it quietly, she slipped through and past me – the door closing with a loud BAMM that must have been audible in both Mannheim and Heidelberg! Damn! I’ve been on at least a dozen exploration with my beloved sister, never ever did she something that stupid and I was pissed. Really pissed. Luckily it was towards the end of our tour, so soon afterwards she returned to the car while I videotaped the walkthrough – almost 20 minutes long, so to all you out there who think that my videos are too short, I hope you’ll enjoy that one!
Soooo… This exploration happened in mid-July, why do I write about it now? Because back then I was on vacation and had time to do some research on the Alte Martinsschule, especially since I was curious about all those alleged contradictions. And a few weeks later, in August, an article in a local newspaper laid out the plans for the school’s future. It seems like Sabine and I just got in and out before a company took over and removed the remaining materials in the school – with separate containers for wood, metal, insulating materials, and other stuff. The facadism was planned to take till late September, then gigantic hoisting cranes were supposed to dismantle the concrete elements of the Alte Martinsschule like a house built of Lego. The plan was to get everything done by late October. I did my best to find some updates on the progress, but no online source reported about delays or success of the plans, so I added six weeks buffer and finally wrote about this rather unusual German location in exceptionally good condition. If the Martinsschule still stands I guess I accidentally revealed a pretty amazing location, but I didn’t want to wait any longer and it would have been a waste to write about this unique school without telling its story!

Despite the BAMM towards the end, I absolutely loved exploring not only a German school (after I’ve been to dozens of Japanese school, which are amazing in their own regards!), but a German school with a connected sports hall and an indoor swimming pool; that’s pretty much as good as it gets in this category. Sure, a couple of more items left behind would have been nice, but I am pretty sure you are getting a general idea of what schools in Germany look like. Thanks for making it all to the end of one of the biggest articles this year: almost 1500 words, more than 40 photos and a 20 minute long video… 🙂

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Hildebrand’sche Untere Mühle

Posted in Abandoned, Europe, Germany, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012, Visited in 2016 on 2016/09/20| 2 Comments »

Even Modern Ruins can be almost 200 years old in Germany – and the Hildebrand’sche Untere Mühle (Hildebrand’s Lower Mill) was quite an impressive example, its history dating back to 1071…

The Codex Laureshamensis (or Lorsch Codex) is a manuscript created between 1170 and 1195 to document the rights and riches of the Abbey of Lorsch in modern Southern Hesse. For the year 1071 it mentions a grand mill in nearby Weinheim, owned by the abbey. Since today’s Hildebrand’sche Untere Mühle has the location with the best conditions of all the mills in the so-called Sechs-Mühlen-Tal (Six Mills Valley), the general assumption is that the mill mentioned in the Lorsch Codex was a predecessor of the Hildebrand’sche Untere Mühle. In 1845 the Hildebrand family bought the property, just before the industrial revolution reached the pre-unified Germany full on. Georg Hildebrand invested in the dying industry (countless small mills were literally and figuratively steamrolled by modern technology) with big plans – including a failed one to build a dam right next to the mill, 27 meters high. Instead the family business created one of the first fully automatic industrial mills worldwide. The landmark tower, finished in 1896 right next to the Gründerzeit mansion (1882), was able to store up to 5000 tons of flour.
In 1982 the company shut down and both the villa as well as the mill with the gigantic granary started to fall into disrepair. Several investors showed interest in converting the property into a senior citizen home, a hotel with a casino, an apartment complex, a brothel or a technology museum, but all those plans fell through… Mainly because the valley is rather narrow and has lots of traffic – and that the granary is heritage protected didn’t help either…

Upon my exploration of the Hildebrand’sche Untere Mühle in 2012 a new investor just started (de)construction, fencing off the whole area, building a new bridge across the Weschnitz to provide heavy machine. The goal: Demolish everything that’s not protected by law, turn the villa into condos (between 500k and 625k EUR!) and build new apartments (283k to 735k) – the prices of up to 5900 EUR per square meter considered borderline insane for the area. In 2013 the first buildings were finally demolished, in autumn of 2014 the villa was scaffolded – the plan was to get everything done in 2016. The plan clearly didn’t work, as the last two photos of the set show, taken in 2016. The area is ready for the new apartment buildings and some renovation work, but except for demolition not much happened since my visit in 2012, mainly because the investor wasn’t able to pre-sell many of the apartments / condos.
Sadly those deconstruction works made it nearly impossible to get access to most of the area, and it took me a hike up and down a hill to reach the tower and the mill – the mansion was out of reach at the time. And even the area I was able to access wasn’t fun to explore, thanks to the more than questionable condition the buildings were in – it was basically one big death trap. Nevertheless I was able to take some neat inside photos and some scenic outdoor ones.

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Santorini Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/09/13| 4 Comments »

“Why are there so many abandoned hotels in Japan?”, is one of the questions I am asked most frequently. The Santorini Hotel just added a new aspect to my answer…

One way to find abandoned places is to use the satellite view of GoogleMaps and look for stuff that seems to be deserted. I have to admit that it’s a very time-consuming and unreliable method (at least 50% of the things that look abandoned are actually still in use…), but it’s also a way to get away from the beaten urbex paths, where people take the same shots others have taken half a decade prior. The Santorini Hotel was one of the places I found that way – still marked as in business, but green hotel pools are always a good sign that something’s wrong. (Whereas green pools of public baths or schools don’t mean anything as they are in use for only six to eight weeks per year in Japan.)
Upon arrival it became clear pretty quickly that the hotel was heavily overgrown, but not at all vandalized – I guess the fact that it has a (different) name on GoogleMaps throws off both vandals and urban explorers on a regular basis. We checked the usual points of entries, like doors and windows, but everything was undamaged and shut tight – except for one boarded window, where apparently somebody tried to get in a while ago.
In my experience, most abandoned hotels in Japan are in that unfortunate situation for one or more of the following reasons: remote location, downfall of a once popular area (like the coast of the Seto Inland Sea), too much competition, or new competition with more modern facilities. Built in 1976, the Santorini Hotel wasn’t too old, it wasn’t exceptionally remote and the area in general was still popular with just the right amount of competition. So why was it abandoned? Well, technically it wasn’t. A note at the entrance explained the condition the Santorini Hotel was in: It was closed because of new earthquake resistance standards. I think the ones they referred to made it basically mandatory to execute a ground investigation – a more recent revision put addition pressure on hotels built before 1982 (1981 or earlier, to be specific) and at least three storeys tall. The Santorini Hotel was built on a slope next to water in 1976 on a total of four floors – boom, headshot. Even though probably nothing would ever happen, the owner closed the hotel as the necessary renovations / improvements would have been too expensive. (As far as I understood the situation, most of those regulations are not legally binding, but result in a low score, which results in worried travelers to not book those hotels – just delaying the inevitable…)
I took a few quick shots of the main area and the pool, but considered visiting the Santorini Hotel a failure, as we didn’t find a way inside – but then we figured out a way to the back of the hotel, where I took more photos and a video. Overall not a super impressive set, but I’ve seen much worse locations on other blogs… and they don’t even publish on a weekly basis. So I though in combination with the note from the front door, this would actually make for a neat little story. Especially since the latest update of those regulations resulted in a huge wave of hotels closed at the end of 2015 – and I am pretty sure that some of them will find their way on *Abandoned Kansai* soon…

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Asuka Quarry

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/08/30| 2 Comments »

Last week I was kind of complaining about a mine / quarry (as it was cutting deep into *Mount Ibuki*), this week I am writing about one…

Researching “new” abandoned places is something I really enjoy. To me it’s part of urban exploration as much as traveling, taking photos and writing articles like this one – it’s an integral part of the experience. For that reason I have absolutely no time or love for messages like “Yo dog, where’s this place” (that’s an unaltered quote – the whole unabbreviated, unedited text!). I don’t mind sharing certain locations I found with friends and people I trust, but if I don’t know somebody, this is definitely the wrong way to get in touch with me; not just because of content, but also because of (the lack of) style. At the same time I am a bit hesitant receiving location hints, though this barely ever happens anyway as the request (or should I say “demand”?) to offer ratio is something like 40 or 50 to 1 – at best!
The Asuka Quarry was one of the few… probably the only, thinking of it… reader hint I actually followed through with. And the guy hinting, Colin, was kind enough to show me the place, so we met at a countryside train station and walked for a while in the intense late April sun. Soon we left the asphalted roads by circumventing a fence, continuing on the graveled road behind it, leading up to quarry. Colin never made a secret of the fact that the quarry he found wasn’t spectacular in any way, but at this point he tried to keep my expectations so low I started to wonder if it was worth risking a sunstroke. After passing some greenhouses and circumventing a large gate we finally made it to the quarry… And Colin really didn’t exaggerate – there wasn’t much to see, but the atmosphere was very soothing. When you are used to the loud, hectic and somewhat smelly city center of Osaka, this oasis in the suburbs was quite nice; the perfect location to find a place in the shadow and read a book.
Or to grab some white tuff, which apparently was mined here for centuries before it became unprofitable. Stone from this area has been used for Buddhist statues, temple stylobates and coffins in burial mounds.
The quarry was quite big, but wherever we looked, we didn’t find any buildings or abandoned machinery – and so we left after about an hour to check out a deserted love hotel I knew about…

The Asuka Quarry was probably the most unspectacular location I ever took pictures of – but it was nice to spend a spring day outside and not having to explore alone, which I did quite a bit this spring. And it finally got me in close proximity of the already mentioned love hotel; I most likely will write about that exploration around Christmas, as it has become somewhat of a tradition.
To be honest with you, I wasn’t super proud of most locations I published recently – but with one location per week they can’t be all like *Nara Dreamland*. But in some weeks, especially when a big anniversary is on the horizon, there can be more than one article… so come back soon or you’ll have to catch up with a bonus post upon your next visit!

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Old Wooden Japanese School

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, School, Transportation, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/08/16| 16 Comments »

Getting to an abandoned place in the middle of nowhere can be a difficult challenge – but getting back home is the much more important one…

Since premises are really valuable in the bigger cities of Japan, most abandoned places in the land of the rising sun are in more or less rural areas – the more places I’ve explored, the further away from where people live I have to go to find suitable locations; some of them deep into the mountains, near a peak, dozens of kilometers away from the next settlement, past narrow roads riddled with rock fall. And one can only hope that everything goes well on those excursions – no damaged cables / pipes when accidentally driving over a sharp stone, or dead batteries due to negligence when parking the car. You don’t want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception!
Usually I go exploring solo or with local friends, but this time I was on the road with visitors from Europe, Michel and Tom; both awesome guys with impressive portfolios and many, many years of urbex experience. We were heading for the mountains to check out some schools I’ve located – sadly only two out of the seven I found were accessible, but the scenic drive in the countryside and exchanging exploration stories were half the fun anyway.

The first explorable school we reached was the Old Wooden Japanese School – one of those places appearing out of nowhere between a barely ever visited shrine and a ghost town at the end of a long drive up a mountain on a rock fall tormented road. Closed in 1969 and probably finally abandoned when the last resident left the nearby hamlet 30 years later, this was one of the oldest modern ruin I’ve ever visited. Not an easy exploration, as most windows had been boarded up and most entrances were covered by corrugated iron, basically separating the school into two parts – the easily accessible and rather well-lit storage / teacher’s room… and the rather gloomy class room(s), the main area of this wooden single-floor school. Overall the condition of the school was rather bad – which wasn’t really a surprise, given that it was made of wood and abandoned for almost 50 years. While the hallway in the back was almost completely gone and the floor of the classroom looked so bent and brittle that I didn’t dare to put any weight on it, the front was only in slightly better condition, probably thanks to different layers, including a door now lying on the ground. My favorite items in the school were the old Toshiba TV, the Hiruma day light projector, and the metal basketball hoop. (Yes, even as a German who has never seen a full basketball game I know that the thing is called a hoop in English, not a ring…) In total we spent about 1.5 hours taking pictures of the Old Wooden Japanese School, mainly because the lighting required long expose shots (30 seconds or 1/30 second makes a huge difference in how long it takes to document a place!), before we returned to the car and left…
… Well, tried to leave. The electronics of the car seemed work perfectly (lights, AC, …), yet whenever Michel turned the key to start the car, all we heard was a three note sound, as if something was dying; probably the battery. Early afternoon in the middle of nowhere, up on a mountain, past a rock fall riddled section of a rather narrow road, kilometers away from the next street with regular traffic, even further from the next occupied house. ARGH! A look at the car’s Japanese manual didn’t help at all, neither did Michel’s attempt of trying several lever position combinations. Just that depressing dying sound… over and over and over again. Starting to worry, we got out of the car – no visible damage, no liquids dripping; the car seemed to be fine… and the worrying intensified. It would take us hours to get help, at this point I considered getting home on the same day the best case scenario. Running out of ideas, Michel tried more lever positions… and all of a sudden the friggin car started! Three of the loudest sighs of relief I ever heard followed. As Europeans none of us was used to cars with automatic transmission – and without being able to understand the Japanese manual, we still don’t know what we’ve done wrong or how we fixed it. But we kind of didn’t care at that point. We were spared a really shitty afternoon, so we explored another school instead… and at the end of the day had tons of grilled and deep-fried chicken at Torikizoku – dinner of champions!

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Theme Park In The Woods

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/08/09| 1 Comment »

A trout farm / fairground about three hours away from the next really big city, along a small river deep in the mountains of Japan? I think I’d rather invest in a video rental store…

I’ve seen my share of unusual abandoned places over the years, but the virtually unknown Amusement Park In The Woods was probably the strangest of all – even beating *Doggy Land*, a dog themed park all about man’s best friend. Imagine a beautiful little river in the mountains, a small road about three meters above it leading to a remote countryside shrine; picture perfect Japanese countryside, kilometers away from the next village, dozens of kilometers away from the next town – hours away from the next big city. And then there probably was a rich, but lonely farmer wading through his nearby rice paddy, hearing a voice saying: “If you build it, they will come!” It… it was the weirdest amusement park of all time. At least it said at the entrance that it was an amusement park, but to be honest, I have no idea what exactly this conglomeration of structures was, let alone who “they” could have been. Probably dads who couldn’t shake off their wives and kids when they wanted to go fishing at a pond in the suburbs – so they took the whole family to the mountains; I can’t imagine any other target audience.
After almost being scared away by a leery local (“Did you get lost? Down the road is only the house where I live!”) me and my exploration buddies Dan and Kyoko walked down the slope from the small parking lot to the little river. On the way I spotted a partly overgrown cage to the left, maybe an aviary? We continued and quickly reached the main area of this “amusement park” (yes, it really said amusement park at the entrance!). Wow, this was one messed up eclectic accumulation of buildings! Probably the most eye-catching objects were two white Suzuki Carry, rusting away and sinking deeper into the muddy ground of what once probably was the outdoor sitting area of the park’s café / bar; dozens of chairs fading to nothing in front of the bar. To the right were the toilets and a glass green house, up the hill were two lookouts / rest areas – one shaped like a mushroom, the other was kind of reminiscent of a pagoda. To the left I found the remains of what probably has been a sheltered tiki bar, followed by the outdoor trout fishing area, including the concrete pond(s) and benches, now overgrown by moss. In the back towards the slope were (now dried-out) shallow ponds with bridges – I guess one of the park’s staff members was a gardener… On the other side of the river, sadly almost completely overgrown at the time of our visit in June, was the playground / fairground / amusement part of the park; cages, swings and other metal objects were barely visible from the main side, but not accessible. And I was running out of time, so I quickly took two videos and a photo of the bathhouse where guests could change into swimwear – apparently the river had some deep, calm areas, so people could cool down during the hot summer months.
Nevertheless I wonder who those people were and when they visited the Amusement Park In The Woods. I am not a car expert by any means, but judging by a quick internet research I’d say those Suzuki Carry were fifth generation (L50/L60), built between 1972 and 1976, so this strange abandoned park was probably built in the 60s and used till the 80s – but this really is just speculation, sadly I found no information about this place at all. Too bad we ran into that suspicious neighbor before our exploration, not afterwards…

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Crossbow Hotel

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Hotel / Ryokan, Japan, Love Hotel, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/26| Leave a Comment »

I’ve seen my share of “unusual” Japanese architecture over the past ten years, but never had I seen a hotel shaped like a crossbow; especially not an abandoned one! What a fascinating place – at least from a bird’s eye view…

GoogleMaps and its satellite view have been invaluable tools ever since I picked up urban exploration as a hobby almost seven years ago. Despite the fact that most of the used satellite pictures are several months (or years…) old, it’s still a great way to find and pre-scout abandoned places. The Crossbow Hotel looked absolutely fascinating from above… like a giant crossbow with some kind of greenhouse in the lower part of the stock. Hardly ever was I that excited to explore an abandoned hotel! Sadly it turned out to be another vandalized piece of crap…
I knew that I was in for a disappointment the moment that I saw the busted open entrance of the hotel and gigantic piles of plastic cable sheathing – metal thieves had ripped apart ceilings, bathrooms and some walls, graffiti “artists” started to take over some of the rooms still in acceptable condition (leaving behind candy bars with a Best Before date several months in the future!), and your average run-of-the-mill vandal had been there, too. And while the architecture looked really intriguing from above, it was rather confusing on location, featuring some unexpected turns and narrow hallways. Especially the stock part was kind of strange and tough to explain – I recommend watching the walkthrough video at the end of this article to get a better impression.
Sadly there is little to nothing known about the hotel and it features. Located on a small hill in walking distance of a sandy beach, it once probably was quite a nice place to stay at. And while the latest signs implied that the Crossbow Hotel was used as a love hotel (“rest” and “stay” rates…), the whole setup differed greatly from regular love hotels – so I am sure that it was a conversion after the initial regular hotel failed. Why did it fail? I can only make assumptions, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with the not yet mentioned bypass along the beach, built in the 1990s; a source of massive amount of noise and a serious eyesore. It’s easy to imagine how that can ruin a hotel within a season or two – unless you keep the windows and blinds closed, because you only came there to… fornicate. And even then success obviously wasn’t a given thing…

Overall the Crossbow Hotel was just another average hotel exploration with quite a bit of vandalism. No risks like decay, security or mold – but also not much to get excited about…

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Ye Olde Inn

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/19| 2 Comments »

One of the few things I just don’t get tired of is the aesthetics of Japanese architecture. And by that I mean the beautiful countryside architecture using lots of wood! Regular Japanese cities with their rundown grey buildings or modern skyscrapers are as ugly as it gets, especially on a rainy day. Ye Olde Inn though was one of those buildings you just won’t find anywhere outside of Japan, especially not in that condition…

You might remember *Ye Olde Tea Factory* I’ve written about a couple of weeks ago – and the remote area near Kowada Station on the eastern bank of the Tenryu River, completely cut off from the road network after the Sakuma Dam cause said river to rise. The abandoned 2-storey building right next to the factory is usually ignored by explorers, probably because the upper floor is completely locked, but of course I found a way in on the lower floor… in the back. I’ve never read anything reliable about it anywhere, so I assume that it was built and closed around the same time as the factory (1950 / early 1980s) – probably a restaurant or an inn… or the home of a rather rich family. Who knows?
Like pretty much everything else in the area, Ye Olde Inn was built on a slope, which means that there was a smaller lower floor and a bigger upper floor. The lower floor was basically a storage room with a rather big wooden machine in one corner, most likely also related to tea production. Wooden stairs lead up to the (indoor) toilet – and since the upper floor was completely locked, it was the only way to currently get up there. The other staircase near the entrance, leading to the kitchen area, was made of concrete – and right next to the exit outside was some kind of outhouse; not a toilet, but a small room with a bathtub. Upstairs was rather dark and gloomy, and I didn’t trust many of the floors of this metal-clad wooden building, so I tried to stay in the parts I assumed were on solid ground. Everything here was magnificently old-fashioned, from the brick-built cooking place to the slightly radio. With supplies still on shelves, this house could have been a private house, a restaurant, or an inn… or maybe it was used for changing purposes. In any case, the interior kept what the exterior promised, and so I actually had to postpone my return to civilization as I didn’t want to rush things. Overall a great exploration well worth the really long journey there…

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Shuuhen Temple Revisited

Posted in Asia, Haikyo, Hyogo, Japan, Kansai, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2011, Visited in 2016 on 2016/07/12| 2 Comments »

I genuinely care about the places I explore – not just when I am there by following the “Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints” rule (I actually try to avoid leaving footprints…), but also afterwards. That’s why I tend to keep an eye on more or less all of the locations I’ve been to. Most of the time it ends with them being demolished, but the story of the *Shuuhen Temple* took a different route…

It was a beautiful autumn day in November of 2011 when I first headed out to the Shuuhen Temple in the countryside of Hyogo prefecture. Abandoned temples are rather rare, even in a country like Japan, where you can barely throw a stone without hitting one. But this historic site dating back to the year 651 fell into disrepair after the local monk left his house (whether on foot or on a stretcher is unknown), and it apparently got even worse when a landslide damaged the road leading up to the temple. I on the other hand enjoyed a gorgeous, serene afternoon during the height of momijigari, the little brother of looking at cherry blossoms – looking at the changing colors of the maple leaves.
About four years later I found out that the Shuuhen Temple had been under renovation or reconstruction, without getting to know any specifics. I have to admit that revisits are not really high on my priority list as I rather explore locations I haven’t been to before (especially since nothing had changed according to GoogleMaps), but during Golden Week of 2016 I finally had the opportunity to go back to this rather unique location.
To get to the Shuuhen Temple, it’s about about a 45 to 60 minute walk from the next train station – a local one, with about one connection in each direction per hour. The last stretch is up a hill. Not too steep, but a total height difference of about 160 meters. The first major change to 4.5 years prior? A brandnew sign at the main road, so this abandoned place has become *a tourist attraction*! The second major difference? About a dozen warning signs making you aware that the place is now under camera surveillance – and there was indeed a solar-powered, motion-activated camera along the road! Of course they repaired and improved the dirt road once leading up the hill… but that was not all! The rough rocks on the mostly overgrown slope leading up the final meters to Shuuhen Temple were replaced by real stairs made from cut stone, the whole area was gardened, and a new entrance was created, including a slightly rewritten info sign – as neither were part of the *previous article*, I added a 2011 flashback photo. The temple area itself underwent quite a few changes, too. First of all: The monk’s house has been demolished and is nothing more than a gravel covered piece of land now. The bell tower has been rebuilt and the gorgeous split tree trunk used to clang the bell is a brand-new piece of wood now. Everything has been cleaned up and a new rest house has been placed on the edge of the slope – the view was still gorgeous, but the new wood and concrete construction felt completely out of place. The mix of old and new was strangely odd. Although I had the place all to myself again, the atmosphere was totally different than before. I tremendously enjoyed *my first visit to the Shuuhen Temple*, but this second trip… was missing the serenity – and when a religious place feels like the magic has gone, it was probably not a good idea to have the area renovated. Some places are just destined to fade away – and I feel like the Shuuhen Temple was one of them. (Hopefully the place will recover over time. If I am still in Japan in 10 years, I’ll let you know!)

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Aichi Sento

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Spa / Onsen, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2016 on 2016/06/21| 3 Comments »

Last week I was talking about bears quite a bit – this week could be all about bare-naked ladies and their beavers, but I think that’s a slippery slope nobody wants to go down… (One photo shows some bare boobs though… If you are easily offended by the beauty of the human body, scroll down to the gallery at the end of the article at your own risk! And if you are not offended I know that you will most likely have a look now before you continue reading… 🙂 )

When you think of Japanese bathing culture, you think of mountains, creeks, beautiful scenery, wooden bathtubs, natural stone floors – but not all public baths are in gorgeous little onsen towns! A lot of them are in the suburbs of major cities; next to supermalls, in the middle of residential areas or opposite a factory. Quite a few of them lack all the classic charme of an onsen and are more reminiscence of shared hotel baths or saunas with some additional pools. Some are not even fed by a hot spring, but by water from regular pipes. Those sento are not bad places at all, they are just not that different from similar facilities you might know from your home country. (They are still gender separated though – and swimwear is not an option!)
The Aichi Sento had quite an unusual layout spread across three floors. The main entrance was in some kind of semi-basement – shoe lockers to the left, front desk to the right and from there you went to the baths… one for women, one for men. The main entrance area also featured quite an unusual vending machine, selling Meiji branded milk (regular, coffee flavored and mixed with fruit juice) and a totally destroyed TV – no vandalism in Japan? Yeah, right…
After a quick look at the middle floor with the kitchen, a lunch / dining room and some more private rooms I headed down for the men’s bath. The changing room looked like many others I’ve seen before – lockers for the guests’ clothes, sinks, mirrors, hair driers. A nice detail was the smaller version of the statue outside in front of the building, of a naked kneeling woman with a Rubenesque figure. From the locker I got access to a massage room and the actual bath. The latter was surprisingly impressive as it had quite an open design across two floors – that place must have cost a fortune to heat! Walking up the white tiled stairs I almost slipped and fell as some jasshole spread the liquid soap from the ground floor all over the place. Bunch of savages in that friggin town! Luckily the “risky climb” got rewarded by a nice view at the bath and the outdoor/indoor mini bamboo grove as well as the pristine sauna. Beautiful, just beautiful! To cool down, you could go “outside” to a smaller tub clad with stone that was kept at 14°C, while all the indoor pools apparently had the really hot water you usually find in public Japanese baths.
The women’s bath was mirrored in the other half of the building and for that reason looked pretty much the same – just with a bit more vandalism… and a lot more porn magazines. Abandoned places in Japan and porn, they basically go hand in hand. First signs were actually visible in the entrance area, where I took some pictures of a magazine. If you are American and / or religious, check your level of prudery; everybody else should be fine as Japanese porn has primary sexual characteristics pixelated before publishing. In this case a good thing as neither you nor I have to worry about me showing too much. A bit banky though was the person who used the massage room of the female bath as his porn stash. Dozens of magazines, the guy probably thought that variety is the spice of life; must have liked a wide selection… Anyway, the women’s bath was just a more rundown version of the men’s bath so I had a quick look at the third floor, which was nasty and hot, and had little more to offer than a fitness room, including some ping-pong tables – nice for sure when the place was still open, rather smelly and uncomfortable at the time of my visit, so I called it quits.

Upon leaving I had spent about two hours at the Aichi Sento, which is probably as long as regular customer spent there when the place was still in business. 800 Yen got you through the door (elementary school students and younger received a 50% discount), opening hours were from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed on every other Tuesday. Abandoned about a decade ago, the Aichi Sento was a slightly above average exploration, saved by the surprisingly nice men’s side of the bath – the rest of the building was just another rundown, vandalized piece of real estate you see all across Japan. Definitely better than the *Health Land Yutopi*, but not nearly as beautiful and unique as the *Tokushima Countryside Healthspa*.

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