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Archive for the ‘Zoo’ Category

Insta360 – How Is That Even Legal?

Posted in Abandoned, Aichi, Airport, Akita, Amusement Park, Animals, Aquarium, Asia, Asylum, Beijing, Berlin, Cemetery, China, Chugoku, Church, Chūbu, Cinema, Closed, Communications, Dark Tourism, Demolished, Depot, Driving School, Europe, Exhibition, Factory, Farm, Ferris Wheel, Festival, Fire Station, Food, Fukuoka, Fukushima, Gifu, Golf, Gunma, Haikyo, HDR, Hiking, Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Hospital, Hotel / Ryokan, House, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Ishikawa, Iwate, Japan, Kagawa, Kanagawa, Kanazawa, Kansai, Kanto, Kindergarten / Nursery, Kochi, Korea, Kumamoto, Kyoto, Kyushu, Lighthouse, Love Hotel, Mie, Military, Mine, Miyagi, Monochrome, Monument, Museum, Nagano, Nagasaki, Nampo, Nara, New Zealand, Night, Niigata, Non-Urbex, Oita, Okayama, Okinawa, Olympia, Original Find, Osaka, Pachinko, Photography, Power Station, Prison, Race Track, Restaurant, Roadside Attraction, Sacred Site, Saitama, Sapporo, School, Sex, Shiga, Shikoku, Shipyard, Shizuoka, Shrine, Ski, Snow, Spa / Onsen, Sports, Store, Strip Club, Supermarket, Taxidermy, Temple, Theater, Tochigi, Tohoku, Tokushima, Tokyo, Tottori, Transportation, Travel, University, Urbex, US Military, Video, Wakayama, Yamagata, Yamaguchi, Yamanashi, Zombies, Zoo on 2024/06/15| 15 Comments »

I’ve been urbexing for almost 15 years. During that time I’ve never written any articles about equipment, despite being very happy with three different Nikon DSLRs, two Manfrotto tripods, and a Sanyo video camera – which broke in 2019 after almost 15 years of recording countless hours at hundreds of locations as well as places like Chernobyl and North Korea. Videos I always considered a bonus anyway… and I’m still having a hard time thinking of myself as a photographer, given that I have no formal education in that field and only do it as a hobby. A really time-consuming hobby, but nevertheless just a hobby. I also don’t have a background in technology, so what’s the point of reviewing camera equipment when I just have an opinion based on learning by doing? Well, that doesn’t keep countless “influencers” and Youtubers from churning out incompetent nonsense, but I wouldn’t want to be found dead with either label on me! And like my favorite professor at university once said in regards to papers we had to hand in: “Don’t claim anything you can’t proof!”

Fortunately there is no need to be technical or scientific about this Insta360 X4 article, because unfortunately we never got that far…
Like I said, I always considered video walkthroughs of the locations I explore a bonus. I started them pretty much right away, but at first I didn’t even publish them, because I only took them for myself. And even when I published them, I didn’t edit them. No cuts, no voice overs. Just me walking around breathing heavily into the silence. That all came to a sudden halt when my Sanyo stopped working after exploring the abandoned *Trump Hotel*, also wiping out the recordings of the whole day. At that point I was tired of doing the videos anyway – and my co-explorers were increasingly annoyed, because I added 10 to 30 minutes at the end of every exploration for the walkthrough. So I stopped doing them.
For the past 18 months I’ve been exploring solo again (don’t ask, it’s complicated and often quite frustrating, to be honest), but a few weeks ago a colleague of mine showed me an older model Insta360 video camera that a visiting cousin from the States forgot at his place in Japan. I was fascinated by the easy to use 360 photos and videos, so I did some research and decided to get one. I’ve read reviews, I’ve read product pages – I did my best to make an informed decision, because at first I considered buying the X2 or X3 as older models often are cheaper with only slightly fewer / worse features. The X2 was out of the race when I read in a review that it required a smartphone to be activated – something I didn’t read anywhere about the X3 and X4. I guess because it’s an idea that is so stupid that it probably was a one-time mistake by Insta360, facing so much backlash that they removed the requirement from following models. The price difference between the X3 and X4 wasn’t very big and since the latter was only four weeks old at the time, the price on Amazon and in brick and mortar stores was the same, so I decided to get it at my local Yodobashi Camera (street block sized electronics stores with hundreds of employees each, in case you are not familiar with the chain), where I’ve been a customer for almost 18 years – ever since I moved to Japan.
BIG MISTAKE!

Yodobashi Camera was extremely stingy, giving only 1% points on the video camera, despite a promotional campaign of giving 13% points for purchases over amount X – except for (small print)… But when you shell out 80k Yen on a new video camera you are looking forward to use, store points are the last thing you worry about anyway. Fortunately I still had some of those points, which I used to get a seriously overpriced MicroSD card, because without it the video camera would be useless and I wanted to try it out on the weekend before an upcoming urbex trip. 83500 Yen poorer, but with a big smile on my face I left Yodobashi Camera on a Friday evening after an otherwise pretty horrible week.

Saturday was supposed to be a great day, though it started with a rude awakening / realization…
After sleeping in and having a delicious breakfast, I enjoyed a nice unboxing. The first slight disappointment was when I realized that the included battery was dead. Well, not dead dead, but completely empty. Whatever, an hour or two wouldn’t make a difference. It would not dent my great mood for sure. That came a few hours later when the battery was fully charged. I booted the small brick for the first time, its screen came to life, asking me to choose a language – and then the screen showed what the camera was seeing… for about a second or so. Then some text popped up and my heart sank. You gotta be kidding me! What I was looking at was a screen telling me to download an app by Insta360 to a smartphone, iOS or Android, to unlock the video camera. What. The. Heck? I literally felt it in my fingers how my blood-pressure exploded, because unlike pretty much every person on the planet above the age of 6 years I don’t own a smartphone. Never have. In the late 90s I had a black and white Nokia for work (yes, I’m not the youngest anymore, though I started working full-time in my early 20s). When I moved to Japan I had a flip phone or two, but for the past 15 years or so I didn’t have any mobile phone at all, smart or not, because I don’t like them as they turn way too many people into dumb zombies. So here I had a brand-new, quite expensive video camera… that forced me to make it usable by using another device with cameras? Who comes up with stupid ideas like that?!
Certainly not Nikon! Their D7500 DSLR I bought just weeks prior worked with a partly charged battery and regular SD cards straight out of the box 5 minutes after purchase – without any charging or unlocking BS!
So I started to do some research… and didn’t find much. Like I said, I couldn’t care less about smartphones, apps and all that stuff, so I tried to find a solution to unlock the darn X4 via PC or MicroSD card. Of course I couldn’t find anything about that either, so I contacted Insta360 directly – who apparently didn’t read my message and instead sent me a standard reply. So I got back to them, apologized for not describing my problem properly (I’ve been in Japan too long…), and this time got an answer that at least implied that they understood the situation I was in – without being able to help, because though it seems to be nowhere stated on the box, the promo material or even on the X4 website (at least back in mid / late May, maybe they changed it by now)… you really need a smartphone and the Insta360 app to use a newly bought X4 video camera, that seems to work perfectly fine, but is made not usable on purpose by the manufacturer. Which absolutely blows my mind!
How is that even legal?
How can a company force you to use a completely unrelated piece of expensive technology that actually partly does the job of the product you just bought, to make your purchase usable? Without mentioning that essential detail with big warnings before purchase! And in addition, forces you to use an app, which does who knows what in the background without one knowing?
What’s next? You need an electric bike with WiFi to unlock your newly bought car? And if you don’t… sucks to be you, it’s completely useless!

Yodobashi Camera – (The Lack Of) Customer Service In Japan!
After some back and forth it was Monday and I came to the conclusion that I won’t be able to use the Insta360 X4, because it really needs a smartphone to unlock, which wasn’t properly communicated. So after work I went back to Yodobashi Camera, my go-to electronics store for the past almost 18 years. Never had a problem with them, because all the products I bought worked as intended right out of the box. So I went back to the cashier counter where I bought the video camera… and already ran into the first minor bump in the road – apparently I hadn’t paid for it in the camera department, but a neighboring one, which wasn’t a problem on Friday evening, but very well on Monday evening. So I went 20 meters over to the camera department and told them about my unfortunate situation: That I had bought this video camera three days prior, but couldn’t use it, because it doesn’t work without a smartphone, which wasn’t properly communicated by Insta360 or Yodobashi Camera. But I was very careful with everything, I didn’t even remove the protective film from either of the lenses. Some air through the teeth sucking, some going back behind the counter to talk to a superior and then something like the following conversation – it’s in quotation marks, but they are not really quotes, you know… just something like that, from memory:
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“But I can’t use the video camera.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I don’t have a smartphone. The X4 is useless to me.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I did proper research and I only found out about this after I opened the box and tried to use the X4.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“I bought a D7500 last month, it worked out of the box…”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Then take it back and ask Insta360 to exchange the X4 – you have dozens of them here, you probably have to return one once in a while anyway.”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Are you serious? I’ve been a customer here for almost 18 years, spent millions at your store and other ones in the building that has your name. Never had a problem – and the first time I have, you are stonewalling me?”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”
“Really?”
“I can’t sell this anymore, you opened the box. You can’t return it.”

At this point I gave up and exchanged a few more e-mails with Insta360 (“You should try to return the X4 where you bought it!” No kidding…), but their responses quickly became as useless and repetitive as the one of the guy at Yodobashi Camera – who is just a small cog in a big machine, so I don’t blame him; he’s punished enough with the lighting in the store and the uniform he has to wear all day.
So here we are, after me falling for the usual misconception about (customer) service in Japan, because I rarely ever had a real problem anywhere. It’s great as long as everything is within procedures – if somebody has planned for it, it most likely will go smoothly. Service is great. When service becomes customer service though, i.e. an individual customer needs help that requires improvisation outside of the planned service… you’re basically on your own. The only thing flexible in Japan is bamboo.

Nevertheless I still have moments when I wonder: AITAH?
I’m a huge believer in personal responsibility. If I make a mistake, I stand by it. I find behavior like ordering 20 items of clothes in different sizes and colors with the intention of sending 18 of them back despicable. In fact I’ve never sent anything back that I’ve ordered online, except for two USB-HDDs – and only because they didn’t work. I don’t do fast fashion, I don’t buy garbage from questionable sites like Shein oder Temu, I don’t replace electronics unless they are broken. (RIP, Nikon D7100!) I did due diligence before buying the Insta360 X4 and to this day everything in that (opened…) box is in mint condition. If I would have known about the smartphone requirement, I wouldn’t have bought the X4. It’s the reason why I didn’t buy the X2.
This is actually only the second time that I tell this story to anybody, because part of me is a bit ashamed that this series of unfortunate events happened – despite all the research before buying. But spending more than 80k on a useless brick of tech isn’t exactly something to be proud of. I don’t regret much in my life, but buying the Insta360 X4 I regret. And buying it at Yodobashi Camera is something I regret, too. Maybe Amazon would have been more accommodating with returns…
But I guess it is what it is – only money in the end. And no videos for Abandoned Kansai in the future. Heck, even if I would get the currently useless X4 to work, I would always be reminded of this story. Screw video cameras! Never was a fan, now I dislike them almost as much as smartphones. Which kind of closes the circle. But I’ll make sure to never ever even consider buying anything from Insta360 again – I still don’t understand how it’s even legal that they can do this. What’s next to unlock their cameras? Having to send them a voice message, swearing loyalty to Winnie the Xi(thead)? Apparently they can do anything without people questioning it…
I went back to Yodobashi Camera once more though, two days ago. I spent the remaining shop points I had on presents for my nephews without having to pay a single sen – my goal was it to hit +/- 20 points/Yen, but going to exactly 0 was priceless – and so I left the Yodobashi Camera building one last time with a big smile on my face. Upon arriving back home I cut up my loyalty card after almost 18 years. It probably doesn’t mean much to a large store chain like that. But it meant a lot to me!

Thank you for reading till the end and… What has your worst experience with Japanese (customer) service been? Write it in the comments!

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Shodoshima Peacock Garden

Posted in Abandoned, Amusement Park, Aquarium, Asia, Demolished, Haikyo, Japan, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2012, Zoo on 2016/09/06| 3 Comments »

Truly unique abandoned places are really rare – Japan is no exception from that rule. And sometimes the only way to protect those locations is to keep quiet about them… until they got demolished. Welcome to the Shodoshima Peacock Garden!

The Shodoshima Peacock Garden (SPG) was a 30000 square meter park on Shodoshima, the second largest island in the Seto Inland Sea, famous for its vast olive groves. Opened in 1970 on a small elevation in sight of the harbor in Ikeda it was closed on November 30th 2008 according to the Japanese Wikipedia; strangely enough I found a calendar from October 2009, but who knows who put it there… The SPG featured 3500 peafowls in its heyday during the early 70s, when up to half a million visitors per year were welcomed – a massive achievement, considering that Shodoshima is not connected to any other island by bridge; but due to its size, a motorized vehicle is kind of necessary, so you either need a rental or arrive by a car ferry with your own set of wheels. (Or you bite the bullet, like yours truly, and depend on the few public busses that make it around the island… but not all the way.)
Anyway, the years of plenty didn’t even reach the count of seven as visitor numbers plummeted quickly – by the mid-70s they were already as low as 150000 per year. The hatch rate of the peacocks also took a dive, which was the main reason why the number of peafowls in the park went down to 500 by 2002, when the park closed for one year for maintenance. In 2003 the Shodoshima Peacock Garden opened from April to November, but got rid of a main attraction that was quite popular before the break: 40 peacocks walked up a ramp inside Mount Peacock and then flew the 10 meters down into the park to the excited visitors – but despite 5 meter high nets and peacocks not being good flyers, every once in a while one them escaped, which was probably the main reason why the so-called Flight Show was cancelled; it turned out that the flight show was too much of a flight risk. By 2007 the number of peacocks went up again to 1000, but the number of visitors went down to a mere 50000 for the whole season; not nearly enough to cover the costs, and so the Shodoshima Bus Company, who owned the SPG, decided to close the park for good – especially since the aging facilities would have required additional investments soon. When the park finally closed in 2008, the remaining 200 peacocks were sold to other animal parks, including Shodoshima’s own Choshikei Monkey Park.

I first found out about the Shodoshima Peacock Garden from my German friend Chris a little more than four years ago. He was visiting Japan and traveled around a bit with his girlfriend, before we met at a Torikizoku in Osaka. We talked about this and that, when he mentioned that strange abandoned park he found on Shodoshima… with some taxidermy peacocks in a souvenir shop. I had never heard of that place before and was terribly intrigued… So I went there in September of 2012 with my friend Chris from New Zealand. First we (re)visited the *Shikoku New Zealand Village* and an abandoned transformer station, the next morning we took the ferry from Takamatsu to Ikeda. Approaching the harbor, we could already see the Shodoshima Peacock Garden on an elevation right at the coast. 20 minutes later we stood at the park’s entrance – filled with pure excitement upon entering a place we knew hardly anything about and had never seen pictures of before. This was exploration in its purest form. Don’t tell me that people going to *Nara Dreamland* these days are exploring it! At best they are looking for spots to recreate well-known photos they’ve seen countless times on the internet. But Chris and I, standing there, ready to go in, that was pure exploration spirit!
The entrance building featured a small shop and a ticket booth to the left as well as restrooms to the right – a net stretching above the building in an attempt to prohibit peafowls from fleeing the premises. The net actually surrounded the whole park, followed by a line or two of thick vegetation, predominantly massive palm trees. The former garden was mostly overgrown, but after about 100 meters there was the souvenir shop German Chris mentioned… and to the left was the entrance to Birdpia, basically the main attraction of the park, featuring huge outdoor bird cages as well as a building with a panoramic round aquarium and an egg exhibition. The exit of the building was locked, but it once lead to the monument near the coast line, the area Kiwi Chris and I saw from the ferry – from there you got to the gift shop and then to the exit. The outdoor area mostly overgrown and the indoor area mostly dark, this turned out to be one of the creepiest explorations ever – mostly because I had no idea what to expect. Once you’ve seen photos of a location somewhere, it gives you a certain amount of confidence and reassurance, because every once in a while you recognize things and places you’ve seen before; it’s comforting. Never knowing what’s behind the next corner is friggin nerve-wrecking, especially at an eerie place like that! At the same time it’s super exciting, because you are not walking on beaten paths and you don’t take the same pictures as dozens or hundreds of people before you.
The souvenir shop / restaurant was built above a slope and therefor a bit scary in its own way, despite being really well-lit for most of it. The restaurant featured a great view at the Seto Inland Sea, while the souvenir shop offered a wide variety of olive chocolate products. No kidding! Olive chocolate products! As I mentioned before, Shodoshima is famous for olives. But instead of selling canned olives and olive oil, people decided it would be a good idea to sell olive chocolate, olive chocolate cake and olive chocolate cookies. Since the shop was in overall good condition I kept taking pictures of the fake sample boxes… and since these sweets were so original, I think those photos deserve to be published. At least half of them or so… The rest of the building was far less interesting – a kitchen, some dirty toilets and a storage room on the lower floor. Outside again I took some pictures of Mount Peacock, the monument at the waterfront and of the park in general. It was then when I found a cage construction leading down a slope in the back. I followed it and finally reached the empty and cleaned out peacock stable – and from there I got to the internal ramp leading up Mount Peacock, after passing some really spooky concrete areas. Maybe the last photo of the set gives you a general idea…
When I originally planned the day on Shodoshima, I slated about two hours to explore the Shodoshima Peacock Garden. Because, let’s be honest: How exciting can an abandoned bird park be? Well, apparently very exciting, because Chris and I finally got out of there after about five hours! Which left me pretty much enough time to take a bus to Tonosho, say goodbye to Chris (who was continuing to Okayama), take another bus to Fukuda, and catch a ferry to Himeji – beautiful sunset on the water, a perfect ending for an amazing day.

Now, back home I was a bit of in a predicament. On the one hand I wanted to tell everyone about this amazing exploration I enjoyed so much, but that would have meant to reveal information about the location – and I was worried that the increasing vandalism hurting *Nara Dreamland* could also damage this nearly pristine location. Just the information that the SPG once was a peafowl park (without mentioning the real name or location) would have allowed people with minimal Google skills to get on its track, because there have not been many facilities similar to the Shodoshima Peacock Garden, let alone closed / abandoned ones. A fellow explorer once said that he has no problems revealing real names even of locations in fantastic condition as he is not in the business of protecting abandoned places – which I guess is true, but I am also not in the business of exposing abandoned places. And so I kept quiet, always hoping to come back one day – but I never made it, because new explorations always seemed to be more interesting. Last week Monday, when preparing the Nara Dreamland article, I was revisiting some abandoned places via the satellite view of GoogleMaps… and saw that the souvenir building has received some TLC while Mount Peacock and all other constructions (except for the monument) have been leveled. On the one hand I was terribly sad to see another abandoned place gone, especially a truly unique and amazing one like this, on the other hand I was as full of joy as I have been four years ago standing at the entrance of the Shodoshima Peacock Garden – because I knew I could finally write about it without holding back. And now I hope that you will enjoy looking at the photos and watching the videos as much as I enjoyed exploring this wonderful, wonderful place you’ll probably never see anywhere again…

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Namegawa Island

Posted in Abandoned, Asia, Haikyo, Japan, Kanto, Photography, Travel, Urbex, Video, Visited in 2015, Zoo on 2016/02/23| 14 Comments »

Namegawa Island is quite a phenomenon. Every explorer in Japan seems to know about it, every explorer seems to have a high opinion of it… yet apparently nobody has ever been there, because this place is probably the most overrated in all of Japan.

Opened in 1964, this huge zoo and resort at the Pacific coast of Chiba prefecture was a mild success for about half a decade, peaking in 1970 at about 1.2 million visitors – probably thanks to a brand-new train station of the same name opening right across the street that very same year. Unfortunately for Namegawa Island a place called Kamogawa Seaworld also opened in 1970 just 12 kilometers down the road / train line – new facilities tend to beat old ones in Japan, and so the downfall of Namegawa Island began, resulting in its closure more than 30 years later; after the summer season of 2001. The resort featured several indoor and outdoor habitats for animals (including a monkey house and a center for tropical birds), a hotel, a mini water park, a BBQ area, an outdoor stage, several eateries, Polynesian dance shows from 1971 to 1996 for six months per year, and several animal shows with flamingos, penguins and seals. Three years after Namegawa Island was closed, an investor bought it for 42 million Yen; less than 400k USD at the time. Another three years later without any further development, a hot spring well was drilled on the premises, but never put to use – I guess it was around that time, 2007/2008, that all the buildings have been demolished. Interestingly enough I never found any inside photos of the abandoned state – only of the ticket booth outside the now heavily fortified, gated entrance tunnel; all the other ones were either pre-closing or post-demolition.

So why the larger than life image of Namegawa Island? I have no idea, probably because of said impassable massive gate. But over the last decade there must have been several dozen conversations like that:
“Hm… abandoned places in Chiba prefecture…”
“How about Namegawa Island?!”
“I’ve heard about it! It’s huge, isn’t it? But is it any good?”
“I don’t know! Let’s check it out – if we can past THE GATE!”
“Challenge accepted!”
I guess my old *haikyo* buddy *Mike* and I at one point had one of those conversations and put it on our schedule… in part due to lack of alternatives. After walking up to the big bad gate, I quickly decided that I wouldn’t be able to get past it, much to the frustration of Mike – a new iteration of the same old story; worse this time as we were actually pressed for time. It was mid-afternoon at the end of a three day weekend, leaving us with less than 90 minutes as I insisted to be back at the car at 5 to have some wiggle room on the way back to Tokyo. Usually the trip takes less than two hours, but we had to get the rental car back by 8 p.m. sharp and traffic is always a nightmare at the end of a long weekend, especially in the Tokyo area. I hate to be rushed as much as the next guy, but I played the role of the bad guy pushing us through the exploration – which was excellent in hindsight, because we were actually back at the car at 5 and only both made it home on time, because Mike generously dropped me off at a train station before returning the car by himself with about two minutes to spare. Kanto traffic is a nightmare!
Exploring an area of about 500 by 450 meters within one and a half hours is close to impossible, but somehow we made it… once we got past the other spiky gate guarding a slope fortified by barbed wire. Not an easy way in, but easier than the main gate. When I first approached it, I saw a guy in an overall behind it and went back to Mike to abort the mission – luckily this time he won the short conversation, so we gave it a second try and it turned out that the guy wasn’t security, but some kind of metal looter or waste dumper… the kind of people that give us explorers a bad name in Japan. Once we got up the mountain past Mr. Overall we had to pass through two narrow tunnels, one once blocked by a heavy metal grid. Then we had to walk down an overgrown path with a very steep drop to right before running into three bad surprises.
1.) An animal trap – for a large animal, maybe a bear?
2.) The trap and all the roads looked well maintained – signs of security?
3.) Only foundations left of first buildings we saw – neither of us was aware that Namegawa Island had been demolished about a decade prior…
Speaking of bears – the mountainous area was riddled with tunnel entrances big and small, most of them blocked, but every couple of hundred meters there was a cave that would have made a perfect bear’s den. Why all those holes in the mountains? Because, as I assumed on location and confirmed later, this area was used by the Imperial military in an effort to fortify the coastline to prevent an American invasion from the sea. A waste of resources as it turned out, but at least some niche explorers are having a great time now…

Anyway, despite the possible bear and security threats, the exploration of Namegawa Island was rather uneventful und a series of disappointments, as almost all the buildings were gone – if it wouldn’t have been for the hotel’s pool at the coast, the lush autumn vegetation and an amazing sunset, this whole exploration would have been a rushed disaster. Yet strangely enough I can’t say that I hated the experience, despite the time pressure and the lack of structures. There was something special about this demolished resort… something quite assuasive, probably thanks to the calming waves and the beautiful light. Spending three of four hours there to have a look at every cave and concrete platform would have been an unforgivable waste of time, so maybe the unfortunate terms of this exploration turned out to be a blessing in disguise… though overall it didn’t come even close to amazing afternoon explorations like *Kejonuma Leisure Land* or the *Katashima Suicide Attack Training School*.

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