All abandoned: Chernobyl / Pripyat, Nara Dreamland, Anti-Zombie Fortress, Japanese Sex Museum – and many, many more! Plus: North Korea Special – 2 trips, 16 days / 14 nights! As seen on CNN…
Love stinks… sometimes. So does lovemaking. Especially when you did it at the Love Hotel Manure!
Abandoned love hotels can be hit or miss – exactly 10 years ago I published my first one, the *Love Hotel Gion*. Some of my favorite locations have been examples of those seedy accommodations, but most of them have been vandalized rundown pieces of s#it… Speaking of s#it: The thing that made this deserted countryside hotel so “special” was the pile of manure on the other side of the street. And by that I mean a literal pile of manure, about two storeys high, which really ruined the atmosphere exploring the damn thing – and I’m sure it didn’t help when trying to be “romantic” either. At best the stench was bearable, but when the wind changed… phew, then you needed a real unusual kink to enjoy what you came for to do!
Unfortunately the inside wasn’t really worth dealing with the stinking cloud. I appreciated Miffy in the hallway, the indoor garden swing and the tiny sauna I’d only fit in when used as a torture device, but overall the place was just a vandalized mess, thanks to some metal thieves ripping the interior apart and leaving piles of insulation behind. In and out in a little over an hour, which means that we probably lasted longer than most guests when the place was still open for business! Overall a rather disappointing exploration, nothing in comparison to the *Japanese Castle Love Hotel* or the *Fashion Hotel Love*.
Stunning views from the side of a mountain at the endless sea… not the worst location for an abandoned bridge!
Abandoned places come in all shapes and sizes – and at pretty much all price points. And while I’m not an expert on construction of any kind, this bridge looked kinda expensive: It was slightly curved, ended on lower elevation than it originated, it was wide enough for one lane in each direction and it was on the side of a mountain leading across a large abyss, so it was resting on several ferroconcrete pillar, including a massive one in the middle, at least 15 to 10 meters high. Unlike Japanese houses this bridge was built to last!
Unfortunately there is little known about the Bridge To Nowhere, except that it connects to a regular road on one side and isn’t even finished on the other. All the concrete foundations are there, but nobody bothered to finish filling the gap with dirt, let alone construct a road on the far side. Therefore the purpose of the bridge is unknown as it literally is leading to nowhere – there is no other road nearby, neither is there some kind of plateau that would be suitable to build a resort, a hotel or even just a few company retreats. The views from the abandoned bridge were absolutely stunning, and of course the whole setup is very reminiscent of the famous *Partly Collapsed Red Bridge* on the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka.
Most abandoned quarries are rather dull since they are usually little more than gaping wounds in the side of a mountain – the Tohoku Quarry though still featured a facility to process the stone material… and it was an original find!
About three years ago I did a Tohoku trip with my buddy *Hamish* – lots of countryside roads off the beaten tracks, often without StreetView support; a blessing in disguise, because the only way to check out locations was to actually go there and check out the locations in person. Of course there was a high failure rate, places were still in use or already demolished, but we were also able to explore some great original finds, including this mid-size quarry in the middle of nowhere. Places that are almost impossible to find and only to be explored by the most dedicated urbexers, which is probably one of the reasons why I still haven’t seen this location anywhere else, neither on blogs nor on social media.
The Tohoku Quarry was a beautiful exploration, but not a very eventful one – we drove up to the place and there were no fences or security, just a rope to prevent vehicles from entering (and dumping large amounts of trash, which is a real problem in the Japanese countryside!). The power supply equipment was protected by a large metal cage, nearby were a couple of huts used for storage and as an office / large break room. A large stone processing plant that was able to load trucks was built into the slope; the quarry itself was at the upper end, of course. It was a beautiful sunny autumn day, and we were exploring mostly outdoors, out of sight and out of sound of civilization – exactly my kind of location. Nothing to worry about, just exploring a naturally decaying industrial site. The place kind of reminded me of the *Takarazuka Macadam Industrial Plant* from almost 10 years ago – a classic site that is not accessible anymore, unfortunately.
About a year ago I saw a suspicious looking building on GoogleMaps. A few weeks later I had the opportunity to check it out – and it was abandoned indeed. Not only that! It was a place I’ve never seen anywhere before (or since!) and it turned out to be a deserted senior citizen home, which are quite rare in this country due to Japan’s aging population.
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll (hopefully) never get tired saying it again: There is nothing like spotting a strange building online, confirming in person that it’s abandoned, finding a way in, and exploring it! As fun and comparatively easy as it is to go and see established locations, it’s this true and pure form of exploration that gets me really excited – when I do it myself, but also when it’s documented by others. Sure, *Kejonuma Leisure Land* for example is a fantastic abandoned theme park, but do I really want to see the same shots for the 123456th time on *Facebook* or *Twitter*? No! Show me new places! Show me that you are an explorer, not somebody who can use a search engine – or even worse, who asked somebody for coordinates! Of course it’s impossible to be always first, or even among the first 10, 20, 30 people to explore a location – but Japan is a large country with tons of abandoned places, so everybody with at least a little bit of exploration experience should be able to come up with an original find every once in a while, or at least a somewhat rare place that makes me want to see more instead of thinking “Oh, XYZ again, next please!”…
The Countryside Retirement Home was a rather tough nut to crack. It was a somewhat random find that could have been almost anything, with quite a few active buildings nearby, which made approaching it even harder. From the outside the small complex actually looked still pretty good, only the rather unkept driveway and surrounding greenery were good indications that the building wasn’t used anymore. Unfortunately most of the doors were locked and it was literally the last one that allowed access – and the first thing I saw upon entering was a security camera pointed at me. Daaaaaaamn! Really? After all that sneaking around and rattling at doors I had to look at a friggin security camera? Well, after the first shock was gone I quickly started to smile – not because that’s what you do when caught on camera, but because I realized it wasn’t plugged in. The rest was a surprisingly relaxed exploration of an unknown building that turned out to be an abandoned senior citizens’ home – most likely not a care home though. The rooms looked more or less like regular mini-apartments, the elevators were regular sized and definitely not able to transport nursing beds. The highlight of the building was the breakfast / lunch / dining area with a small library / TV / board game section on the upper floor. While the upper floors were still in surprisingly good condition, it was hard to breathe on the ground floor as it was unbearably moldy, especially in the humid late summer heat. (Whoever broke into the building also emptied a fire extinguisher or two though – friggin’ vandals, boon and bane…)
Overall the Countryside Retirement Home was a great exploration and an overall fantastic experience; an original find, explored with only one friend (who actually deserves credit for finding the unlocked door – or as he put it: “You find places, I get us in!”). While the photo set might not be the most spectacular one, it was still an exciting location, because there are not many opportunities in Japan to explore abandoned senior citizens’ homes…
Doing urban exploration in the Democratic Republic of Korea is almost impossible – both in the sense of exploring urban spaces as well as documenting deserted places. When in North Korea your hosts keep you busy, and with about 2.5 to 3 tourists per guide there is always somebody having an eye on. Thanks to hard work and a little bit of luck I was able to do both though… kind of.
The more common meaning of exploring and documenting abandoned places is what this article is about. In a poor country pretty much abandoned by the world you have plenty of potentially abandoned places and especially vehicles, like boats and trains. But like everywhere in the world it’s a grey area, and like I’ve said, opportunities are rare… and risky. But more than anything else your mind is busy with not getting yourself and the group into trouble, so the stories and photos of this little piece are a lucky byproduct of my two trips and not the result of strategic planning.
The first location I’ll be talking about is a construction ruin (38.997410, 125.750262) right between two of the most famous places for non-Korean tourist, the *Yanggakdo Hotel* and the Pyongyang International Cinema Hall, home of the Pyongyang International Film Festival. At the time of my visit back in 2013 the place was actually still under construction, at least the heavy machine implied that, so I didn’t pay much attention to what looked like just another hotel – as a result it appears only on two of my photos by chance. You don’t want to get caught by yourself on an active construction site in Japan, let alone in North Korea… The next couple of photos are of the Seungri Chemical Complex Refinery (승리화학연합기업소; 42.313073, 130.351401), an oil refinery, as you probably guessed correctly when reading the name. I don’t know much about the facility and I had to take the pictures while on a bumpy bus ride, but there are two things worth mentioning: First of all, nothing in North Korea is really abandoned, especially not a large industrial complex like that! (*And let’s not forget about the Komusan Concrete Factory*, built in 1936 during the Japanese occupation and still the biggest concrete factory in the country!) At best things look abandoned, at worst they are really not used anymore. Like the Seungri Refinery, which was definitely closed in 2013 and apparently didn’t open again, despite the fact that back then they had so much hope for the special economic zone Rason… So as soon as the regime vanishes or allows free travel in North Korea, this should be one of the first locations to visit for urban explorers, because even from a distance it looked spectacular in a post-apocalyptic way. Which brings us to the third and last location, the smallest one, but one with a few close-ups thanks to some of my co-travelers. At our last evening of the trip we were taken to the Emperor Hotel, the DPRK’s only five star hotel with a huge casino. I was bored quickly and headed outside with permission from Mr. Kim, one of the guardguides, but soon was tracked down by Mr. Pak a.k.a. Robocop. *A few minutes later the rest of the group showed up and we headed down to the beach to enjoy the nice sunset – when all of a sudden and without talking to anybody two or three of my fellow travelers bolted down the beach along Changjin Bay towards Pipha Island.* Much to the confusion of all the guideguards, as you can imagine! Two decided to chase after them, one stayed behind – fortunately distracted by the events and the rest of the group, so I snuck away a few dozen meters to take some quick photos of the more or less truly abandoned hotel playground (42.300880, 130.390566), now outside the hotel fence. By no means spectacular photos, but probably the closest to real urban exploration anybody has ever done in North Korea… *If you like to find out more about my two trips to North Korea please click here!*
A lot of (Japanese) people stay away from abandoned places, because they believe in all kinds of supernatural beings – which I appreciate, because that means fewer folks trampling through. Personally I don’t believe in ghosts (anymore). The one in the library scared the living daylights out of me and for a while I was worried that Slimer would burst through a wall, but in my defense: I was seven years old when I watched Ghostbusters with some older friends of mine in the cinema, and the movie was rated FSK 12, meaning “12 years or older” – so I guess I have an excuse or at least an explanation why I was scared… 🙂
The Poltergeist Hotel is probably one of the saddest and quickest hotel explorations I’ve ever done – because I had to catch a bus, because it was mostly collapsed, because I was alone, because it was hot and humid, because I actually heard strange noises, both technical and animal. The access road was surprisingly tightly secured and rumors of “machine security” (cameras / motion detectors) didn’t instill confidence in me, especially since I was exploring solo that day. But I had a working camera, an abandoned place and about 20 minutes on location – so I was not going to waste that opportunity, as small as it was. Especially since the main party room was featuring a legendary chandelier.
After I found a way to get past the gate I found both the parking lot as the hotel itself in dreadful condition. The building with all the rooms was basically collapsed, even the entrance with the reception was barely standing – so the reception hall was kind of the only structure left that one could enter without risking to break an ankle or worse. A few quick shots outside and of the front desk – and off I went into the party building, in the 1980s and 90s used for weddings, funerals, reunions and other more or less joyful celebrations. My goal: A chandelier in the main hall. Why? Because it featured about a dozen chairs somebody or something somehow attached to it. Vandals and urbexers can be weird… Unfortunately the lighting situation was a bit iffy since the large window front was boarded up, but seconds after I entered the room I heard some kind of beeping and static noises, like from a walkie-talkie. The heck?! Other explorers? Because why on earth would a rundown piece of something like this have real security? Slightly unnerved I took a few shots as well as I could under the given circumstances, when I heard noises that sounded like a dog growling… Seriously? All in my mind? Other explorers with a dog? Security with a dog? What was I even doing in this hellhole? I could have sipped on a nice juice in an air-conditioned café instead, but nooooooooooooo – nosy me had to had a look at that abandoned, mostly collapsed hotel in the middle of summer… So I quickened my pace and took some snapshots of the stuffed animals on the way out. Abandoned taxidermy animal always make for unusual photos, especially when they look like they want to kiss you with their sewn-up mouths…
As much as I hate doing things to cross them off a list and as miserable as the circumstances were – I probably shouldn’t complain too much as I got exactly what I wanted, a somewhat decent photo of that increasingly popular chandelier. Everything else I consider a bonus, so in the end I don’t even mind that the set in total is rather small or that the exploration was rushed. Actually not bad for 20 minutes on location. At some places it took me longer to figure out how to get in…
The Ruins of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 / 2021… will come soon, no doubt about it. Unless they cancel the event on very, very short notice. But for now we’ll deal with The Ruins of the Nagano Olympics 1998 – of which there are surprisingly few as most venues are still in use. The first abandoned place connected to the Nagano Olympics that I am aware of is an abandoned hotel, used to accommodate the curling teams as their event was held at the Kazakoshi Park Arena in Karuizawa; about 80 kilometers southwest of Nagano and the first town to host events for both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics as the Tokyo Olympics 1964 outsourced the equestrian events to the popular resort area. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of that fact back then, to me it was just a random abandoned hotel with high security (warning signs for both camera and personnel everywhere!). If I would have known I’d probably have pushed harder to get some better photos, especially since one side of the hotel apparently featured the Olympic Rings. And abandoned Olympic Rings always make for a good photo! Unfortunately I was inexperienced, exploring solo and running out of time… so I guess we’ll all have to live with the results. Still better than the original plan of heading back to the train station directly without making the little detour. 🙂
The other abandoned place connected to the Nagano Olympics was a rather small public gymnasium – apparently there were no events there, but it was rather close to two actual venues, so it was most likely used for athletes to exercise and warm up before their competitions. This location I found by chance when I was strolling around town. “Oh, an abandoned looking strange building, let me have a closer look!” The front was closed tightly, but like every good man I appreciate a nice back, so I sniffed around a little bit. One locked door and a couple of blocked ones by large, heavy pieces of furniture to the left – but on the right side I spotted some kind of side entrance. A bit nervous due to some cars coming and leaving at the lot in front of the building I tried to make my way to the most likely locked door across some elevated gravel area when all of a sudden my right leg sank into the ground almost up to my knee. The area I was passing wasn’t solid gravel – it was a pile of melting snow somebody put a thin layer of gravel on top, (almost?) like a friggin trap! As I suffered extremely painful ankle and knee injuries in the past and since there was no guarantee that the side door would allow entrance to the otherwise locked building, I called it a day and was about to leave when I saw a large sign next to some stairs. It featured the Nagano 1998 logo, including the Olympic Rings – not as good as on the building directly, but better than nothing…
A beautiful pre-war mansion or a large countryside hospital with its own operating room? Well, you deserve both, so here you get both!
About 10 years ago the Nagano Countryside Clinic was THE abandoned hospital in Japan! It was not as secret as *The Doctor’s Shack*, not as far from Tokyo as *The Tokushima Countryside Clinic* and long abandoned before the *Wakayama Hospital*, all of which are urbex classics in Japan now, too – and yet it featured not only the usual array of bottled chemicals and pre-war medicine books you typically find in countryside doctors’ offices, it also had some early versions of modern equipment, though I wouldn’t be able to tell you what was which as I am not in the medical profession myself; but it looked cool, kinda steampunk-ish, stuff I’d actually use as decoration pieces if I’d had the space or the money for them. Which brings me to a topic that is more and more annoying to me the bigger my social media channels on *Facebook* and *Twitter* grow (please follow for time-exclusive brand-new material – and don’t forget: sharing is caring!) as it’s not just fellow explorers following each other anymore, but more and more people who don’t really know what urbex is about… or happily ignore what it stands for. They just enjoy the photos and sometimes have a completely different set of values, which is perfectly fine… unless they start to rant about how they would totally take home this and that – or even worse: ask me if I took it and whether I’d sell it to them. Which to me is borderline insulting. “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints!”, a motto widely respected amongst explorers worldwide, but especially in Japan; unfortunately less and less apparently, as the number of people trampling through abandoned places with smartphones seems to be on the rise everywhere. Anyway, I am always grateful when the people exploring before me didn’t loot or vandalize, so of course I try to keep everything as I found it – I don’t even like to move things around or to snoop through drawers and boxes. “But when a place is abandoned nobody owns those things anymore and they are just going to waste, so you / I can as well take it!” Uhm, no! Just because a place is rundown and easily accessible doesn’t mean that there is no owner anymore. In Japan the vast majority of abandoned places are actually abandoned, but especially in Europe and the States a ton of “abandoned” places have alarms or even security, so the whole urbex thing is a huge grey area with different legal implications, as I’ve mentioned before – but removing things from a place, especially with the intention to enrich yourself, is a completely different level, both legally and morally! AFAIK in Japan for example even taking bulky waste from the sidewalk is considered theft! If you find money or items with a value of more than 10 euros in Germany you have to try and find the owner (usually by bringing it to the nearest police station) or you are guilty of stealing by finding – and in that case no owner is in sight either. So again, just because there is no apparent owner doesn’t mean that you can take whatever you want! Unfortunately I’m probably preaching to the choir as people interested enough in urbex to read a blog already know and respect that – it’s usually casuals on social media that annoy and sometimes really scare me as I run this blog to entertain people, not to reveal locations or guide looters to new treasures. Why this rant about stealing now? Because Nagano Countryside Clinic was loaded with potentially valuable items! (I don’t even know for sure, I don’t watch shows like Antiques Roadshow.) Everything from old medical books, medical equipment, and medical devices to private items like letters, furniture and gramophone records. The Historical Village of Hokkaido in Sapporo has a fully restored countryside clinic as one of their exhibition houses, the Kondo Clinic – and the Nagano Countryside Clinic was kind of a rundown version of that hospital. So when you look at the gallery below you’ll see a ton of pre-war items, of which I took none. Not even one of those large, heavy shellac records. Because I’m not a looter and because I wanted to give the explorers following me the same opportunity to enjoy the sight of this extraordinary location in as much of its glory as possible. And before the people out there with questionable morals start to drool too much, let me give you a quick rundown of the Nagano Countryside Clinic: It was opened in 1910, its owner apparently studied in Berlin and perhaps Freiburg (according to letters on a table), and it was closed around 1980. In the early 2010s it was a popular abandoned place with many names – and rumors of imminent demolition started to spread soon after. In 2014 my buddy *Hamish* and I were in the area due to other locations, so we had a quick look. Much to our surprise the clinic was still standing and accessible, resulting in a 1.5 hour long exploration until it was too dark inside to take photos – and the use of flashlights was too risky as it would have probably alarmed neighbors or people passing by. So we came back the next day, an hour earlier this time, for another go at it; 2.5 hours this time. (Hence some similar photos, but also pictures of the operating room in darkness and well-lit.) After some more years of waiting, construction workers finally showed up at the Nagano Countryside Clinic in 2018 – not demolish, but to renovate / restore the building, probably cleaning it out first. So obviously there still was an owner, proving all those questionable characters wrong who are trying to convince me that looting “abandoned” buildings is a victimless crime. Stop drooling, it’s over – one way or another. Unfortunately this also means that everybody else had to wait a few years longer than necessary for this article. And now just imagine what other locations are waiting in my vault when I had the patience to wait seven years for this spectacular place to be released… 🙂
A large outdoor theatre with a spectacular design and plenty of interesting things to discover – welcome to the Cypress Open-Air Stage…
The show must go on! When Covid-19 hit in early 2020 I followed the instructions of the local government and my employer and hunkered down for a couple of months. The first wave was over quickly in Japan and things went back to more or less normal rather soon after – and thanks to an adventurous friend I was able to get in a final day of explorations towards the end of the rainy season and before the summer heat killed any ambitions to leave the hamster cage I call home. Highlight of the day was an open-air theater in the countryside, because… you know… the show had to go on. Built in 1996 by a local businessman who sold his ranch to become a golf course owner, the open-stage was protected by four layers of arches, constructed from Japanese cypress and tin. The guy passed away around 2005 and the stage, once used for children’s events and indie bands, became abandoned – one of the most common “Why is it abandoned?” stories. Usually either the owner died or the place didn’t make enough money… or both.
Exploring during rainy season is risky in that regard that there is a rather high chance of rain – which we were hit by several times that day. Upon arrival at the stage the weather was overcast and super humid, making it quite uncomfortable to walk around and take photos. At least it was before mosquito season, so the exploration was still bearable, despite the difficult lighting situation. The stage was in surprisingly good condition, considering that it had been abandoned about 1.5 decades prior to our visit. The tin roof though definitely had seen better days, especially the highest part of the largest arch, but there was surprisingly little vandalism; probably because the stage is still managed according to explorer consensus, fortunately nobody approached us while we were exploring. The separate restroom building had its own cypress-tin arch, which was kinda cute. Opposite the stage was an elevated building with some storage space to the left. Unfortunately the only way up and in was a rotting tree trunk, definitely not an option for me. The more I was surprised by the large stone lantern at the entrance. At first sight it look just like a nice stone lantern, but upon closer look I found out that the inside of the open part actually had some interesting artistic elements too high up to see for most Japanese explorers. Five minutes earlier being big and tall prevented me from reaching a place, now it enabled me. And just before that the more or less bright white sky broke up a little bit and showed some of the spectacular blue I was so longing for…
Overall another great exploration – the conditions were far from perfect, nevertheless I’m quite happy with it thanks to the stone lantern and the late blue sky; and the unusual construction of the cypress-tin roof makes this abandoned open-air stage a winner at any time of the day.
Half a dozen water slides, several pools and a couple of buildings made the abandoned Tohoku Water Park quite photogenic – and a wonderful exploration overall!
Rainy season started three weeks earlier this year in Japan, so summer already is full swing in parts of the country, making life a living hell, unless you are a real masochist and enjoy hot humid weather. And while your body already screams “Make it stop. Good Lord, make it goddamn stop!” your brain knows very well that it will get worse for at least two more months before it will only slowly be getting better. Four months of hell, that’s Japanese summers in most parts of the country for you – and for the second year in a row there is no way to GTFO and relax with family, friends, and homemade cooking / baking thanks to you know what. One of the few things making this s#!tshow bearable for some people are water parks – of which Japan has surprisingly many. One of the biggest abandoned outdoor water parks is off the beaten tracks in a tiny town in Tohoku, quite a pain to get to from Osucka. Fortunately I had the chance to explore that wonderful location on a trip up north three years ago. At the time the place was only semi-famous and GoogleMaps was rather blurry in that area, so I had to progress carefully, especially since I was flying solo. Exploring without a co-pilot is always more dangerous and more nerve-wrecking, so I probably wasn’t as excited initially as I should have been – first I had to make sure the place was really abandoned and not secured, then I could relax and enjoy the pools and slides; well, not myself, but by taking photos of them. Built in the late 1970s, the Tohoku Water Park was one of the largest of its kind in Japan – which is a bit mind-boggling, considering the fact that Tohoku isn’t exactly known for its cruel, cruel summers, but instead is mostly covered in snow for half of the year. It was closed in 2010 and is currently owned by the local prefecture, which is kind of bad news, as state owned “abandoned” places tend to be most secured ones. They happily keep the lights (and alarms) on by paying the electricity bill and the police tends to show up more often than average, because, well, they are on the clock anyway, so they can as well have a look around and get some fresh air. Fortunately there were no alarms (at least I didn’t trigger any…) and I was also spared a run-in with our friends and helpers, so while I was enjoying the exploration more and more I realized that I was quickly running out of time. Two hours was my previously set time limit and I was able to stretch that a little bit by walking back to my mode of transportation a little bit faster. Unfortunately the weather decided to be a bit hazy, causing dazzlingly white skies instead of the clear blue or dramatic cloudy ones I much more prefer. But hey, weather… nothing you can do about it – except for bitching about it in an attempt to make you feel better!
So… The abandoned Tohoku Water Park… A nice one! Large, remote, outdoors, theme parkish – this place ticked plenty of boxes! Another hour so would have been nice, but sometimes you gotta work with what you’ve got. Especially the large twin slide gave the *Hot Spring Water Park* and the *water park at Nara Dreamland* a tough fight for the #3 spot – but I’ve already shot two other abandoned outdoor water parks that I’ve liked even better; and I can’t wait to get them published, too!
Abandoned Kansai 