What is haikyo? If I would be a first time visitor to Abandoned Kansai (or any other blog about urban exploration in Japan) this would be one of the most urgent questions I’d have. It’s always “haikyo” here and “haikyo” there, as if the term has a very special meaning that can’t be described or otherwise expressed in English – but that is actually not the case. It’s just the Japanese word for ruin (廃墟), obviously composed of 廃 (hai = useless, obsolete) and 墟 (kyo = hill) – used as a synonym for both urban exploration and abandoned places.
In addition to the general term haikyo are quite a few more specific ones:
廃校: haikou / haikō, literally “abandoned school“
廃寺: haiji, literally “abandoned temple“
廃線: haisen, literally “abandoned line“ – usually abandoned railway tracks
廃道: haidou / haidō, literally “abandoned road“
廃橋: haikyou / haikyō, literally “abandoned bridge“
Theoretically you can combine 廃 with tons of other kanji to be even more specific (廃病院 would be haibyōin, an abandoned hospital), but the ones listed above are the most common compound words.
That’s all, folks… Everything else is just pretentious BS by people who desperately want to set themselves apart.
You learn something new every day! Nice blog. 🙂
Then I actually achieved what I tried to accomplish – thanks! 🙂
Florian,
You’re right – “What is haikyo?” was the first, most urgent question I had when exploring your blog!
I have a buddy who’s about to complete his Undergrad in Asian Languages (Japanese & Korean) – I’ll forward your blog to him, I’m sure he’ll be excited!
Great Blog!
Traveling Thane Furrows
http://thanefurrows.wordpress.com/
Hey Ben,
I actually just recently added this page after talking to a fellow explorer – sometimes it takes a nerdy conversation to realize that one uses geeky terms…
Thanks for spreading the word, I hope your buddy will enjoy reading this blog!
Fascinating blog!
Thanks a lot!
Your obsession with ruins and abandoned places mirrors mine, though I have not been able to indulge as much as I’d like. When wandering through abandoned halls the ghosts of people come back to us. We have a tradition of selling old wooden homes and moving them to new locations. I once visited a park full of houses for sale, go into them and a duck on the bath, a surf board on the deck, the perfume of previous owners wafting out of a cupboard all speak volumes. I loved your Children’s TB Hospital blog. Cheers.
Thanks a lot! I still don’t fully understand how the whole urbex thing became that important to me… I remember hiking up an abandoned cable car track, next thing I know: I stand in a half-finished cooling tower north of Chernobyl – and that was just the beginning!
You’ve got a very sweet blog going on here. I love the pics…I too gravitate towards abandoned places. The juicier the back story, the better. Thanks!
Thanks a lot! I always try to find out as much as I can about the background story. And some of those stories are really juicy… 🙂
That’s very cool. The last place I went was a sanitarium here….very eerie.
I love the interior photo – what was this place?
That was an abandoned school in the Shikoku countryside. *The full article is here.*
Today the place must look quite different as it was renovated during my visit after being abandoned for decades.
Thanks, I checked your other photos of it – it was great that you managed to get there before the building was renovated.
My kind of blog. Love it. Keep on keepin on.
Great to hear! I already have enough material to update Abandoned Kansai every week for at least a year, most likely more – and I keep exploring whenever I have the opportunity.
Superb. Can’t wait to see the next posts. Best regards
Thanks – for now I hope I’ll be able to publish a new article at least once a week.
Thank you for visiting my blog (livingwithmyancestors.wordpress.com). I’m enjoying looking at all of your photos. I just learned something new — Haikyo! Keep up the interesting work! 🙂
Hey Linda,
I love your blog and I wish I would have old postcards of all the places I visit. Sometimes I find some, but usually they are on other blogs and I don’t like to “steal” their pictures…
I love learning this sort of stuff! Keep up the good blog
You keep reading it, I’ll keep writing it. 🙂
THX for the information