Gunkanjima Opens
Gunkanjima opens to the public! The famed ‘Battleship Island’, properly Hashima island- formerly a haikyo Holy Grail, has now been opened to tourists to ‘explore’ along a specially built walkway. The cost of the trip is 4,000yen, including the ferry ride out to the dilapidated island. Tourists have up to one hour (weather permitting) to wander the walkway before they have to re-board the ferry and leave.
This is great in some ways- the island will be preserved, vandals will be stopped from gaining access as security will be doubtless beefed up. But for the same reason, any proper exploration of the island will now be virtually impossible. It’s a live site again.
UER has a ton of photos and text about this place- including many more photos by Kuroneko, amongst others. The following text by
‘As days passed on the island, my impression of it began to change greatly. The innumerable articles left behind, all shrouded in dust, rusted,to me at first seemed merely drifting toward death. Yet, from one point in time, they started to look vivid, and beautiful. I thought perhaps the island, while appearing to fall deep asleep, had gradually commenced to awaken, the day it was deserted.’
Video from Dotokou, a man who grew up on the island, and revisits before it was opened to the public. Haunting. English subtitles.
Brian Burke-Gaffney writes a great article on Gunkanjima.
The Gunkanjima ferry info can be accessed from this site.
Thanks to Miki for tipping me off on this.
The underground vault the cult forgot
The underground vault haikyo in Yamanashi is one of the strangest abandoned structures I’ve yet explored. A double-doored double-walled walk-in safe with triple combination locks buried in a man-made mound in an unpopulated and obscure part of the Japanese countryside. Now its thick and weighty doors hang open and loose, and there’s nothing in the vault but for 5 odd logo/symbols on the wall, and no other clue as to its purpose but for the dedication in kanji on top of the dome- ‘in memory of our ancestors’.
Storm Watcher
The storm-post was made of crumbling old red brick. Ragged weeds grew up its chipped and tattered sides, through its paving stones and round the observation platform binoculars on its roof. The grindstone railings that once prevented tourists from falling over the edge had collapsed inwards in a landslide a long time ago.
Its windows were all broken or cracked. At night the long low mountain winds rushed cold down its halls draped with autumnal leaves, crinkling in the dry air. Stockrooms filled with ancient paraphernalia all had a low white carpet of snow.
Once it had been a place filled with people, tourists come to see the volcano spume and smoke, then the storms came, the avalanches began, and the people left.
There were still cars in the parking lot, their black tires faded and deflated, their metal rusting slowly under the weight of time and ice. It was a dead place. A place of cold, and wind, and long-forgotten memories.
And the Storm-watcher.
His name had once mattered to him. He had had a job once, and a life and a family, somewhere in the world. He once drove a car and cashed checks, spent his money on groceries and spent evenings watching movies with his children.
Now he walked the battered storm-post, once a museum, and watched the skies over the volcano top for signs of the coming storm.
Image from here.
Gulliver lay down to die in the shadow of Mt. Fuji
Gulliver once rested in the shadow of Mt.Fuji, bound and nailed to the ground by the hair. His giant body was the main attraction of the now defunct and dismembered Gulliver’s Kingdom Theme Park in Yamanashi, built in 1997, closed in 2001 due to defaulting bank loans, and demolished around 2007. Perhaps a contributing factor to its ultimate failure was the proximity of Kamikuishiki- a small village that was the main base for the cult Aum Shinrikyo at the time of their deadly 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Tourists on a day-trip with the kids to a theme-park would have been likely to steer clear. Now every reminder of the place is gone, the village has been rezoned, and the name Kamikuishiki removed from all maps.
Tuesday’s Links
Urban Explorer Rankings- Hilarious list of the XP ‘levelling’ structure of urban explorers, including pre-requisities and special skills conferred.
Level 3 (of 9) Pre-requisities:
1 x hallway photo, open doors optional
1 x apology thread, when called out for graffiti painted earlier in exploration career
1 x evidence of partaking in a media article/show where you have defined urban exploration
1 x evidence of thinking you are a ninja
Level 3 (of 9) Skills Conferred
Forum Owner: One gains the ability to start their own forum to further their position in
in the community.
Nudity: Explorer is now able to (poorly) augment their photos with nude models (fetish
type images not included).
Gimmicks (adv): Explorer gains the ability to utilise various novelty cameras - holgas, lomos
polaroids etc to boost their artistic credibility. Also, one develops immunity
to their egregious use of a fish-eye lens.
I think I’m between level 2 and 3. I started taking art photos of myself in haikyo, started my own forum, but haven’t yet defined urban exploring to anyone.
Hotel Royal Haikyo- Paul of Survivorship and Brian of Gaijinbash (who first found the Hotel Royal and tipped me off to it) go together to check out the Hotel Royal and find it much changed from the time of my visit.
My new Haikyo forum! - I don’t know if we’ll use it, but it’s there, as I found no other forum in Japan for non-J haikyoists.
Pearl Love Hotel Haikyo- Mike and I went together on this, I won’t post for a few weeks yet though so you can enjoy his first.
The death of Metabolism- the New Sky Biru
The New Sky Building in Shinjuku belongs to the stable of architecture known as Metabolism, a 1970′s movement in Japan to create utilitarian, utopian, bolt-on and off structures that can change and evolve as needed. It was a grand-sounding vision that never went mainstream, as Metabolist buildings were often a nightmare to construct and far too much effort to actually ‘transform’ by re-bolting. Another example is the Nakagin Capsule Hotel Tower in Shimbashi- slated for destruction.
Bolt-on modules up the left side.
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