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Ruin of a century-old Japanese prison

Kyu Nagasaki Prison was built in 1907, one of five `ultra-modern` Meiji-era prisons built throughout Japan. Its Victorian design is attributable to a research mission to study European prisons conducted by the Meiji government. Within its five meter-high red brick wall, a five-pointed prison block held up to 800 high-security prisoners. The prison went out of use in 1992, becoming  a haikyo. 15 years later the wall and most of the interior complex were demolished after complaints from the growing number of housing developments being built in the surrounding area. Now only the abandoned front gate and gatehouse remain.

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10 Abandoned Chairs

The haikyoist must be prepared to sit in any chair at any time, due to the extreme fatigue caused by walking around a bit. Walking around a bit though is not the only trial haikyoists must undergo, there are also such tribulations as- having to step over a bit of wire or maybe do a bit of climbing, having to repeatedly make comments like- `dude I`m so creeped out right now`, and having to keep a third eye peeled for ghosts, all of which can be pretty draining. The skill of sitting in just about any chair to recoup lost HP is a necessity.

Here’s a range of 10 ruined chairs from around Japan.

Shin Shu Kanko hotel lobby

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Outdoor Japan Haikyo Article

The magazine Outdoor Japan is currently running an article introducing haikyo to their readers, written by me. It’s titled ‘Forgotten Places’, and is the first of what should be a series of articles covering various ruins around Japan, focusing on the adventurous side of exploring them.

Outdoor Japan is a bimonthly bilingual magazine for anyone interested in outdoor sports, events, and activities in Japan. They usually cover things like mountaineering, skiiing, snowboarding, hiking, and so on. Haikyo is a first for them- so we’re all quite excited to see what kind of reception it’ll get.

At the moment I don’t have any extra copies of this edition of OJ, but when I do I’ll offer a few as prizes in haikyo-related competitions. In the meantime, you can subscribe to OJ from their website or buy it at one of these locations around Japan. You’ll also be able to see my article online in March when it moves from the print to the online edition.

Hello to William Gibson

William Gibson stopped by this website about 9 hours ago and retweeted my Sex Industry in Ruins article. That is awesome. On Twitter he goes by GreatDismal.

GreatDismal RT : Love shacks: Japanese love hotels in ruins http://bit.ly/8pK10A

I`ve read a number of Gibson`s books and always been impressed. Of course I`ve read Neuromancer, also Pattern Recognition and The Difference Engine. Excellent stuff. I suppose he is very interested in all things Japanese, which perhaps help explain what brought him to my site.

Top 5 Ruins of the Japanese Sex Industry

I’ll be doing a series of haikyo articles on the website Atlas Obscura over the next few weeks/months. We`ll start with 5 ruins from the Japanese sex industry, and move on to other topics like ghost towns. At the same time as he’s putting them up on the Atlas- I’ll be putting them up here.

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First lesson with Alfie

So today I had my first lesson with Alfie Goodrich, a pro photographer based in Tokyo. It was my first time to use the new SB-600 flash I bought for my camera, and first time to go off camera. It was pretty awesome, and I`m psyched about future possibilities, especially for haikyo, and shooting people in haikyo. We`ll see.

Here`s one shot we came up with. We had no model so I just shot Alfie.

Without a flash this shot is basically impossible- it`s too dark. In haikyo I`ve been using HDR so far, but am confident better results can be had using flash- certainly when it comes to shooting models.

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