Japan’s abandoned Jungle theme park #2 inside

Mike Grist Haikyo, Izu, Theme Parks 22 Comments

Jungle Park was easily the biggest green-house I’ve ever been in, and boy was it hot inside. H-O-T. And very humid. Within minutes I was soaked to the skin, and any time I had to climb something I was panting with the exertion. You can probably see that on the video a few times.

Wandering through its long tail-like corridor to the main jungle hub, I of course wondered where all the humidity was coming from. It’s sealed off from the outside, and has been closed for 7 years. Why isn’t everything inside baked and dead?

Giant’s greenhouse.

I guess there are two possible answers to that.

One- A security maintenance guy comes around and sprays everything/turns on the sprinklers once in a while.

Two- The place survives on what water it has already. I saw plenty of dead plants- they gave up their water to transpiration, it condensed on the glass sky, and fell as rain. In that way the place is slowly cannibalizing itself. It was odd though to see the poor shape the cactuses were in. I would expect them to be the hardiest- instead they were the ones most dead.

Perhaps I should talk a bit more about how huge it was. It was really huge.

The foyer.

You could buy Jungle Soft Cream and Cactus Smoothies at this snack shack.

Very big. Could probably fit a three-story building inside.

Lots of these jungle-themed photo opp. boards.

Partition between sections.

Map board with the map knocked out.

Primitive village.

Lots of brochures in these racks.

Enjoy a caffe latte and watch the forest sway.

Watch out for Predators.

Plant pots.

Dried up fruit. Pomegranite?

Dying cacti.

Beneath a glass and girder sky.

Reminds me of the hair of the Rockabilly dancers.

Totem pole graveyard.

Anatomically correct.

Photo opp.

Reach for the sky.

Hungry hippo.

Fallen timber.

Petally roofing.

Petals fall.

Quiff in the canopy.

Pretty little thing.

3 jugs who look a little like Daruma.

Cannibal opp.

See a curation of world ruins in the ruins gallery.

See my collection of Japanese ruins (haikyo) in the galleries:

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Comments 22

  1. Nice place! It looks like it’s still in a rather good condition (in haikyo terms). Perhaps it’ll be worth an explore when this exhausting summer heat dies down :).

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      For sure a nice place- I heard since (from a fellow explorer who nearly got caught) that there is still a staff of maintenance people coming around and watering everything.

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  2. Not too much of a mystery really, those large trees and plants easily have roots that extend beyond the borders of the greenhouse allowing them to soak up ground water.

    Didn’t climb up any of the trees or buildings inside?

    Not sure what happened at the end of the video . . .

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      Do trees have roots up to 30 plus meters long? If so, what you`re saying could be right. The alternate explanation- provided by another explorer who went the week after me- is that there are watering crews who go around and water the interior.

      There wasn`t a lot to climb actually, and since everything was so sticky and dirty, I didn`t make the effort.

      That guy at the end was fleeing from blood-sucking monsters!

  3. I think I can identify a plant or two. The one with a caption “Pretty little thing” is called “Lantana”. The “Petally roofing” can be a bougainvillea.

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      Impressive, thanks very much Lunedi. I remember reading bougainvillea on the park map, so am sure that`s right. Perhaps you`ll be able to answer the point raised by Jason above- how long roots can tress/tropical plants have- long enough to reach outside the dome?

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  4. it’s amazing how huge Japan is but if you rarely leave the cities, you really forget. maybe the cacti got moldy, they don’t really like rain or whatever was going on in this insane place.

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      Thanks for the input Krid- though that seems a bit odd, as surely the greenhouse designers would have known that when they installed them in the first place? The place was surely designed to be hot and humid. Knowing that, why would they have put cacti in there at all?

      1. They do just fine if tended to by someone who knows how to look after cacti. I’m assuming the maintenance crews do a half assed job/don’t really know how to care for cacti.

        From the appearance of the cacti in your photos, it looks like they are suffering from a fungal disease, common when cacti are exposed to too much moisture and little care. A shame, really =(

        All in all, these cacti would have done just fine, if looked after. I’ve grown cacti all of my life (weird choice, I know. I’m not exactly the most normal person :p), and have found out the hard way that they seem to like a lot of care. Strange for a plant that is so hardy in the wild.

  5. This place is unbelievable! The pictures are excellent and capture the atmosphere and size of the place well. I can only imagine the humidity you had to endure inside, as well as the bugs and stuff. I haven’t been able to do much exploring during the day since most of the ruins near where I live are patrolled, so it’s an absolute pleasure seeing places like this in full light and color. Great job and thanks for giving me another glimpse into these long forgotten places. +5 internets to you sir

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      Thanks George- its great you got something out of this post. As for humidity, yup, I was drenched, but I don’t really remember there being any bugs. +5 internets-, thank you kindly! Now where can I cash that in…? 😉

  6. This looks amazing! Thank you so much for documenting your exploring, you’ve got the best website I’ve seen. I love your pictures and stories so much! I wish very much I was old enough to go explore this place. Amazing how large something indoor like this could be soo big. Very brave of you! Wish it was still open though, looks like an extremely interesting place, even open.

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      Thanks so much Kasey, that means a lot especially with all the other haikyo websites there are out there now. Again- the biggest ‘bravery’ here was just getting in- after that it was just good fun. Though some people did get caught- though all that happened was they were kicked out.

  7. I have a curious fascination with abandoned theme-parks spawned from working as a scenic artist for in the past for two (open ones) and do wonder if one day if people will be exploring and see my work like this. I find it sad, but extremely beautiful at the same time.

    With this one I wonder if there’s enough water evaporating off the lake to keep some of the plants alive. If I was there I probably would have attempted to water some of it but I’d presume the waters been cut off long ago.

    I have to say stumbling upon your website, it has to be the best one I’ve found so far and the videos are great for people like me who live to far away to see them in person, though I’d love to see at least one one-day. Its really well presented as well and that you’ve steadied your video camera I don’t know if its just on walls or on a tripod but its nice not to see shaky film.

    Sorry if that’s a bit long but you’ve obviously put a lot of work into this site and it deserves it.

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