Ruins of Tama Lake 4. Black and White
The Ruins on Tama Lake changed little since the last time I came to visit. Perhaps the wooden huts of the Red Blossom restaurant have canted a little further towards collapse, and the walls of the Akasaka love hotel were holed and splintered a little more. A new fence has gone up, with warnings of CCTV cameras watching 24/7. Wires dangle from the mock cameras, now only effective as scarecrows to the masses.
Red Blossom huts slide down the hillside in slow motion.
Hotel Queen Haikyo
The Hotel Queen is another abandoned love hotel on the banks of Lake Tama. I first saw it the first time I went out there to shoot the Akasaka and the Red Blossom about 2 years ago. At the time it looked semi-abandoned, with a chain roping it off. I tentatively strode over the chain only to be blasted by a motion sensor alarm. I froze like a deer in the headlights, saw a nearby open door, shoes on the ground beside it, and decided not to push my luck any further. I cycled off, heading for the real meat.
Little dude models for us in the complex office.
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.
The ruin of Japan’s premier water brothel – The Queen Chateau
It was my second time to visit the ruins of the Queen Chateau. It’s a bizarre abandonment, a giant soapland in the midst of a cluster of still-functioning soaplands presiding over them like the towering castle in the suburbs in Edward Scissorhands. Within its walls sex was transacted for money on a grand scale, on 6 floors of executive suites, four per floor, each kitted out with a large bath, private bar and a bed.
3 Venuses in the lobby, behind the fountain
Akeno Gekijo Strip Club Haikyo, Ibaraki
The Akeno Gekijo haikyo is something of an oddity in Japan, as the only actual strip club I’ve seen here. Of course there are similar venues; hostess bars, soaplands, love hotels, but they each cater to a slightly different crowd and provide a slightly different flavor of tawdry service. To find a straight-up strip club complete with central podium, viewing seats, and dancing poles seems a feat beyond expectation. But there it is, on a small back-road in a quiet rural area surrounded by bamboo, half-burnt to the ground and buzzing with mosquitoes.
Terrifying tales of the Yui love hotel
The Yui Grand Love Hotel is an abandonment with a more sordid past than usual, if urban legend is to be believed. According to the story, a gang of bosozoku riders (noisy yakuza-ish motorcyclists) kidnapped a schoolgirl into one of its rooms, where they abused and killed her. I’ve no idea if that is true, but stories of her haunting of the place are apparently so rife that people actually queue up outside at night to go into the room where she died, to hear her ghostly wails. All in very poor taste, and again I’ve no idea if there’s any truth to it, it sounds like the kind of thing another haikyo writer might invent to jazz up an otherwise fairly normal location.
Recent Comments
- Cool list Michael. I really like the bac...
- Michael Luwish
on Ruin of a Japanese WWII Shipyard
Extraordinary photos. Thank you. - Michael LuwishWell, I'm impressed. I came for the ruin...
- Michael Luwish"Ender" is a great example, Le Guin's "E...
- I would assume COMM was communications b...
- HURRY and get to the climax of publicati...
- Thanks John, I`m so glad you liked the p...
- What an amazing landmark, so full of his...
- Love the photos, especially the defunct ...
- Thanks Myrhh! There was a bunch of furni...
Certification
Friends
- Mike's Blender
- Scott's GenFab
- Jason's Photos
- Alice Grist's Blog
- Tony Grist's Blog
- Su Young Lee
Haikyo / Ruins / Adventure
Advertising
