Exploring Japan’s Ruins / Haikyo

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Exploring ruins (haikyo) is the ultimate real-world Indiana Jones experience.

This is where the mystery is. In the doctor’s office the scalpels are laid out for surgery. Battered wooden apartments are still filled with the weathered remnants of their old occupants. Doors hang open, plates sit with long-rotten food, calendars are still marked for some future date, left as they were.

GH- Okinawa 1. Cactus Parks	GH- Okinawa 2. Rekio Hotel

From a ruins perspective Okinawa is not a goldmine of locations. The excess and extravagance of the construction from the bubble era looks like it never extended to Japan’s southern most prefecture.	The Rekio Hotel was built around the time of the Okinawa Ocean Expo. In that decade there was a boom in hotel construction, hoping to cater for the influx of tourists. Many people did come, but not enough to sustain the hotel’s business long-term.
GH- Okinawa 3. Grandest Ruin	Sun Park Hotel

Along with Sports World the Nakagusuku Kogen Hotel is one of only a handful of ruins in Japan on the scale of a small village. Such is its grand positioning on the hillside the hotel can be seen from literally miles away	Brian was riding in the mountains of Yamanashi, a couple hours from Tokyo, when he came across another rad random hotel haikyo. These are the ruins of the Sun Park Hotel.
One-Armed Ultraman	Apocalypse Bridge

Ultraman is a Japanese icon, guardian of Tokyo against all kinds of horrible invaders since 1966. His branding can be found everywhere, from plastic bento lunchboxes to bikes, cell-phone straps, and kids ride.	It’s fairly well known that Japan’s construction industry is running rampant. There are lots of statistics about how many more roads, airports, and dams Japan has than other developed nations.
Burned-Down House	Gutted Pachinko Hall

When I went on the wedding haikyo shoot a few weeks back we stumbled upon this burnt down house. Normally I’d bypass it in favor of the target- in this case we were looking for the Hume factory, but that turned out to be demolished.	It’s a generally unremarkable ruin, but it has its charm- especially the big diamond sign. I had fun challenging the others to find a way in to the 2nd floor.
SunLovePrice	Seika Dormitory

At the time of the Great Tohoku Earthquake in March I was teaching at a composer’s office 10 minutes west of Shinjuku- afterwards I walked home and bumped into this little haikyo on the way.	In 2007 the Seika Dormitory in central Tokyo went up in flames. The roof was burnt away and flames roared up the building?s old stairways and licked at rooms full of possessions.
Western Village #1. History	Western Village #2. John Wayne

Western Village is a quantum pocket of the Old West Disneyfied and transplanted wholesale from the American collective unconscious, replete with a $29 million replica Mount Rushmore, Western saloon, ghost house, jail, post office, shooting gallery, actual fake Rio Grande, and vast Mexican barrens.	Japan’s abandoned wild west theme park Western Village is filled to the tip of its ten-gallon hat with animatronic cowboy dolls. A Stagecoach-era John Wayne with cyborg heart exposed stands by the park entrance, silent now that the tourists have stopped coming.
Western Village #3. Haunted House	Western Village #4. Mt. Rushmore

Japan’s haikyo theme park Western Village takes its cowboy conceit in some unexpected directions; most interestingly of all the Wild West ghost house. Within its silent black-velveted walls we can find all manner of creepified Western stalwarts.	Disneyland has the grand pink Sleeping Beauty castle. The wizarding world of Harry Potter has Hogwarts. Japan’s abandoned Western Village theme park has a 1/3rd scale replica of Mount Rushmore.