At the dead-end of a blast-hewn road snaking up through the mountains north of Tokyo, imprisoned by sheer moss-rocked walls looming overhead like rotting Gothic colonnades, the Nichitsu mine ghost town lies in wait, wreathed in a low mist and perennially dusk-lit by the overhanging crags. It hums with a crippling weight of nostalgia, of enfolded memories playing out again and again in its boarded up buildings, of invisible ghosts standing guard at the mine entrance, looking out of cracked windows, walking their habitual paths to and from and back again.
I’ve been here before. 14 months ago I came with Mike and Jason on our first haikyo road trip, this our last stop on the second day after taking in the Mt. Asama volcano museum and the remnants of Kappa Pia.
To see it again, in the same season with the same people, the roads frosted over, the air hoary with the mountains’ chill, to see those same empty places that we’d gone in and out of before, imagining the wraith-like echoes of ourselves climbing through windows and ducking in and out of doorways, was a little unsettling. And also familiar.
The main entrance to the Lower School.
We came back this time to seek out the Doctor’s office, fabled on the web and in print resources as the last resting place of a pickled brain in a jar, operating equipment, and all manner of medical gear. We’d wanted to see it a year ago, but got so bogged down in the first batch of buildings we came to we couldn’t go any further before night and exhaustion set in. The desire remained though, and drove us to return.
The front of the Lower School.
This time we rolled the car through the whole town until we reached the road’s dead-end at a fenced up tunnel. Then we started in on the first batch of buildings, what turned out to be a Lower School and Dormitory.
I’ll post about Nichitsu in 3 parts, the second being the Town and Environs, the third the Doctor’s office, making 4 parts total including the post I made last year.
Into the school, as ever we all took separate routes, with me heading for the back.
Avalanches have torn the back off the building.
We could get in from the back where avalanches had torn the thin wooden building apart. Once inside the footing was unsteady and bowed in places- at one point my foot went through the floorboards giving me a huge shock.
Silent hallway.
Staircase, once boarded up. The phone on the left actually had a dial tone, which was bizarre as nothing else had any power, and all the doors and windows were nailed shut.
I moved through the place mostly alone, normally in silence but for the occasional creak or distant call of one of the others, making a discovery.
Windows shuttered, paper screens burst and curling in the damp air.
Cupboard screens ravaged by angry demons.
The first room I went in had a book of photographs lying on a stack of straw futons.
Child in kimono.
Child at school.
At the end of the building was a large hall with a black decaying patch in the center of the tatami:
Decay.
Curled behind the hall was a kitchen, with bottles of whiskey and tubs of oil set on the table, alongside a rusty saw, school-boy caps, and other haikyo paraphernalia. In the corner was a black-board, and Mike and Jason
added their marks to it, alongside those of countless other explorers.
Rusty saw.
Schoolboy caps.
Phones cluster together for heat. No dial tones.
Another room, windows mud-splattered from avalanches.
Wall paper cascading.
Empty.
Musty rugs.
TV’s, stacked.
Ghost detecting equipment.
Fish in a drawer.
At the top of the steps, at the end of the corridor, was a window out onto a walkway leading from the main Lower School over to other conjoining buildings, reminiscent of a complex series of tree-houses linked together. The door to the walkway was nailed fast so we climbed out of the second floor window and stepped out onto it.
Walkway.
A gathering spot amongst the warren of buildings and walkways.
Gloves reaching out.
After this point we split up again, as I ran back to collect my tripod and the other two went on looking for the Doctor’s office. Already it was nearing 4pm, and we didn’t have much light left.
More next time.
CONTENTS
Nichitsu Mining Town- 1. Junior High School
Nichitsu Mining Town- 2. Lower School
Nichitsu Mining Town- 3. Town / Environs
Nichitsu Mining Town- 4. Doctor’s Office
FACTFILE
Entry – Through the back of the Lower School, through a window and onto a walkway to other areas.
Highlights – Returning to a place already so laden with nostalgia.
RUINS / HAIKYO
You can see all MJG’s Ruins / Haikyo explorations here:
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