In ruins
Reporting today from the three-way intersection between theme parks, Japanophilia and deserted buildings. The Japanese for ruins is ‘Haikyo’, and it also refers to the hobby of photographing abandoned architecture.
Photographed by Michael John Grist, this Jungle theme park was abandoned 7 years ago. On his site he explains that during the 1980s boom, when the Japanese had more leisure time and freedom to travel than ever, theme parks seemed like a great investment.
But since the bubble burst these parks have just been left to decay and sink back into the countryside. Below is the Disney-style park Nara Dreamland, opened in 1961 and closed in 2006.
Below is the now-demolished Sports World water park in Izu.
And a health spa in Shikoku.
Haikyo isn’t just about theme parks however, and Japan is full of fascinating crumbling buildings of all kinds. This is Hashima Island. Until the 70s it was home to up to 5259 workers at a coal mine in Nagasaki prefecture.
All the Hashima Island photos are from another great site, dedicated to Haikyo, here. Packed full of derelict Love Hotels, schools, hotels and houses.
Thanks a lot for the link! By the way, I re-uploaded better quality of those pictures on my main blog, and the article is here: http://www.meow.fr/gunkanjima-hashima-island/. You’ll see that it’s exactly the same pictures, just bigger and better in quality.
Thanks for the link. Your main blog is a treat too! My brother is in Japan at the moment and I’m hungry for any pictures to inspire me and remind me about this amazing place x
wow. kind of eerily beautiful those photos, aren’t they? thank you for sharing this – i had no idea about this, and it’s so interesting to learn about.
Thanks for your nice comment. I spent hours looking at the various websites dedicated to people’s pictures. The stories about their trips to take the pictures are equally interesting. I really recommend them. x
I love places like this that nature has reclaimed, it feels fantastical and mysterious and you can literally see the time that’s passed between when it was once used and to the current decay of it. Yum.