By Tim Hornyak
It was a crisp March morning in Hokkaido as we snowshoed across a field of radiant snow. Crossing small animal tracks, my two companions and I trudged through a copse of birch trees and saw the intended goal of our journey dead ahead: a two-story structure covered with snowdrifts that bulged over the roof like heavy whipped cream. It looked like a clumsy attempt at a birthday cake.
As we approached, it was clear the structure had been long neglected. Surrounded by undisturbed deep snow, the building was fringed by long icicles and rust, and several windows had been smashed.
Our guide led us to an unlocked window in the back and we were soon inside. We found ourselves in a large kitchen, with pots, pans, plastic beer crates and random debris strewn about.
It was one of my first times exploring an abandoned building in Japan and I was fascinated.
The building had been a wedding hotel until business dried up and the managers walked away in 1995. With all the furnishings and cookware left behind, it seemed like they just shut the door, intending to return, but never did. Now the interior was a collection of scenes both disturbing and enchanting.
A chair was imprisoned in a floor of ice, with moss and mold colonizing its arms. Snow had blown in through a broken guestroom window and piled up incongruously on futons. Icicles dripped from broken ceiling fixtures and wallpaper hung like rags. The lobby looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster.
It was one of my first times exploring an abandoned building in Japan and I was fascinated.
In the back office, we found 8-inch TEC floppy disks, reams of dot-matrix printout and stacks of moldy brochures advertising “High Quality Resort Lubedence.” Crumbling photo albums showed newlyweds posing by a long-gone chapel. Where were all these people now?
A framed promotional text in English lay on the floor, shards of glass and plaster all around. It read: “Here is the ideal spot with everything, where the soul may be refreshed by all the really important things in life which Japan has to take care not to lose.”
Hotel Lubedence in Hokkaido is one of countless abandoned buildings in Japan, ranging from factories to theme parks and homes. Such sites are often described as haikyo in Japanese, a term that translates as “ruins,” and they’ve attracted countless visitors and explorers in recent years. Haikyo meguri, or touring haikyo, is also a popular pastime overseas, where it’s sometimes called urban exploration, urbex or UE for short.
There’s no universal definition of haikyo, but depending on the site, it could be completely forgotten, still owned but neglected, or actively preserved for posterity. In many cases, these sites are hazardous and, depending on the location, entering a haikyo could run afoul of trespassing stipulations in the Penal Code as well as the Minor Offenses Act, which states that “a person who, without justifiable grounds, lurks in a house, building or ship that is unoccupied and unguarded shall be detained or fined.”
Read the rest of the article at The Japan Times
