This is the second part of Paul’s Okinawa explorations, see part one here. Day Two 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. Demolition costs for the hotel are said to be too expensive, and the current owners / shareholders can’t sell it … leaving it in limbo. My map work was for finding the Rekio Hotel was incorrect, but its prominent position in …
Japan’s Apocalypse Roads
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. The system seems to function in the stead of social safety nets in other countries; if you can’t get a job, well, the government will put you to work building more roads. It results in a countryside covered in concrete, and thousands of rural projects that fall into dis-use, since they were never needed anyway. This is the fate awaiting them. Apocalypse Road I don’t know much about this road …
GUEST HAIKYO – Okinawa’s derelict Cactus Theme Park
The impetus for starting a series of Guest Haikyo posts came from a fellow haikyoist’s web-hosting disaster. Paul’s site Misuterareta (abandoned) was recently lost in toto when his blogging platform ‘Vox’ went under. It seemed a real shame, and I suggested putting excerpts of some of his content up on my site. Happily he ran with the idea, while at the same time starting the long process of getting his old posts back up in full on his new Misuterareta site. I haikyo-ed with Paul once, where we hit up Namegawa Island and the Yui Love Hotel, and he exhibited …
GUEST HAIKYO – Sun Park Hotel
Recently I was chatting to a few other haikyoists about re-featuring some of their explores on this site. The first to agree with it was Brian McDuckston, of Japan Bash and Ramen Adventures. On Japan Bash Brian explores Japan on his motorcycle, and occasionally discovers haikyo first-hand. I owe my coverage of the Hotel Royal to Brian (here’s his post, here’s my post), who spied it in passing from his bike. His site Ramen Adventures has been featured on Japanese TV and in the New York Times! We’ll start with Brian’s discovery of the Sun Park Hotel in Yamanashi. You …
searchers after horror
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. – H. P. Lovecraft, The Picture in the House Tachikawa Air Force Base in Tokyo. Standing there breathless, wondering if at any moment a security guard will pop his head through the door. See more Japanese ruins (haikyo) in the galleries: [album id=4 template=compact] You can also see a curation of world ruins in the ruins gallery.
you know I love you still
Who knows how long I’ve loved you, you know I love you still. Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to I will. – The Beatles Akeno Gekijo Strip Club Far too many mosquitoes in here, buzzing around and biting my arms and legs. Ugh. See more Japanese ruins (haikyo) in the galleries: [album id=4 template=compact] See world ruins in the ruins gallery.
the last dream of my soul
. . . I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you
sound in an empty house
Leave sound in an empty house in its own room there. . . . – William Stafford Gunma Motor Lodge I stood in the room silently and wondered; are these shadows the same shadows I’ll see in five years, in ten, in fifty? Will I recognize them? Will they recognize me? See more Japanese ruins (haikyo) in the galleries: [album id=4 template=compact] You can also see a curation of world ruins in the ruins gallery.
a cloud of yellow dust flew
In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the hooves of a galloping horse. The twin wheels turned and hummed. Binet was smiling, his chin down, his nostrils distended. He seemed lost in the kind of happiness which, as a rule, accompanies only those mediocre occupations that tickle the intelligence with easy difficulties, and satisfy it with a sense of achievement beyond which there is nothing left for dreams to feed on. – Gustave Flaubert Heian Wedding Hall See more Japanese ruins (haikyo) in the galleries: [album …
the catacombs of Ptolemais
For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements …