Abandoned Japan

Teis send me a link to this..."Hashima Island (meaning "Border Island"), commonly called Gunkanjima (meaning "Battleship Island") is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility." A ghost city on a small small island. It had one of the highest population densities in the world and some of the first residential concrete buildings was erected here in 1905. It looks almost to good to be true. Photos from it's deliciously abandoned concrete buildings HERE and watch a documentary about it HERE.

It brings to mind the dead zone of Chernobyl. And then the movie Stalker - watch it if you haven't already.




It also brings to mind this abandoned Japanese amusement park. The LINK is in japanese, but the pictures are great. Also Chernobyl had one, in Pripyat - the city build to service the powerplant.

There's something particularly fascinating about the amusement parks I think - to see, empty of any life, a place that was designed to attract it. Certainly an ambigous twilight zone.... the fantastic anime movie Spirited Away takes it starting point exactly in such a place.

An extensive collection of abandoned places can be found at the Forum ov Psychick Blah. And many more from the Japanese site.