THEY ran the risk of arrest if they weren't out by 8.30am that day, but that's just part of the adventure, isn't it?
If the old hotel halfway up Mt. Maya, just north of Kobe, Japan, was easy to get to, if it wasn't off limits, if the cops weren't a worry, there wouldn't be much point in hiking up about 400 metres at 6am to explore the ruined corridors and rotting parlours that local hikers told tales of.
It wasn't exactly a secret - it's often used in movies and videos for obvious reasons - but it was still a very popular haikyo - literally, an abandoned place, the sort of spot that fascinates the kind of people that like exploring empty ruins that tell stories.
James Laudano is an American expat who lives and teaches English in Kobe, and after hearing from hiker friends about the empty Maya Hotel decided to pay a visit.
"Kobe has a lot of mountains and hiking trails, so among hikers the Maya Hotel - or at least Mt. Maya - are well known," he said.
The hotel is abandoned. Picture: James Laudano Source: Supplied
He planned the trip along with three friends - two other teachers and a Swiss journalist from Tokyo - all plotting together to play explorer while avoiding the police. It's a global pastime, the danger-tinged violation of ageing "No Trespassing" signs.
It has a troubled history. Picture: James Laudano Source: No Source
Urban exploration is about rediscovering abandoned, forgot places, climbing and crawling through buildings, tunnels, yards, and chronicling the journey. In a world that has been exhaustively mapped, urban explorers find the new in the old.
After what Laudano describes as an intense half-hour hike up, "steep and slippery in places," they had about two hours to explore the hotel.
It was mostly destroyed in 1929. Picture: James Laudano Source: Supplied
Built in 1929, it housed anti-aircraft guns on the roof during World War II, was firebombed and largely destroyed, rebuilt in 1961 by a new owner, and knocked out of commission again in 1967 by a typhoon and its resulting mudslides. Reborn as a student centre in 1974, it remained open but largely unused for two decades before closing for good in 1995.
There is an eerie beauty to it. Picture: James Laudano Source:Supplied
What Laudano and his friends found was a prime example of beautiful decay. Buildings in the process of being taken back by nature, ransacked halls, wall-sized graffiti murals that must have taken days to finish.
"It was like stepping into a Japanese time machine."
The hotel was rebuilt but abandoned in 1995. Picture: James Laudano Source: Supplied
They ran around, took their photos, and ducked out before the morning's first cable car was pulled up the slope of Mt. Maya at eight-thirty, right past the hotel to which they'd called the cops before. The group was back down off the mountain by ten.
It's definitely an adventure. Picture: James Laudano Source: Supplied
Laudano brought some great photos back. He also writes a blog about his expat life.
Inside the Maya Hotel. Picture: James Laudano Source: No Source
An old telephone still sits inside the Maya Hotel. Picture: James Laudano
No comments:
Post a Comment