Royal Love hotel, Haikyo

The Hotel Royal haikyo in Kanagawa is the grand-daddy of all love hotels, streaking 7 empty stories up into the big blue sky, a giant vermillion flag on the banks of Sagamiko Lake calling out to all and sundry in a mega-watt alto- ‘Need some discreet time alone with your loved one? Come on down!’

I couldn`t find out any historical information about this haikyo, and I doubt there is anything much to be found. It probably went up in the last 10 years, came down in the last 5, and for the most part passed unremarked in the life of the area. It just seems like a bad idea, for several reasons. 

First off, it`s basically a classy love hotel, across 7 floors with around 35 rooms of varying sizes, all of them decorated in a unique manner- some of them a bit wacky, most fairly plain. 

It`s in a quiet area, on a road far from the nearest train station, overlooking a peaceful lake.

So who was the target audience?  Young people looking to sow their wild oats in private would unlikely have access to a car, so we can rule most of them out. 

Couples trying to get away from the kids would be going out of their way to come here, so why not then have a properly classy time in a ryokan, where they could still do any of the deeds a love hotel is famous for. That leaves a third class- married men and women on surreptitious affairs, looking for an out of the way place where they wouldn`t be seen conducting their illicit liaisons. And how many of them could there be? Obviously not enough.

Add to all that- the idea is just tawdry, like Las Vegas without the limbo-ish in-between location or any of the relaxed local laws.

 I went to this haikyo with my buddy Geoff- the first time for him, and now the last, since he’s going back to the USA in a week or so. Ah, what a transient place Japan is. The Love Hotels go up and come down, and friends come and go.

There are two types of haikyo really- the old ones and the new ones. The old ones may be anything abandoned for longer than 20 or so years, the new ones for less. They have very different charms- with the old ones you get the creative destruction of Nature rippling through the fabric, but not so much of the just-lived-in feel of the newer ones. But- that feel from the new ones is often not that interesting, because the people in question are only distanced from us by a short time. So, I like the old ones better.

As for this place- it could almost have been closed just a few days ago, for all the chance nature has had to get in. First off, as is my usual style, we cased the place thoroughly front and back.

Out back there were steps down to a utilities/generator room, which was filled with pipes and engines more tired and overwrought than any other part of the structure. Were they perhaps overclocking?

Back up the steps and behind the kitchen were a bunch of old arcade machines, and these tarred gloves, left to ‘dry’ on a rusted shelving unit.

 

This is how you choose your room in a Love Hotel- there’s a whole board of these photos of each room. You choose the one you like- then tell it to the attendant, who is in a walled-off booth with normally only their hands showing. Discreet. Of course we went to 701, though it was less impressive without the LED rings lit up.

In the corner room on each floor the bathroom was illuminated with a bright blue light.

The top floor was a big function area, maybe 2 large dining rooms with their own kitchen. Now a bunch of junk was lying around- video cassettes, books, manga, TV’s.

We couldn’t get onto the roof, the way was blocked by a solid metal door, but out the side of the top floor kitchen there was a mini balcony, and I could get this shot of one of the regal R’s:

And that was it, really. Geoff and I walked the long way to the next station in the gathering dark, having a good final chat about real and heavy stuff. There was another haikyo I wanted to see nearby- Sun Hills- but it was far too dark, and would have to wait for a second trip out.

 Info taken from Michael John Grist, check out more of his Haikyo adventures

Izu’s abandoned Jungle theme Park #2 inside

Jungle Park, located in Japan, was easily the biggest green-house I’ve ever been in, and boy was it hot inside. H-O-T. And very humid. Within minutes I was soaked to the skin, and any time I had to climb something I was panting with the exertion. You can probably see that on the video a few times.

Wandering through its long tail-like corridor to the main jungle hub, I of course wondered where all the humidity was coming from. It’s sealed off from the outside, and has been closed for 7 years. Why isn’t everything inside baked and dead?

I guess there are two possible answers to that.

One- A security maintenance guy comes around and sprays everything/turns on the sprinklers once in a while.

Two- The place survives on what water it has already. I saw plenty of dead plants- they gave up their water to transpiration, it condensed on the glass sky, and fell as rain. In that way the place is slowly cannibalizing itself. It was odd though to see the poor shape the cactuses were in. I would expect them to be the hardiest- instead they were the ones most dead.

Perhaps I should talk a bit more about how huge it was. It was really huge.

You could buy Jungle Soft Cream and Cactus Smoothies at this snack shack.

Giants Greenhouse

photo-op

Partition between sections.

Map board with the map knocked out.

Primitive village

lots of brochures on the racks

 

drying cacti

 

totem pole graveyard

jungle theme photo board

view of ceiling

fallen jungle house

"primitive" clay pots

Post from Michael John Grist, read more on his website

Nichitsu 2. Elementary school in a Ghost Town

At the dead-end of a blast-hewn road snaking up through the canyons of North-East Saitama, imprisoned by sheer moss-rocked walls looming overhead like rotting Gothic colonnades, the Nichitsu mine ghost town lies in wait, wreathed in a low mist and perennially dusk-lit by the overhanging crags. It hums with a crippling weight of nostalgia, of enfolded memories playing out again and again in its boarded up buildings, of invisible ghosts standing guard at the mine entrance, looking out of cracked windows, walking their habitual paths to and from and back again.

I’ve been here before. 14 months ago I came with Mike and Jason on our first haikyo road trip, this our last stop on the second day after taking in the Mt. Asama volcano museum and the remnants of Kappa Pia.

To see it again, in the same season with the same people, the roads frosted over, the air hoary with the mountains’ chill, to see those same empty places that we’d gone in and out of before, imagining the wraith-like echoes of ourselves climbing through windows and ducking in and out of doorways, was a little unsettling. And also familiar.

 We came back this time to seek out the Doctor’s office, fabled on the web and in print resources as the last resting place of a pickled brain in a jar, operating equipment, and all manner of medical gear. We’d wanted to see it a year ago, but got so bogged down in the first batch of buildings we came to we couldn’t go any further before night and exhaustion set in. The desire remained though, and drove us to return.

Avalanches have torn the back off the building.

 This time we rolled the car through the whole town until we reached the road’s dead-end at a fenced up tunnel. Then we started in on the first batch of buildings, what turned out to be a Lower School and Dormitory.

I’ll post about Nichitsu in 3 parts, the second being the Town and Environs, the third the Doctor’s office, making 4 parts total including the post I made last year.

Into the school, as ever we all took separate routes, with me heading for the back.

 We could get in from the back where avalanches had torn the thin wooden building apart. Once inside the footing was unsteady and bowed in places- at one point my foot went through the floorboards giving me a huge shock.

Staircase, once boarded up. The phone on the left actually had a dial tone, which was bizarre as nothing else had any power, and all the doors and windows were nailed shut.

I moved through the place mostly alone, normally in silence but for the occasional creak or distant call of one of the others, making a discovery.

Mah Jong game

Curled behind the hall was a kitchen, with bottles of whiskey and tubs of oil set on the table, alongside a rusty saw, school-boy caps, and other haikyo paraphernalia. In the corner was a black-board, and Mike and Jason
added their marks to it, alongside those of countless other explorers.

schoolboy caps

student artwork

At the top of the steps, at the end of the corridor, was a window out onto a walkway leading from the main Lower School over to other conjoining buildings, reminiscent of a complex series of tree-houses linked together. The door to the walkway was nailed fast so we climbed out of the second floor window and stepped out onto it.

 

This story is from Michael John Grists read more here