TOKYO
We crept around the hallways of the love hotel quietly as walls sagged and floorboards bent beneath our feet. There was no lovemaking to disturb, though—the hotel had been abandoned for at least 10 years. It was one of Japan’s many haikyo or ruins, lusted after by urban explorers.
I’ve crawled my way into a few decaying buildings back home in America, but nothing compares to urban exploring in Japan. Though obviously dilapidated, Japan’s ruins remain frozen in time like an alternate reality of the last day they were occupied. Hotels with medieval-themed decor still intact and amusement parks with rusted games sit in place as if one day someone simply got up and walked away from them.
Taking pictures of abandoned buildings as a hobby sometimes gets a bad reputation for exploiting someone’s misfortune or tragedy for the sake of an Instagram aesthetic. For that reason, it’s important to know the history around these spots, and not to disturb anything you may find.
Here are some of the most interesting and totally wicked haikyo in Japan.
Furin Love Hotel (Chiba)
Ten themed rooms for lovemaking are available at the Furin Hotel in Chiba’s quiet countryside. Choose from a traditional ryokan (Japanese inn) style or Greek deco room complete with Grecian pillars. My personal favorite is the medieval room decked out with full-scale armor, sexy red curtains, and a grandiose chandelier.
Not much is actually known about this haikyo, but it is one of the most popular amongst urban explorers for obvious reasons. Now it sits in a sunken state of disrepair with collapsed ceilings making half of the rooms inaccessible.
It’s too bad it was abandoned in 2010 because I would have liked to spend a night here myself. Perhaps sex isn’t quite the lucrative business in a countryside town with an aging population.
