While urban exploration has grown in popularity in the West in the past 10 or so years, the hobby is also quite a large niche here in Japan. Book stores carry racks of publications dedicated to photography of tunnels, industrial areas and abandoned buildings, and similar Web sites abound. Perhaps by nature of its complexity, Tokyo’s massive train network boasts urban legends of secret emergency networks and abandoned stations, and a tour of the city’s storm discharge tunnels are on the top of every casual explorer’s must-see list.
There is an even more popular sub-genre of urban exploration, however, that of the abandoned building. What with the life cycle of most properties lasting only about 20 to 30 years and a decreasing population with shrinking expendable income, Japan offers a lot of disused structures that saw their heyday during the bubble era. The countryside–and occasionally city, though the price of real estate tends to be a quick death sentence for abandoned structures–is often marked with the unassuming, hulking shape of structures that have worn out their use. Known as “haikyo,” some buildings are very evidently out of commission, dilapidated and silent, while others others reveal their secret with only boarded up windows and some stray weeds. Many bookstores and Web sites feature guidebooks to more popular sites, though both in print and online information regarding the areas is chronically out of date.
Haikyo explorers are understandably secretive. Entrance into most areas constitutes breaking and entering, and the last thing an avid explorer would want is to have his cover blown by a stream of hikers traveling in and out. Foreign haikyo adventurer Gakuranman lists in his “Hazards of Haikyo and Urban Explorations” that, while heading off alone is never a good idea, an optimal group contains about four people. Realistically, any more would attract unwanted attention and probably tip the cops off.
