The last rays of light were falling behind the trees as I exited a cursed love hotel, but my sense of excitement had yet to fade. So before wrapping up my solitary ruins exploration for the day, I decided to sweep the neighbourhood. A haikyo bus lay awaiting me in the undergrowth…

A recent trip took me West of Kyushu to a small Korean island known as Jeju, famous for its three plentiful things – wind, women and rocks. What I wasn’t expecting to find was a stunning optical illusion and ghoulish graveyard ruin full of rotting totem poles!

Last week I took you through the bowels of a water-ridden, decomposing onsen hotel haikyo in the heart of the Japanese countryside. The ample time we had made it possible to try out some long exposure light photography. So here’s the artistic side of the hotel, as well as some background to the ghost story.

Haikyo (ruins) are often very unsettling. The eerie silence punctured only by unknown bumps in the dark. Warped, decaying wood and floors riddled with damp. Such was the onsen resort hotel I stumbled upon recently. Something about this one said I shouldn’t enter alone, so I enlisted the help of a friend…

Alrighty. Here’s the second part of the huge volcano museum explore here in Japan. This time I’m focussing on the upper levels and the crumbling observation deck. Also included is a video compilation of the footage I took while visiting. Enjoy!

A decaying observation tower and a haikyo museum blanketed in shadows rest at the foot of one active Japanese volcano. Patches of snow cover the surrounding countryside and the ominous gong of a pinprick temple in the distance drifts into my ears on an early winter wind. Here’s my recent visit to these ruins.

Here’s a video-photo slideshow of my trip to Yakushima (屋久島), the green island in southern Japan, famed for its ancient cedar trees (yakusugi) and captivating forests. I went there for a 3-day trip with a couple of Japanese friends late summer 2008.

Just spotted this haikyo news article in the Japan Times. Apparently a 35-year landing ban has been lifted on Hashima Island, better known as ‘Gunkanjima’ or ‘Warship Island’. The 480×160 metre long island was abandoned in 1974 after its coal mine collapsed.

Finally, at long last! I made it to the green island of Yakushima, tucked snugly away below Kyushu in the South of Japan. It’s a chunk of land covered mostly in sugi (cedar) trees, and awesomely huge ones at that, with sage-old weathered limbs gnarled and warped bearing thickets of leaves, all the way up

大山 – Literally: ‘big mountain’. It was the Sunday following the Jack Johnson concert that Kyunai Ayaka-san’s enthusiasm for hiking took us up to the summit of Mt. Daisen (height 1729m) – an extinct volcano located in Tottori Prefecture.