These photos are from Gulliver's Kingdom - an abandoned theme park in Japan - just south of Fujisan.
The park was built during the rush on themeparks in the late 80's - and was closed around 1995.
There are a bunch of abandoned theme parks, most abandoned due to the economy burst - but Gulliver's has a stranger story.. The town that it is near was the home town of the 1995 Serin gas terrorists; the theme park got so many people asking about the gang and events that they eventually closed, and it's been sitting there ever since.
It's got an amazing desolate feeling to it - almost every building is intact, shops are still filled with souveneirs, and a bobsled track snakes from the foothills of Fujisan to deep in the theme park.
Sadly, Fujisan was cloud shrouded today, but the location is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime thing - so I was happy to just even see it. The place is starting to be demolished.. sadly, these may be some of the last photos we ever see of it.
The last photo is from an even more interesting place called "Sea Of Trees" - just north of Gulliver's. As you drive along, the pine forest and wild undergrowth encrouch and envelope the road - you can catch quick glances of the undulating, almost alien terrain...
When Fuji last erupted, the lava flowed around the trees, which later died and rotted.. leaving huge holes and landscape that rises and falls dramatically.
Since then, the forest took over - and the 'Sea of Trees' became one of Japan's most notorous suicide spots - a hotel "The Last Stop" even used to accomodate the one-way travellers.
The forest is so thick and homogenous that any one section looks like any other section - the pine trees dampen all noise, and the huge potholes and hills make it impossible to navigate in any sort of order.
The popularity of the spot is tied into the fact it is under Fuji. Every year, the government trawls the forest with GPS, ropes, and tightly coupled searchers - looking to recover bodies. It is not uncommon to find bodies from literally decades ago - that have been overlooked on previous trips.
We took string, and ran a trail off the path, and it was damn lucky that we did. Friends of mine tell me how they have spent hours walking in massive circles - the forest makes it impossible for GPS to function properly, and the huge deposits of volcanic rock wreak havok with compasses.
Sadly, it was super hard to photograph :/
sea of trees
