Abandoned buildings/places

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I don't believe that vibrator was just lying out there abandoned. It's too clean for a start. I posit that it's YOUR vibrator, and you've put it on the ground for a photo op.

Also, where are Rooms 4 and 9?

[popcorn]

I don't believe that vibrator was just lying out there abandoned. It's too clean for a start.

You're right in that it is a slightly staged photo. It was in a cardboard box in one of those garages, and the garage was open, and so was the box. I kicked the box to get the vibrator out of it and then snapped the pic. Looked more spooky that way.

[H-O-W-L]

Gonna go to prison for looking at that dildo, Popcorn!

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Didn't even pick up the dildo, just kicked it out of the box onto the dusty ground. Hardly embracing the Japanese way of life, were you? You need to seize the dildo with both hands. Carpe Dildem

[buzby]

Just found this thread again and realised I have some of my own abandoned Japanese love hotel photos to share. Found this while driving around mountains in Nagano a couple of years.

I've long been a follower of Kikusaki's youtube channel. He's one of the most prolific Japanese Haikyo/Urban explorers. Everything from abandoned hospitals, ski resorts, shopping malls, inns, onsens, hotels, houses, entire rural villages and even recently an abandoned biohazard research facility, all documented in excruciating detail. I find his videos incredibly relaxing to watch, though I'd probably get a bit more out of them if I could understand what he was saying.

The houses and rural villages in particular I find fascinating and a bit sad, as often most of the possessions of the former owners are still there, untouched for years. After a bit of research I worked out they were probably houses belonging to parents whose kids had gone off to work in the cities, and when they died they a) had nowhere to put any of the stuff, even if they wanted it, and b) the declining population has led the property and land market to collapse, meaning nobody wants to buy them (especially out in the sticks), so they are just left to crumble and rot away with all their parents stuff left inside (and tax-wise it actually costs more to demolish a house than leave it standing abandoned - same with the cars that are left there, it would cost more to scrap them).

One thing you do notice is the prolific amount of cable and plumbing theft from the larger buildings (for some of the bigger buildings there must have been a gang working there for weeks), which is sort of at odds with the image of Japan's low crime rate, but I suppose nobody cares. For a long time I also wondered why virtually every sink had been smashed to bits, and wondered if there was some odd cultural thing to it until I realised the taps and traps were probably chrome plated brass or bronze, and smashing the sinks was the quickest way to get them out.

[popcorn]

I met a Brit who'd been in Japan for decades, and who lived in an absolutely beautiful traditional Japanese house, like the one from My Neighbour Totoro, in the Nagano mountains. You had to drive up the mountain and then hike for a few minutes on foot to get to it. He paid £2000 for it apparently.

[Paul Calf]

I know there are some Cambridge Cabbers. Does anyone know the story of this old tape shop on Gwydir Street? It's been like this for as long as I've known it (about 8 years).



I think I saw some lights on inside at least once.

That's amazing. The only change in 13 years is that the blue poster in the left-hand window has gone, some tijme between 2015 and 2016.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2044626,0.1389852,3a,75y,73.33h,91.05t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9Vtq1rohnxgVFgYTGoa-KA!2e0!5s20080901T000000!7i13312!8i6656

[badaids]

There's the abandoned house where David Gilmour and Trevor Horn used to live (not simultaneously).



It's quite sad, because Trevor moved out after his son accidentally shot his wife there.

The pictures of the Gilmour / Horn mansion are instantly recognisable as the location on the inside cover art on The Manics Gold Against The Soul. I guess they recorded it there.

[MojoJojo]

I don't know either of these shops, but H. Gee's is still around, it's on Mill Road. I should probably have a look as they sell individual electronic components.

In update since this thread last rolled around: H. Gee's burnt down last year. Also, with lockdown increasing my wandering, I've now seen Top Tapes in person. It's pretty near where the Cambridge CaB meets tend to be, we should probably do get a photo next time.

[buzby]

That's amazing. The only change in 13 years is that the blue poster in the left-hand window has gone, some tijme between 2015 and 2016.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2044626,0.1389852,3a,75y,73.33h,91.05t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9Vtq1rohnxgVFgYTGoa-KA!2e0!5s20080901T000000!7i13312!8i6656

Not the only change -the taped up (presumably broken) windows in the front door were boarded up some time between 2008 and 2012, and in 2016 when the poster disappeared some putty had been replaced on the windows, the left windowsill was repaired with filler and the lower boarded-up part of the door was was also repaired with an extra board on it. By 2017 those repairs had been repainted to match.

[SpiderChrist]

Roll On Tapes in Cambridge was the only place I could find blank cassettes suitable for making compilation tapes to send to my mate when he was residing in HMP Norwich, as they sold ones that weren't held together with screws (I forget the make). An interesting shop, to say the least.

Also nice to see a link to an old haunt of mine, the We're All Neighbours forum.

[The Ombudsman]

How is that wheelie bin still there after all these years.