Battleship Island
Hashima – or Battleship Island – lying just outside the bay of Nagasaki was, for almost 90 years, a bustling coal mining community. The entire place was owned by the Mitsubishi company, who used every scrap of land to house employees, offices and mining facilities in a concrete fortress in the middle of the sea.
Several thousand people lived, and thrived, out here despite the elements but then, in the course of just a few months, the mine was closed and the entire island abandoned. That happened in 1974, since which Hashima has been left to battle mother nature with only a few seabirds for company.
At least until 2009, when tourist boats started landing to have a look at what the world might look like after humans. This eerie, post-apocalyptic landscape is great for photographers, and for Japanese-speakers, probably a fascinating tour, too. But as we were excluded from that, we just stuck our eyes to our lenses and had a look around.
Our time in Nagasaki prefecture was made possible by:
Our own hard work, a quite obscene amount of coffee, and two dozen satsumas.
端島、またの名を軍艦島。長崎に浮かぶその島は約90年に渡って石炭採掘の島として栄えた。島は三菱の私有地で、そこで働く従業員、オフィス、採鉱設備などを所有していた。
数千人が暮らし、栄えた島だが、1974年に鉱山閉山し、その後島は無人島となった。それ以来ここ端島は廃墟となり、海鳥が経ちよるだけの場所になった。
その後2009年、観光客の上陸が可能になり、多くの人の注目を集めるようになった。
このちょっと不気味で、世紀末を思わせる廃墟の島は、カメラマンには格好の被写体のようで、また日本語が理解できる観光客にはとっても興味深いツアーだった事だろう。
が・・・日本語の分からない私達は耳ではなく、眼だけで楽しむことにした。
長崎県での滞在は・・・私達の気の赴くままに（もちろん念入りな下調べと努力の元に）楽しませていただきました。そして仕事のお供はたくさんのコーヒーとミカン♪
4 Comments
Eric
November 25, 2011Very nice pictures in this post… and your final comment is soooo funny!
… But what the hell are Satsumas??
Robert
November 25, 2011Its a kind of mandarin orange, and it originates from Satsuma Province wich is a part of todays Kagoshima Prefecture.
Katy & Jamie
November 25, 2011Pronounced “zatzooma” in French
Kat
November 25, 2011They’re probably talking about the fruit.
There’s something pretty haunting about islands like this. It makes for a good setting of a post-apocalyptic movie, or something like that. We’ve got our own version here in the Philippines, and even though it’s been explored by a lot of people, there’s still that creepy quality to it that never seems to go away.