They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

I went to Alaska a few years ago and visited a coastal town, the name of which I've long forgotten. While my parents and such were lunching and visiting gift shops, I couldn't resist going to visit a certain building. I wish I'd taken pictures of it, but, I did not.

I came across this Japanese Web site with some very beautiful pictures. These are pictures that you look at, and you wish you could see the site in person. And they're breathtaking.

These pictures definately have a story to tell.

And, for a guy like me, they're terribly intriguing. I wonder about the history of each site. I wonder why, and how. I wonder what would cause this to happen, and how one could just walk away. Are there stories of lawsuits, terrible plagues, and dreams ruined forever?

The building in Alaska that I HAD to explore used to be an entire military site, in one building. Information available says that this one building had a theatre, barbershop, shops, hospital, restaurants, and sleeping quarters. It was literally a military base in one building. Everything you needed was available in one building. But, it had been abandoned. Elevator shafts were empty, or their elevator doors were jammed open. My Alaska building had had most furnishings removed, either by the military, or by looters over the years. But, you could still find the restrooms, toilets still intact, and the theatre with rows of chairs disintegrating. You could find the overhead lights of a hospital operating room, and the built-in ovens and foodservice areas.

And, like my Alaska experience, each picture on this site is of an abandoned establishment. Be it an almost surreal, empty, foggy theme park, a desserted mountain resort, or an empty coal mine dormitory.

This is history at its finest. I WANT to know the stories, meet people who lived, worked, and played there. While history in college was as dry and boring as watching paint dry, somehow, this history comes alive for me, and I've been unable to forget this Japanese Web site, even though I discovered it days ago.

Japanese Abandoned Places Web Site

(If you wonder about the long links, I've taken the liberty of running the links through Babelfish, in an attempt to translate the Japanese characters into English. It's not the best, but trying to read the descriptions can give you some idea.)