Japan Road Trip: Abandoned Love Hotel

Today, I get to share an abandoned love hotel Ben and I stumbled upon. As much as Japan is a first world, advanced and clean society, a certain amount of decay exists everywhere which makes finding abandoned buildings sometimes a little tricky. Since Japanese people as a generalisation are super tidy, over growth and broken structures become the give always! When we spotted broken castle turrets in among over grown vines, we pulled over quick smart :)

This love hotel, called Route 2, became a magical time capsule, everything perfectly preserved inside, almost as if the owners had one day just decided to up and leave - mystery!

The broken turrets and over growth

This love hotel consisted of around 15 standing structures, each with a slightly different thing going on inside - some had fairly simple motel room layouts, whilst others (in the slightly higher price categories) had extra fun features - which Ben and I loved! Stain glass panel anyone?

Karaoke?

Love hotels, exist for couples to get away but also act as places for prostitution to occur and hey, maybe even the weary night traveling who needs some rest - although I was turned away from staying at a love hotel myself because I was single, so definitely frowned upon :P

Everything was in tact, the doona covers and sheets still on all the beds.

One room came with its own poker machine and a very old most wanted poster found in the office!

I tried to take photos of details I loved :)
Pink phone, obvious Fee choice

Arcade game, anyone?

The most expensive room to rent came with two levels and its own indoor swimming pool!

Hand towels still hanging up 

What the structures looked like from the outside - fairly boring

Tea sets in each room

One of the rates outside a room. You can usually tell which hotels are love hotels in Japan because you'll see two prices advertised, rest (usually a few hours) and then stay, similar to a normal hotel.

I loved this room, with its red bridge over to the bed!

And the gold tub - amaze balls!

Pretty star ceiling!

A vintage Nintendo system, which gave us some ideas to when the place had been abandoned from

What a cool place huh!

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Japan Road Trip: Oita to Fukuoka

We woke up and headed to Lake Shitako, halfway between Beppu and Yufuin. This lake was really pretty and almost made up for our failed attempt to to get to Lake Haruna. Unfortunately we must of arrived too early because there was no one manning the swan boats (or maybe they don't operate in the colder months??) but we did get to feed the swans and carp. In true Japanese fashion the pellets came out of a vending machine and were neatly wrapped in ice cream cone material which the ducks and carp gobbled down as well, once the pellets had run out.

After the lake we took a quick trip + walk to Yufu River Gorge where a might waterfall lived.

A lot of our holiday was spent taking in the changing scenery from our car window which is something I really loved about this trip :)

In Kurume, Fukuoka, we stopped in at Tanushimaru Station whose building has been made to look like a Kappa (Japanese water spirit).

I was really bummed the station's tiny kappa museum was shut *sad face* but they did have this amazing kappa statue on the other side of the train track!

He was giant!

At night we headed into Fukuoka City, with original intentions to check out a cat cafe, unfortunately closed but we did end up having a nice little night in the city.

A night which included the most random Mexican dinner (well only Ben's meal, mine never arrived) a drunk Ben (who got drunk whilst waiting for my meal) a sad starving fee and a drive out of the city behind a very drunk (mounting curbs) driver - eep!

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