Japan's Built Environment:Abandoned amusement park

[ttaaee]

It's really cool! This Saitama Super Arena (http://www.saitama-arena.co.jp/e/facility.html) literally changes its size from a 22,000-seater arena to a 37,000-seater stadium with a "movable architectural block system".

Moving Block : The gigantic structure, weighing 15,000 tons and 41.5m high, moves a distance of 70 meters horizontally, a taking with it with approx. 9,000 seats and numerous facilities to transform the Main Arena into a Stadium accommodating up to 37,000.

[jpatokal]

This has been all over the Japanese press (http://nsearch.yahoo.co.jp/bin/search?p=%C5%EC%B5%FE%A5%BF%A5%EF%A1%BC&st=n) lately, but I found exactly one (1) article in English:

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=2&id=332184

It will be 600 meters tall and hence the tallest in the world, although design and location are still not finalized. Here are the leading candidates:

http://news.livedoor.com/img/photo/050308_03.jpg

[jpatokal]

I recently had the pleasure of paying a visit to Expo 2005 in Aichi and I got my socks rocked off -- it really was exceedingly cool and I hope to visit again before it ends in September. Didn't visit the Thai pavilion though, although I did make a quick loop through the South-East Asian zone, including a tropical rainstorm in the Singapore pavilion and seriously cheap booze in the Lao PDR pavilion. Some linkage:

Official site (http://www.expo2005.or.jp/)
Wikitravel's guide to Expo 2005 (http://wikitravel.org/en/Expo_2005) (largely written by me)
My pictures (http://jpatokal.iki.fi/photo/travel/Japan/Tokai/Expo2005/)
Extensive travelogue (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419260) (covering much more than just the Expo, but hey...)

[Pas]

wow looks like you had lots of fun :)
I read an article about the robot reception girl at the Japanese(?) pavillion. Apparently she(it) can speak English, Korean and Japanese, also looks so real, scary!!

[jpatokal]

Yeah, this one caused a few double-takes among visitors:

http://jpatokal.iki.fi/photo/travel/Japan/Tokai/Expo2005/Robot_Girl.JPG

Although the one I "met" didn't talk, it just blinked, turned its head and looked at visitors. In itself a little disconcerting...

[jpatokal]

I did a little Google research on the abandoned amusement park (http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/t_rando/t_rando1.html) linked on the front page, but evidently for legal reasons (?) the people who poke around abandoned sites are loth to reveal exact names or locations... I did manage to glean that "Ruined Amusement Park T" is somewhere in Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Honshu, Japan. The park first opened in Showa 48 (1973), was refurbished and reopened in Showa 57 (1982), and closed its doors for good in Heisei 11 (1999). Some more pictures (not quite as good) of the same park can be found here (http://okazi.cool.ne.jp/tnuma/tnuma.html), click on the picture to launch the gallery.