For a nation as tightly packed as Japan, there’s a surprising number of abandoned buildings. In many cases, they remain in tact for decades — no wrecking balls, no fleet of Komatsus to build a new skyscraper, just items left behind as if the inhabitants were all instantly raptured up to heaven.
A few years ago, we read an article about the discovery of an old man who had passed away quietly in his apartment. Because he had no surviving family, no one reported him missing. The owner of his building went belly up and abandoned the entire complex. When new developers finally came to tear the place down, they found everything in his unit left exactly as it was the day he died, including a newspaper and calendar dated sometime in the mid 80s. Continue reading
