Gunkan-Jima

Hashima Island – Gunkan Jima (visited in April, 2006) 
It was a spring morning in 2006, I was on the quay wall of the island off the coast of Nomozaki, Nagasaki. Hashima Island was very famous for ruin geeks because it was an uninhabited island with high-rise condominiums from 1975. This island is commonly called Gunkan-Jima because of its shape. As you can imagine from the photo, Gunkan means battleship. This small and narrow island was developed as a mining place of high-quality coal from 1810. In 1960, the coal output and the population of the island reached its peak, but the energy source was quickly changed to oil from coal in the next decade. Mitsubishi Material Co. quit mining in 1974 and all of the residents pulled out from the island. Then, it appeared as if everything had frozen in time. 
I’ve known that there was a cruising tour around Gunkan-Jima, but I couldn’t get a ticket. I really wanted to see the island up close, but I had no idea how to do so. When I was wandering around the seaside road on my Yamaha motorcycle, I found a billboard on which the words “Fishermen can boat to Hashima from this pier” were written. It was like manna from heaven! I reserved a next morning ticket to the island. Of course, landing on the island was prohibited, but we could enjoy fishing on the quay, and there was no penalty if you went deep into the island at your own risk.