Gunkajima (aka Battleship Island)

One of the reasons I decided to head out west to Nagasaki was to see Hashima Island, which is off the coast.  It is more often called "Gunkajima", which in Japanese translates to "Battleship Island."

Approaching it by boat, you see that it's an island covered with abandoned buildings.

However with some imagination, you can picture how it can look like a battleship, especially in profile sitting out there in the middle of the ocean.

It looks cool from the sea, but, using a tour group, you are allowed to walk on designated paths along the perimeter of the island.

Some of you might be thinking, "I've seen this somewhere."  Well, James Bond movie watchers..you have.  This used in the movie Skyfall.

So what is the history of this abandoned island?  Back from the 1920's to 1974, Japan mined underground coal from Gunkajima. Therefore, they built a city on the island and at its peak some 6,000 people lived on the small island.

As Japan moved away from coal to other sources of energy, coal mining was shuttered and the residents left.  By the 1974 it was abandoned.  It was out here in the ocean left to decay on its own.

There is renewed interest in the island due to Skyfall, but also because there are people like me who are interested in this kind of "ruin porn."

Here's a picture of the island when it was a living and breathing and economically viable community.

A model of the network of tunnels in the underground coal mines.

A model of how coal was loaded onto ships to be carried to mainland Japan.