Sayonara, Nara Dreamland: Visiting the Demolished Theme Park

Even if major world websites, such as the Lonely Planet, still promote Nara Dreamland as Japan’s abandoned amusement park like an urban explorer’s dream come through, I have to break the sad news to you: the fun park does not exist anymore!

Sure, you might know that Nara Dreamland amusement park was officially closed in 2006 and afterward became the urbex mecca with its ghostly atmosphere of decay. But today there are not even ruins worth exploring!

Quite a few of the online resources said that the Nara Dreamland demolition would finish in 2018. But as I found out during my visit in late March 2017, Dreamland’s story was already just a history!

If you like urban exploration, read about our visit to the ruins of Hotel Belvedere Dubrovnik, one of the world's many abandoned hotels!

Breaking into Nara Dreamland

It was a fresh spring night in Nara. Even if hanami, the traditional watching and admiring the beauty of sakura, should have already started, cherry trees in front of the famous Todai-Ji temple were still shy on March 25.

After hanging around with hundreds of deer freely roaming over the meadows of Nara Deer Park, I started to walk towards the Nara Dreamland coordinates when the sun’s rays were already fading away.

I knew that entering the amusement park area is officially considered trespassing, so I thought that some twilight cover could only help.

After the fear I went through when I was smuggling a dead pet into Vietnam, the nervousness around the issue of trespassing in Japan seemed to be a natural self-defensive mechanism.

Online resources were mentioning a 100.000 Yen fine for trespassing (some 800 Euros). I certainly didn’t have that sum in my pockets

The high metal fence, reinforced with barbed wire (the kind that Hungarians use to protect themselves from the most dangerous enemies, i.e. the refugees), was a clear message that nobody should attempt to cross these gates.

For those who can read, there was also a signboard with big Japanese letters probably threatening trespassers with significant fines or chopping their hands off. Well, in my imagination, at least.

Later I found out that the sign said: “Private property, no entry allowed without a permit.”

Online resources were mentioning a 100.000 Yen fine for trespassing (some 800 Euros). I certainly didn’t have that sum in my pockets.

Even the ghosts left the ghostly amusement park

If I would have arrived in Nara Dreamland just 15 years ago, the excitement of crossing over the fence couldn’t compare with jumping on a roller coaster.

Actually, for the amount of the trespassing fine, I could have easily ridden it 167 times in those days. OK, I guess after so many rides the adrenaline levels would not have given me a high kick anymore.

So now, at dusk, standing alone in the middle of the debris that was once amusing Japanese kids, trying to listen to any little clue that would say the security guy is coming to charge me my most expensive fun ride ticket, was preciously exciting.

I was clicking with my camera, mainly shooting pure guesses. I knew my eyes couldn’t see as much as my camera could.

Using the flashlight was not an option, as it would definitely draw the attention of the guards.

With the daylight extinguishing, my camera’s aperture was doing its best to let in as much light as it could find. My hand tried to keep steady as much as possible. No tripod bringing was a fit for this get in-get out photo shooting.

My eyes still adapting to the arriving pitch darkness, while I was trying not to get lost among the theme park’s wreckage, didn’t provide much information about where the hell was I walking.

Uneven grounds with holes and traps might have resembled the experience of the haunted witch cave a few decades ago. I wouldn’t know.

But this place was certainly not haunted anymore. Even the ghosts have left Nara Dreamland now.

What is Nara Dreamland’s story then?

The Japanese businessman Kunizo Matsuo visited California in the ’50s. The brand-new Disneyland (opened in Anaheim in 1955) caught his attention. He was determined to bring the attraction to his homeland. But as we know, Tokyo Disneyland will not open until 1983.

Matsuo’s idea was to bring Disneyland to Nara, the city that served as Japan’s first permanent capital, in the 8th century. However, Walt Disney‘s financial demands for the licenses were too high in Matsuo’s eyes.

He decided to open the Dreamland instead. The park still looked like Disneyland, as American engineers were traveling to Japan before the love broke towards the end of the construction phase.

Nara Dreamland opened in 1961, cloning Disneyland’s attractions like Sleeping Beauty Castle, Main Street USA, Tea Party Cup Ride, the monorail, the pirate ship, and so on.

But when Disneyland finally arrived in Japan (Tokyo) in the ’80s, and especially after Universal Studios Japan opened in 2001 in Osaka, just 40 kilometers west of Nara, it put the last nail in the coffin of Nara’s dream to have its own amusement park.

Visitor numbers dropped from 1,6 million a year to merely 400 thousand.

Nara Dreamland Japan closed its doors on August 31st, 2006.

Urban exploring in the forbidden zone of Dreamland theme park

But haikyoists (the Japanese version of urban explorers) were keeping the dream of this abandoned ruin alive. Domestic and international explorers were taking their cameras into the forbidden zone of Nara Dreamland, risking being caught by the security (some actually were), and delivering their photographs to the world.

South African Instagrammer Gareth Pon visited the place in the summer of 2016. He recalled standing on the ruin of the 30-meter high rollercoaster that was, when operating, taking its visitors on an 80 km/h speed ride, producing 2.8 G-Force.

“Standing on top of the Aska Roller Coaster, it felt brittle under my feet. Being several stories up, I kept telling myself that the sound of creaking wood didn’t represent the sturdy structure beneath me. Looking down through the complexity of wood beams below, I couldn’t help but appreciate the original craftsmanship”, said Gareth.

“A group of people was successful in building a ride that people loved — an experience where people raised their hands and let the inner joy of their childhood take over. It made me wonder how something so magnificent was left to rot.”

No crematorium in the ashes of demolished Nara Dreamland

Indeed, walking through the wreckage of Nara Dreamland theme park that was promising 32 hectares of fun in its heyday, I experienced only emptiness and rot.

Some preserved stairs, broken brick walls, tires, hills of unidentified attraction parts, pools of water…

Not much haikyo really. Just the feeling of a messed-up puzzle, with so many parts missing.

The only element still standing was a locomotive of a train that was riding on Nara Dreamland’s tracks. Covered in blue plastic, as if it would protect it from unpredictable weather or demolition. No more rides here.

With the heritage of unpaid taxes and no rescuer in sight, Nara Dreamland amusement park just had to go.

The city wanted to reclaim the grounds and make the crematorium on the site, but locals did not like the idea.

Finally, the real estate company SK Housing bought the abandoned Nara Dreamland theme park as the only bidder at the auction. Their plan was to build housing for retired people here. Housing for maybe the only ones who still remember the days of Nara theme park’s glory.

Nara Dreamland before and after the demolition