Disappeared Japan Nagasaki Holland Village

 

Nagasaki Holland Village, built in 1983, was the predecessor to Huis Ten Bosch, the massive theme park at the northern end of Omura Bay in Nagasaki.

Nagasaki Holland Village, billed as a replica of Gouda and Hoorn, was mostly successful until the same company built the much bigger Huis Ten Bosch in 1992. It closed and was bought by the local authority, Seihi Town.

After spending a fortune renovating and maintaining it they leased it to a new company and it partially reopened but closed again in 2021 with very poor attendance.

With the company and the local authority in a legal battle over seemingly necessary repair work, it is very doubtful it will ever open again. 

I passed by on day 65 of my first walk around Kyushu. The previous post was the nearby Giant Torii. The previous Disappeared Japan post was the Yamane Residence.

Disappeared Japan Part 4 Space World

Space World

Space World was a big amusement park in Kitakyushu built around the theme of space. It opened in 1990 on land that had formerly been part of Nippon Steel.

It featured a life-size replica of the space shuttle and its launch rockets, but really the space connection was rather tenuous.

The park featured 6 different roller coasters (with suitably space-themed names like Black Hole Scramble, and Titan Max.

The 100 meter  high Ferris Wheel named Space Eye was the tallest in Kyushu when first built.

The park closed on 1st January, 2018 and was slowly dismantled and demolished.

The site is now The Outlets Kitakyushu, a shopping centre that is mostly outlet stores.

Previous Disappeared Japan posts include Yukaen Chinese Garden, and Awaji World peace Kannon.

Greenland Amusement Park

 

For several hours while heading for the next temple on the pilgrimage, I seemed to be heading directly for some kind of multi-colored tower. Turns out the temple is adjacent to a huge amusement park.

The "tower" I was seeing was in fact a huge Ferris wheel seen edge-on. At 105 meters tall its not the tallest in Japan, but close. Greenland Amusement Park claims ro be the biggest amusement park in West Japan, but I think that must exclude kansai.

It has numerous rollercoasters including one of the longest in Japan. I think the name should probably be Green Land, ratherb than the name of the north atlantic island. There seems to be no theme to the park though a couple of attractions relate to Egypt.

It is a full resort with a golf course for the grown-ups and a large hotel complex. Its a bit out of the way with little public transport and is located in the foothills near Arao, Kumamoto.