Visit Hashima Island (Battleship Island) in Japan

“Then it appears on the horizon. A low, gray silhouette that really looks like a battleship. The closer you get, the clearer the details become: a dense cluster of concrete apartment blocks, derricks, and dikes, all crammed onto a tiny rock in the middle of the sea. [...] What surprised me most was the silence, broken only by the cries of seagulls and the sound of waves. It’s one thing to read that over 5,200 people once lived here, but quite another to stand there and try to comprehend that population density. The contrast, once the most densely populated place on earth, now completely silent, is deeply moving.”

“Sadly, I had to settle for a regular tour along with the rest of lowly masses, weather depending. (Cruises are often cancelled based on the sea conditions.) I had arranged the tour with Gunkanjima Cruises (¥3,600), and at 9:10 on the dot, our cruiser set off with about 100 people in tow, all Japanese and all carrying ponchos in preparation for the rainy weather. Sitting on the upper deck, we did get a little wet, but it was hard to pay attention to anything with the loudspeaker blasting out historical information in Japanese … the whole way. (Tip: bring earbuds.) After a rather unnecessary stop at Takashima—the island closest to Hashima—to use the toilet and listen to a short lecture about Hashima in front of a miniature replica, we finally spied the island on the horizon. It was significantly smaller than I dreamed, making the population density, which at one time was the highest in the world, even more impressive.”

“At less than a square mile, the island is tiny, but you never can quite grasp this when you’re winding through its warping high-risers. To get a better overall look we scaled the central watchtower, a precarious venture since its old access paths was now overgrown beyond usability. It never crossed our minds that the fisherman wouldn’t come back. We were more worried that we only had those two hours on the island, an arbitrary frame of time my friend picked in the moment of excitement when we got the green light for transport. There was enough stuff there to keep us busy there for an entire day, so we spent our two hours running about in a mad state of neurosis, aware that this once-in-a-lifetime experience was slipping away before us faster than it would be possible to experience all of it.”