Category: Travel

Sanyo Securities Company Limited was a Japanese investment bank founded in 1910 that at the end of the 80s was one of the largest banks in the country. When the bubble burst it became insolvent and ended up declaring bankruptcy in 1997; by 1999 all its operations had finished. In the boom times Sanyo Securities had its own leisure resort that could be used by its almost 5,000 employees to spend their holidays next to Lake Yamanaka. It was a hotel only used by employees.

After taking photos of the abandoned house and eating a good steak in a restaurant next to the lake we arrive with our car to the entrance of the leisure resort for Sanyo Securities employees. It has been abandoned for more than 10 years and it’s the only thing left from the company; the office building that they had in Tokyo is now being used by Sumitomo.

Behind the main building we can see the entrance to what was one of the main vaults of the investment bank, most likely it was used to keep gold. We are a little bit scared but here we go!

We arrive until the end of the hallway. Even though the floor is slippery, it’s quite easy to move around. A good amount of light enters through a skylight. We turn to the left and we see the first door of the bank vault. It’s closed and it looks very heavy but it’s easy to open. After this first door everything is pitch black; my instinct tells me that we shouldn’t keep going but Carlos, the bravest of us, starts walking using his iPhone to light up the way.

Inside there is a big door that gives access to what seems to be the main vault. In the wall there are several symbols (logos) of Sanyo Securities. For some reason… none of us is brave enough to enter the room but we take some photos from the entrance.

Another one for the Sadako photo series.

Shikinaen, constructed at the end of the 18th century, was the second largest residence for the Ryukyu royal families. The main residence of the Ryukyu kings was the Shuri Castle.

The Shikinaen installations were used to entertain royal family members and foreign guests, usually Chinese royal family delegations. The garden combines a unique mixture of Chinese and Japanese architectural design. The arched bridges are chinese style and also the hexagonal pavilion in the middle of the pond. I loved the hexagonal rest area, it kind of made me feel like I was visiting Beijing. On the other hand, the residence buildings are Japanese-Ryukyu style.

It was totally destroyed during the World War II, restored in 1976 and designated as World Heritage by the UNESCO in 2000. It’s worth visiting after the Shuri Castle (Shuri Station), it is a 25 minutes walk from there.

Other beautiful gardens worth visiting in Japan:

• Kenrokuen
• Rikugi-en in Tokyo
• Hamarikyu in Tokyo
• Koraku-en in Okayama

Last month +Carlos Donderis guided us around Panama where we relaxed and enjoyed the country and their people. Although it is a total different place, I found it having many similarities with Thailand: tropical weather, slow lifestyle, big income difference between the city and the country side population; and a general feeling that they could be one of the most advanced countries in the world but their people don’t really want to… they are more or less happy with what they have and their current lifestyle and maybe they don’t want to make the extra effort.

Panama City reminded me of Asian financial cities like Singapore or Shangai, but somehow being less developed. The Panama City skyline is beautiful, I guess most of those skyscrapers where built by banks and financial institutions (Panama was a fiscal paradise until 2010).

In Panama City we visited the Casco Viejo, one of the oldest areas of the city that was designed to protect settlers against pirate attacks. Although most of the architecture was Colonial, sometimes I felt I was walking around in a city located in southern Europe.

We visited the Miraflores Locks. We all know about the Panama Canal, but I had no idea about its history. One of the most interesting things of the visit to the locks is the museum. I learned about how the French (leaded by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the same person who built the Suez Canal) failed to finish building the Canal and that is why later the United States finished its construction and owned it until 1999.

We also learned how the locks work at Miraflores and how the new locks that are currently under construction have been designed to use much less water each time a boat uses them. The construction of the new locks seems to be one of the most important things going on in Panama right now.

Visiting the locks was educational but seeing the rainforest around the Gatún Lake (inside the canal) was much more fun. We saw a crocodile, we saw monkeys, iguanas and beautiful birds (I forgot the names). I wish I had my old Nikon D90 with my 200mm lens with me! I could not take any decent picture of the animals in the wild with my compact camera Canon S90.

Everything awesome and beautiful, but the best part of the travel was visiting the Atlantic side. We started the trip crossing the jungle from the Pacific Ocean side to the Atlantic side with a 4×4. I thought I could manage talking Spanish in Panama but I was wrong!

At the north east of Panama, their people speak the Kuna Language. It is a Native American agglutinative (like Japanese) language spoken by the people from the Kuna Yala region. I only learned the word kuwedi “good morning”.

More interesting than their language is their lifestyle. Most of the 35.000 Kuna people in the region are living in 400 little islands. We visited one island that was around 300x200meters with a population of 350 people. The people in the island seemed to be happy and enjoy their simple life. They have a library, a school, a doctor etc. In one of the libraries I saw a kid learning Spanish with a book. They seem to live thanks to their fishing skills.

We stayed in another island where we were half of the population 🙂 We almost owned the island for three days. The other inhabitants of the island were a Kuna family and four other tourists. We had the sea, coconuts, sand, two toilets in the whole island, pelicans flying around, lots of wind 24 hours a day, two kindles and… NO INTERNET! I relaxed and enjoyed, now I’m back to Tokyo replenished with positive energy!

More pictures I took during the trip in my flickr.