There is a Danchi housing estate complex in Tokyo that walk through every night to shave 5 minutes off my commute. If you don't know what a Danchi is, then good for you. Just picture the British council estates in The Bill or 'The Projects' in the US, minus of course the crime, drugs, and violence.
Even in the darkness I have always been utterly captivated by its sheer ugliness.
Ive always wanted to have a good look at it in the daylight so this morning I got up really early and spent 30 minutes walking through it. Given the early hour, it was absolutely deserted and deathly quite.
I am not sure if too many people actually live there anyway. Certainly no one who that wants to anyway.
The waist high grass and weeds, the diabolical looking Soviet cookie cutter design, to be completely honest the whole lonely scene reminded me that abandoned city of Prypiat that was abandoned in the Ukraine after the '86 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl.
Even though there are some signs of habitation like lights at night, the whole place gives off a stench of decay, despair, and neglect.
The grass is overgrown to a meter or so in most parts, adding to a feeling of abandonment. Like something out of eastern Europe before the iron curtain fell.
What people there are seem to be getting on with it the best they can. I certainly hope none have to stay longer absolutely necessary.
All throughout the complex there seems to be an intense battle being waged between the decorative plants and flowers placed by humans, and the naturally occurring forest flowers, weeds, and waste high grass.
Despite the beauty of these flowers, the strangest thing happens. Somehow the foul, decrepit atmosphere of the housing complex manages to pollute their radiance. It was sort of like looking at a beautifully crafted designer bag by Louis Vuitton or Gucci for sale in a pawn shop. Somehow, it just seemed cheap and dirty.
As if to rub peoples nose in it further, the city has installed a playground fashioned from industrial use concrete tubing, steel scaffolding pipes, and old tires.
There is a river flowing nearby with all these strange, it has these huge industrial concrete blocks through it as though was an existing structure that the river is slowly eroding away. there before the river.
Walking past this place on my way to and from work everyday will be a good thing. I hope I never end up in a place like this.
