Sunday, July 29, 2012

# OUT & ABOUT in Japan # ... Suicide Forest Pt.1


                      WARNING ><><>< WARNING


                           ... THE PICTURES you are about to see ARE GRAPHIC!!
                           ... A DECAPITATED BODY was found by my friends and I
                           ... It was found in the Aokigahara Forest
                           ... This forest is now commonly called JYUKAI

                           ... It's a very popular place to commit suicide


     Aokigahara Forest lies on the North West side of Mt.Fuji in Japan.  It's more recent name, Jyukai, meaning the Sea of Trees is commonly used these days.  This name came about from the many people that ascend/descend Mt.Fuji as on the North West side can be seen this area of trees stretching 35 square kilometers large and is green all year round.

Carlos is standing below to get an idea how far the drop is from the ledge where I'm standing

 
     Jyukai hosts a number of tourist destinations such as an ice cave,  hiking trails and camp sites and near by lakes.  But Jyukai is actually more famous than all of the above for the following 2 reasons.  Jyukai is the second most popular suicide place in the world.  In 2011, 247 bodies were found.  Secondly, Jyukai is host to endless tales of ghosts,  spirits, displaced energy and the Japanese Yurei.  A Yurei is a spirit that lingers close to the body it has just left and has different characteristics to ghosts and spirits. 


Spooky forest is all around us



Setting up camp, it was a rare flat place

 
     Here is a part of the story,  travels and adventurous curiosity of 6 foreigners living in Tokyo.  i will refer to the area using the newer name of Jyukai mainly because here in Japan it holds an amazing aura of spookiness,  a place NOT to go to, and of course death.  And the forest in general is said to be deadly quiet.  Which is absolutely true as we discovered!!


Look closely - see the blades below the handle of the hack saw? It looks like this person was undecided which tool to use



One of the top 3 ways to commit suicide is to use sleeping pills

     We all had different expectations.  We were all curious.  Deep in our minds and hearts we never expected to go home to girlfriends and wives and children touched with the unexpected emotions of what we encountered.

     The 6 guys are, A.J. from Canada, Steve from Canada, Tony from South Africa, Carlos from Mexico, Paul from England and myself Craig from Australia.

walking and searching for a camp site, there are always plenty of shadows, gorges and tape to look at


Mt.Fuji last erupted in the year 862. Leaving a mountain side of molten rock to dry. This is the result of centuries of untouched wilderness


     It all started one evening while having Street Beer.  A.J. starts talking about this place he had heard of where people go to kill themselves near Mt. Fuji.  As we had climbed Mt.Fuji a couple of times it seemed like a good chance to get together to discover a new place. This time it involved scarier aspects ... ghosts and gore!!

     By mid April we had set a date for the middle of July.  By mid June we had a stack of people that wanted to go.  By early July the list had shrunk to a definite 6.  Interestingly, most of the others cancelled because of the scary reasons mentioned above. ... fair enough  ;)

Towards the top left corner is the body we found. The rope he attached to the tree is very long. It was thrown around a higher branch. Video of the find will be available in Part 2


    

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