I was a bit slow on the uptake with this one, I just found out today although it was announced in October:
One of Japan’s modern marvels is no more. The Seagaia Dome – the world’s largest indoor beach – has shut its doors, amidst a protracted slump in visitor numbers. The arena-sized indoor lagoon, complete with perpetual blue sky and wave machine, has always held a special place in my heart – back when I first made the decision to move to Japan, it was partly out of a desire to visit the beach, which I had marveled at on Australian TV and wrongly imagined was located in the bustling heart of Tokyo. Imagine that- in the middle of Shibuya! Maybe on top of a skyscraper…(Whereas it is, or was, in Miyazakidai, a provincial city in Kyushu).Oh well, I’ll guess I’ll never get a chance to go now. The complex is one of the last of Japan’s lavish Bubble-Era extravaganzas to go under. In the heady boom years of the late 80s,the government was throwing “local tourism development” grants at small towns and cities across the nation to build such ill-conceived attractions as huge solid gold chess pieces for the city square, or remotely-located “New Zealand” theme parks. Not surprisingly, few of them proved viable.Seagaia, a hugely expensive and dazzling artificial beach (which was itself located on a superb stretch of natural ocean beach – the final irony? or the ultimate insult?) was truly a child of the times.But now this “paradise within a paradise” as it was known, is no more. How sad. My friend Ryu even used to work there as a lifeguard…Truly the end of an era.
