They sure do have a thing for bizarre theme parks in Japan. Alongside your Disneys and your Universal Studios comes a whole host of others: your Russian-village-themed parks, your Gulliver-themed parks, and so on.

Perhaps as we might expect, the majority of these niche entertainment spots go bankrupt shortly after opening.

Such must be the case with the abandoned Louvre theme park that we visited recently in rural Japan. For some reason, it is called "Ceramic Land."

It seems that they want you to come here and bask in the fake wealth of Japanese-European ceramic historical architecture (or something). But the place has been closed for years for the obvious reason: Nobody wanted to go there.

Still, someone is keeping the lawns in order and the bushes trimmed, perhaps in the vain hope that, someday, the Japanese touring public will get wise to the joys of fake medieval French pottery.

Somehow we don't see that happening. Click through to see more photos of the faux Louvre.



All photos courtesy of Michael John Grist, a photographer and novelist living in Tokyo. You can read his fiction and see more of his visual explorations of Japan on his excellent website.