S P O T ／ SPOT-296

Kanpuzan Rotating Observatory

寒風山回転展望台かんぷうざんかいてんてんぼうだい

At the base of the Oga Peninsula, on the grassy summit of Mount Kanpu (around 355 m), stands a lone cylindrical observation tower whose top floor literally turns. The 4th-floor deck rotates with its floor, completing one full revolution in about 13 minutes, so that a seated visitor watches a 360-degree panorama slide past — the great Ogata reclaimed plain, the Hachirogata basin, the Oga Sanzan peaks, distant Mount Chokai, and the Sea of Japan. Because Mount Kanpu is an almost treeless meadow volcano, nothing blocks the view. Opened in 1964, the observatory is one of the few survivors of the 'rotating observatory' fad that swept Showa-era Japan, and the sight of a UFO-like drum perched alone on a bald green hill gives the place a genuinely strange roadside-attraction presence.