Drink Machine grease Flinders Motel

Flinders Motel

photographed in 2016

its white-painted balustrades and turned balusters wrapping around a central void as the treads descend toward a dark lower landing

in a classroom at Family School Fureai in Yubari

where faded signage still marks the back dock and weeds have split the concrete underfoot

Drink Machine grease Flinders MotelA vending machine sits in a corridor of the former Family School Fureai, paint peeling, display panel long dead. The building started as Yubari Municipal Asahi Elementary School in 1975, closed eight years later as the coal industry hollowed out the city, then reopened as a public lodging facility under Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu Co., Ltd. It closed again in 2006 and has had no operator since. Part of the Family School Fureai series.