Japan's underground wonder

ONE step inside the former quarry site at the Oya History Museum in Utsunomiya and you will feel as if you are exploring ancient ruins.ed to be quarried at the site.

Oya stone, a type of tuff stone that can be seen across the city's Oya district, used to be quarried at the site.

Lured by the prospect of cold air, I went down a dark set of stairs at the old quarry and found myself in a vast underground space where there are a group of stone pillars, each one 10 meters (about 32 feet) wide.

Created as a result of about 70 years of drilling that started in 1919, the underground space is about 10m high and has an area of about 20,000 square metres - enough floor space for an entire baseball stadium. The temperature at 30m below ground is about 13 deg C even in mi…