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My time left on Shikoku was beginning to grow a bit short so I thought it was about time I saw everything of interest in my area before I moved on. Friday and Saturday were days off so Simon and I decided to visit Yashima a town with an intriguing heritage village called Shikoku Mura and Naoshima an art island.
--- March 20th ---
Yashima (屋島) ~ Don’t be fooled by the kanji, Yashima may have the character for island, but it’s not an island. It’s on mainland Shikoku a short kotoden train ride away from Takamatsu. The Shikoku Mura is a quick stroll from the train station and overall a really fun and interesting way to spend an afternoon. The Mura is a collection of old buildings and structures from all over Shikoku. There was a vine bridge from Oboke Koboke, a kabuki theatre from Shodoshima, several light houses from the islands in the Inland Sea, houses and warehouses from various places and much more. The entire complex was well laid out and landscaped as well as educational. After we finished exploring there we back tracked to the station and caught a bus to the top of the Yashima Plateau
and looked around Yashima-ji (ji = temple) Yashima-ji is number 84 of the 88 temple pilgrimage around Shikoku. This hill top was also the location of a famous battle between the Taira and Minamoto clans in the late 1100s.
--- March 21st ---
Naoshima (直島) ~ Once an average sleepy little island like all the others in the inland sea until someone had a vision to create a contemporary art and architecture collection out of natural space and run down fishing villages. Several people had told me that this was well worth the trip there and so we made the journey on Saturday.
The ferry from Takamatsu delivered us to Miyamoura Port around noon time and I made an instant beeline for one of the two Naoshima landmark “pumpkins” sitting next to the ferry pier. Big, red, hollow, spotted and cute. Next went to the 007 “The Man with the Red Tattoo” Museum since my British baby is a fan of that particular international man of mystery. The museum was a bit pants, but entertaining. After that we headed out on foot for Honmura, the port on the other side of the island where the art house project is. Naoshima
is small and hilly, but easy and enjoyable to walk around. The art house project is a collection of 6 rundown buildings taken by architects & artists and turned into works of art. We only made it to five of them since apparently you need to reserve a time spot to see Minamidera in advance, that no one told us about. The artistic creations were quite cool and I wish photography was allowed inside the exhibits.
After viewing the projects we had a bowl of hot udon and hit the road again around the coast to the Bennesse House. An abstract building filled with abstract works of art. The most interesting was a giant ant farm on the wall dug through boxes of sand that were made to look like the flags of all the countries. The last stop on our tour was the Chichu Art Museum. An interesting building supposedly supposed to look like a ship (but it doesn’t really). The architecture combined natural elements with concrete and was a pretty cool building designed by Tadao Ando, a famous Japanese architect. The museum was specifically created to hold specific works of art by James Turrell, Walter de Maria and
three of the “Water Lily” paintings by Monet. We were quite tired after all our sightseeing, but we made one last stop at the Yellow “Pumpkin” before grabbing a bus back to Miyanoura were we purchased some sandwiches and caught a high speed ferry to Takamatsu.
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