7. Japan Highlights

My month in Japan (33 days to be exact) was incredible and I loved every minute of it - I'm 100% coming back one day! I'm writing this from Pokhara in Nepal which makes me even more nostalgic for Japan than I would have been otherwise - so far Nepal has been a mixture of food poisoning, extreme air pollution, and terrible infrastructure! I could not have chosen a more contrasting country to visit after Japan!

So in order to indulge my nostalgia, here's a list of Japan highlights I haven't written about yet :)

1. Cherry Blossoms

Hanami in Hiroshima

Japan's cherry blossoms are famous world-wide and I am so happy that I managed to time my trip so that I was there for cherry blossom season. The perfect time to see cherry blossoms varies from place to place, and full-bloom only lasts for a few days at a time, but I managed to see more than my fair share of sakura. But what makes the cherry blossoms so special is the Japanese reaction to them. While the Japanese tend to be more quiet and reserved in public, where there's a cherry tree, there's a group of ecstatic Japanese people beneath it, drinking and laughing. 

The act of viewing cherry blossoms is called hanami, and is a national pastime. People bring tatami mats or blue canvas sheets outside with plentiful picnics and celebrate en masse. There are public parties in parks and gardens where the cherry trees are lit up and there are street food stalls lining the paths. I was lucky enough to stumble upon two such celebrations, one in the famous Kenruko-en garden in Kanazawa and one in Muroyama park in Kyoto, which my friend Rosie found. Muroyama park was especially amazing, with people sitting on tatami mats eating and drinking as far as the eye could see! 

Muroyama Park

2. Miyajima Island 

Lauded as one of the "Three Most Scenic Spots of Japan" I had high expectations for Miyajima Island. I had been promised charming free roaming deer and a mystical floating torii gate out on the water. I was initially very disappointed... the charming deer were scabby, dirty and tried to eat my travel guide, while crowds of other tourists marred my view of the "floating" gate. Eventually I was herded into the Itsukushima Shrine. The bright orange shrine was first built in 593, is supported on stilts to protect it from water at high tide, and is dedicated to three goddesses, one of which is worshipped as the deity of traffic safety.

I tried to make the most of things and amused myself by "ironically" taking pictures of other tourists getting photos in front of the floating gate from the shrine's outcropping pier. As if sensing my lack of appreciation, the goddesses of the sea, fortune and traffic safety sent me not one but two traditional Japanese wedding parties to prove me wrong and inspire some amazement and enthusiasm! The brides were beautiful, with elaborate hairstyles and dressed in colourful kimonos. Both couples had a bossy professional woman fluttering around them for at least 20 minutes adjusting minute details before the photoshoot could start. I joined the other tourists and excitedly, and non-ironically, took as many pictures as I could! 

As if that were't enough, my favourite goddesses sent a deer walking into my picture just as I was about to leave the shrine. Needless to say, I didn't leave and instead tried to follow the deer's path as it walked through the stilts under the shrine's walkways. Of course, all my ducking and peering earned me plenty of strange looks from passers by! 

3. Nara Dreamland

On the day Rosie arrived in Japan to join me, we went to see the abandoned Nara Dreamland themepark which closed in 2006 and was inspired by Disneyland California. I definitely prefer abandoned theme parks to running ones! There are no queues, no screaming children, no overpriced fast-food restaurants, and very few other people... a misanthropist's ideal day out. It was very atmospheric and eery. Everything had been just left there and was rusty and overgrown. It was like looking into some post-apocalyptic future where nature was reclaiming it's territory... should I worry that I preferred it like that?! 

4. Himeji castle

Himeji castle was stunningly beautiful, like a fairy tale palace a little girl (me!) wants to live in for ever. It dates back to 1333 and incredibly survived extensive bombing during WW2 and a massive earthquake in 1995. The interior isn't beautifully decorated like most castles in Europe would be, it's main function was military and defensive. Unfortunately, that's about all I can tell you about the castle, because our volunteer guide, while clearly very nice and friendly, was impossible to understand. I'm sure you can imagine our horror when we realised that we could barely pick out individual words from his steady stream of commentary, only after agreeing to let him guide us around the entire castle. Like good Brits, we nodded and smiled the entire time while screaming on the inside. But it was still a very beautiful castle.

5. Geisha spotting in Kyoto

While I was catching up with writing my blog, Rosie discovered the geisha district in Gion which was just around the corner from our hostel in Kyoto. She came back to get me and we had a lot of fun hanging around the streets and looking out for real geisha running between houses from one appointment to the next. Real geisha are incredibly rare in Japan, and are mainly reserved for the entertainment of the wealthy (outside of occasional spring dances in public - unfortunately I didn't manage to see any!) I met some tourists in Tokyo convinced that they had just seen a geisha, and I didn't have the heart to tell them it was just another Chinese tourist who had rented a kimono for the day. 

Blurry picture of a geisha I saw

6. My last night

At the end of our trip, Rosie and I stayed in an airbnb in Osaka. Our room was in a building called Happiness 3, and the owners really lived up to that name! We met Kazuma, his fiance and two of his friends for dinner on our last night. They took us to a great restaurant, where the tables are all in separate booths separated by light coloured screens and sliding doors. I had the most amazing meal that night, with plenty of hot sake. They ordered lots of food to share, we had sashimi, tempura, sushi, chicken, octopus and so much more! Our hosts were really fun to talk to and we laughed a lot - it was great finally being with the locals in the private booth instead of sitting at the bar and randomly pointing at things because I couldn't read the menu (although that does hold its own appeal!) All in all, an amazing last evening. 

6. Disaster, WW2 and Art

Disaster, WW2 and Art

Before coming to Japan, I knew shockingly little about Japan's involvement in the Second World War and the extent to which fighting also occurred in East Asia. Since then I've made an effort to educate myself, and changed my itinerary at the last minute to include Hiroshima. I was partially inspired to do so by some of the art I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo which dealt with WW2 and which I found particularly moving. I decided to seek out more art from that time and write a blog post about it.

Renzo Kita, Last Moment of the Admiral, 1943, MOMAT

However, I really struggled to find any more art dealing with WW2 since then. I quickly realised that the subject is a very controversial one in Japan and that I wasn't the only one ignorant about Japan's role in the war. According to an English person I met who was teaching in Japan for a year, Japanese children are barely taught anything about the Second World War in schools and many are even unaware that they lost the war and surrendered. I found a very interesting BBC News article by a Japanese woman describing history lessons in schools. The students cover the entirety of Japanese history in only one year (often not even reaching the 20th century due to lack of time), and only 19 out of 357 pages of the government-approved textbook even discuss the war. Only one sentence describes the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while one-line footnotes mention the 1937 Nanjing massacre in China and the use of comfort women (roughly 200,000 forced prostitutes, mainly Korean) by the Imperial Army of Japan.

The latter two atrocities are two of the principle reasons why there are still tensions between Japan and China and Korea today. The dispute about the comfort women wasn't settled until last December, when Japan and Korea decided to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the issue, including $8 million reparation money going towards support funds for the surviving women and an apology from the current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Many Koreans were angered by this deal and the lack of communication of the Korean government with the victims. Coincidentally, my internship workplace in Berlin was right next to the South Korean embassy and shortly after this deal was made, I saw a protest outside the embassy where a group of women were protesting against the decision. I picked up an information leaflet, and that was the first time I had ever heard of comfort women. 

Unfortunately, there's a significant revisionist movement in Japan headed by Nobukatsu Fujioka who is a professor of education at Tokyo University. He denies that the Nanjing masscare (or Rape of Nanjing) ever happened and insists that the comfort women were paid prostitutes (despite testimonies of surviving soldiers confessing to rape and violence.) These denials make relations with China and Korea increasingly difficult for Japan, and these countries pay close attention to public Japanese statements about the past. Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2, Abe failed to apologise for Japanese actions in the war, despite echoing past apologies, angering China who railed against it in their state media. Similarly, visits of government officials to the Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines the war dead including 14 Class A war criminals, regularly produces outcries in other Asian countries. But the lack of education about the war in Japan means that many Japanese people don't understand why there is still so much hatred directed towards their country from their neighbours.

After I read about these controversies and spoke to other travellers shocked by the lack of awareness they encountered about the Second World War, I tried to remain critical when looking at WW2 art and visiting Hiroshima.

Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, after the bombing
(1945 Picture by AP - 2014 Picture by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is beautifully laid out and comprises many memorials, the Peace Memorial Museum, and the Atomic Bomb Dome. The dome, a former trade hall, is one of the few structures that survived the initial atomic bomb explosion and was right under the epicentre. It was kept standing as a memory of the atrocity. The main purpose of the memorial site is to promote peace, and it is part of an initiative to try to make the world atomic-bomb free.

The Atomic Bomb Dome today

Monument to Korean Victims and Survivors

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was created in 1954 .However, the monument to Korean Victims and Survivors wasn't erected until 1970. Of the 200,000 Hiroshima citizens who died as a result of the atomic bombing (including radiation-related deaths in the aftermath), 10% were Korean. The memorial plaque states that these Koreans were living there as "soldiers, civilian employees of the army, mobilized students and ordinary citizens". This is definitely a white-washing of history - the vast majority of Koreans living in Japan during WW2 were forced labourers. According to Korean historians, approximately 670,000 Koreans were taken to Japan for manual labour. Approximately 60,000 of them died between 1939 and 1945, mostly due to exhaustion and poor working conditions (wikipedia).




The most condemning description I read of Japanese action during the war was at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. It was a very effective, beautiful memorial where I watched a couple of moving first-hand accounts of the bombing. However, the sentence "we recall with great sorrow the many lives sacrificed to mistaken national policy" shocked me with its extreme use of euphemism. The word "sacrificed" also made me feel uncomfortable with its associations of martyrdom and patriotism. This sentiment echoed the WW2 art I saw at the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, where the majority of the paintings held a sense of heroic sacrifice.

Ken'ichi Nakamura, 1945, MOMAT

I found Nakamura's 1945 painting Sergeant Nobe's Suicide Attack on Two B-29's Over Kitakyushu visually beautiful, dominated by the impressionistic sky. The top centre shows the explosion, with 3 planes falling to the ground. The scene illustrates the 1944 American attack on the city of Kitakyushu, when two young Japanese men flew their plane into two U.S. B-29s, according to the description a tactic devised by the soldiers themselves. The description and the painting focus on the heroism of the act, the self-sacrifice which brought down the enemy. The distance in the painting removes any reality of the horror and the loss of life entailed in the actual event.

Similarly, the painting Special Attack Corps Setting Out From a Homeland Base II focused on heroism, in this case of a suicide attack unit. The picture was commissioned by the army, so it is no wonder that there is no political criticism in the piece. However, I struggled to find any critical art work from the period at all! The painting is certainly effective. I was moved by the stoicism of the soldiers knowing they were going to die, the calmness of a group in the background praying. I found it subtle- the heroism lies in the expressions and the composure of the soldiers rather than in any kind of pomp or fanfare.

Sentaro Iwata, Special Attack Corps Setting Out From a Homeland Base II, 1945, MOMAT

The gallery dedicated to art from the Second World War at the MOMAT surprised me in its repeated portrayal of heroic sacrifice. I often associate art, especially from the 20th century on-wards, with dissent and social or political criticism and was surprised not to find the same in Japan. This is in tune with Japanese society, where the emphasis lies on maintaining social harmony while their sense of identity is much more tied to community than in our individualistic western culture.

Fumiaki Aono, 2013

While Germany's Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (coming to terms with the past) can't be applied to WW2 in Japan, I did see it in Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art where the current exhibition focused on nuclear disaster. Japan's 2011 tsunami and ensuing three nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima resulted in almost 16,000 deaths and brought Japan to its knees. Only one piece in the museum was directly inspired by the disaster - Fumiaki Aono's Restoration/ Substitution/ Coalescence/ Connection. Aono walked along a beach after the tsunami and collected items from the debris. He created a sculpture with the things he found, combining a two-part storage unit, a wardrobe, part of a pink tile wall (probably from a public bath), pieces of clothing, cups, slippers and a faucet. The artwork is hopeful, one of restoration and rebuilding rather than destruction. But it is also sad and moving, the objects acting as witnesses to a disaster where the victims cannot, and reminding the viewer of the people they once surrounded and belonged to.


A video installation in a dark room adjacent to the sculpture highlights the inability of humanity to learn from past suffering. The Finnish artist Mika Taanila created the piece entitled The Most Electrified Town in Finland, where three large screens play videos of the construction of the nuclear power plant Olkiluoto 3 in southwestern Finland. These videos are mixed with black and white videos of northern-European nature and colourful scenes of everyday life. There is an overarching sense of doom, with workers moving like ants over the gigantic structure and the empty nature images suggesting a future, total return to nature.

Mika Taanila, The Most Electrified Town in Finland, 2004-2012 (www.tentrotterdam.nl)

The next artpiece was inspired by Chernobyl, framing the video installation with the two worst nuclear disasters in history. The Japanese artist Kenji Yanobe travelled to Chernobyl (where a nuclear reactor accident occurred in 1986) which inspired "rebirth after despair" as a theme in his work. In Kanazawa, he installed the piece Viva Revival Project: Stand-Up, a massive robot modeled on a child. Opposite this robot hangs a fluorescent smiling sun. After it "emits" 20 pulsing radiation exposures, the child slowly stands up. More than this installation, it was the photograph of Yanobe at Chernobyl in a yellow radiation suit surrounded by debris, including a broken piano, dolls and a globe, which really impressed me.

Kenji Yanobe, Viva Revival Project Stand-Up, 2001

Kenji Yanobe in Chernobyl

Coming Up: Japan Highlights - final post!

5. Naoshima Island Part Two: Interactive Art

Naoshima Island Part Two: Interactive Art

Since publishing my last post, I've discovered that writing about interactive art is incredibly difficult. It relies so much on personal experience, even more so than other art, but I've found a (possibly unauthorised) YouTube video of one of my favourite pieces to help ease you in. The Japanese artist Rei Naito and architect Ryue Nishizawa created the incredible Teshima Art Museum in 2010, a single art space where Maja and I were entertained for a surprisingly long time. The best endorsement of the museum came from Maja, who, while we were waiting in the irritatingly long queue, decided that she had had enough of art and sightseeing and that she refused to be impressed anymore. As soon as we entered the space and realised what was going on, she exclaimed that it was absolutely incredible and the best thing she had ever seen!

See for yourself!


While I know little about architecture, the architect also staying at my airbnb said the museum is an architectural wonder. It is a seamlessly curved concrete shell, which echoes the contours of the surrounding hills. On either end of the cave-like space, there are two elliptical open holes. This means that the art space changes according to the weather and the height of the sun. The effect was other-worldly in its naturalness and seeming timelessness.

Teshima Art Museum (www.domusweb.it)

 (https://theolderpennsister.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/a-sacred-space/)

What captivated us even more than the surreal space was the artwork. We were warned before entering to look where we were stepping and that everything on the floor was art. There were a couple of small sculptures on the ground, some looking like hollow plastic balls. But mainly there was just water. At first we thought the water was mixed with some kind of chemical or gel, causing it to stick together and move in such a fascinating way, but we discovered that it was all natural water being pumped from a well beneath the museum and into the space through tiny holes in the floor. It was the coating on the concrete surface which made the water move like a living being. When we first entered the space it was a bit windy and long, thick bodies of water were racing towards a shallow pool like big caterpillars.We spent around an hour watching water and could easily have stayed even longer. It was mesmerising watching it move around, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, moving around in small and large formations, swirling away into a hole in the ground or joining one of the big pools in the sunny area... you get the picture! Everyone had to be careful not to walk or sit on an area with water, or get caught in the two loops of ribbon hanging from the holes and waving in the wind. One tourist got into trouble for blowing on some drops of water, trying to get them to move. I guess he wasn't technically touching it!

It was the participation and the wonder of the spectators walking through the space, or sitting in the sun and staring at the water, that made the art so special. The museum demanded exploration and a willingness to participate, to let yourself be awed by something as simple as water. It certainly inspired a child-like wonder in everyone. The best example for this was a Japanese grandmother who came with her grandchildren and couldn't contain her loud excitement, even after being reprimanded several times. The toddlers, however, were exemplary.

I would love to visit Teshima again and see the museum in different conditions. It must be even more magical in the rain, or at sunrise or sunset. It was like an organic being, despite being entirely made up of inanimate things. Before my trip to Naoshima and Teshima, I had never thought of concrete as a potentially beautiful material, but this museum managed to used ordinary materials and make them into something inspiring and breathtaking.

Teshima Art Museum (wordlesstech.com)

James Turrell's Open Field

I've already written about two of the art spaces in the Chichu Museum of Art. The incredible design and organisation of the museum, where every detail is designed for maximum impact, already contains a certain interactive aspect. But the art space dedicated to James Turrell's work took this interactivity one step further. Particularly one of his installations, Open Field, requires active participation. Again, only small groups were allowed in at a time, and a guide took us to black steps leading up to what looks like a plain blue screen.

Open Field, James Turrell, 2000 (http://benesseartsite.jp)

When everyone was gathered in front of the screen, the guide told us to touch it. Our hands went right through it. We were then asked to walk into it. The moment when we passed through the screen into a room suffused with blue light is almost indescribable. The sudden shift in perception was dizzying and, once walking through the room, there was a general feeling of amazement and exhilaration.

Open Field, James Turrell, 2000 (http://memory-imprint.blogspot.jp/)

The viewer must participate in order to experience the artist's desired effect, which asks the viewer to question the accuracy of what we see and perceive by actively tricking the viewer's perception. I liked the idea of hidden rooms, hidden worlds, behind a deceptive surface, and the act of penetration and immersion to discover the reality. Being actively involved creates a more personal, individual experience of the art. I guess it could be seen as a metaphor for art in general, where in order to truly experience or understand it, it's necessary to take some time and look beyond the first impression. 



Coming up: Disaster, WW2 and Art

4. Naoshima Island, Part One: Tadao Ando

My three days on the islands in the Seto Inland Sea have definitely been the highlight of my trip so far. Naoshima island is really one of the most special and unique places I've ever been to! Towards the end of the 20th century it was turned into an art and architecture project in an attempt to revitalise the local area which, like many rural places in Japan, was decaying due to the numbers of people moving to urban areas. As a result, the island has the most amazing contemporary art museums I've been to, as well as a variety of other fantastic art projects. I've had to split my post about Naoshima island into two posts, because I've seen so many amazing things and have so much to write about!

The best airbnb in the world

Airbnb common room and Yoshio preparing the feast

My 700 km journey from Tokyo to Mukaejima island, where I was staying in an airbnb, was relatively relaxing. I took my first ever bullet train to Okayama which was amazing, mainly due to the very generous leg room available. This was followed by two very wobbly local trains (I checked the bathrooms and they were still spotless - how?!) to Uno port. I just about suppressed the urge to shout "UNO!" whenever I saw a sign. From there I took a ferry to Naoshima island and my airbnb host Yoshio picked me up in his little motorboat and took me to Mukaejima island, only about 100m away. I had to wait for him for over half and hour and an old drunk Japanese man joined me and talked at me for the entire time. For all I knew he could have been telling me his life story. I just hoped he wasn't trying to tell me that a serial killer lived on the other island who regularly picked up tourists.

Fortunately, the airbnb was wonderful. It's basically a hostel with many guests at the same time. I stayed in a traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and sliding doors in an old house 30 metres away from the main house. The main house had some dorms and a common room where every evening the guests and the hosts prepared a feast together for dinner. My first night there were dumplings, grilled fish, chicken, miso soup, rice, mashed pumpkin, potatoes and baked radish, and it was the most delicious meal I've ever had. And the food only got better each night! I stayed there for four nights and Yoshio ferried us between the two islands every day.

Tadao Ando and Naoshima's museums

Tadao Ando is a famous Japanese self-taught architect. I never truly appreciated architecture until I saw his work on Naoshima which so beautifully complemented its surroundings and the work of the artists inside his buildings. He believes that "to change the dwelling is to change the city and to reform society"(wikipedia). This is certainly in tune with his work on Naoshima, which has changed a decaying island into a centre for contemporary art and a wonderful destination for foreign and Japanese tourists alike. 

Zen Buddhism greatly influenced his art, and it is this aspect which impressed me the most. Zen emphasises simplicity and focuses on inner feeling and experience rather than on outer appearance. Ando's buildings principally use a light-coloured concrete and are often mainly underground. Because of this, his buildings seem somewhat unimpressive from the outside, but the interior spaces and the way they are laid out are phenomenal.

Entrance of Lee Ufan museum

I especially saw this in the first museum I went to, the Lee Ufan Museum. Lee Ufan is a minimalist Korean artist known for his contribution to contemporary art in Japan. While I liked his ideas, what made his work really special was the combination of his pieces with Ando's architecture. It was clear that the museum was designed as a whole, rather than as a building in which to display various exhibitions. The museum is situated at the top of a valley with outdoor artworks on a meadow sloping down to the beach and sea. The entrance of the museum is hidden behind concrete walls forming two corridors you have to walk through to get to the reception. 

Shadow Room, www.studioleeufan.org

Each art work corresponded perfectly with the room it was in. The first room, Encounter Room,

was bright with six minimalist paintings hanging on the walls, all combinations of glue or oil and stone pigment on a large canvas. In the middle was a sculpture which I particularly liked called Relatum, a steel plate cracked into four sections, covered by a glass plate with a natural rock sitting on the point where the cracks meet. The intact glass plate is impossible and acts as a transparent barrier between cause and consequence. Ufan's art thematised the natural location of the modern building, often just combining a natural rock with a plate or rod of steel. After the bright room you enter a dark corridor leading into three dark rooms. I loved the last one, called Shadow Room, a narrow concrete corridor with just one rock sitting in the middle. A light came from behind casting a black shadow and a series of video clips were projected onto the shadow, including a wandering moon, a busy road crossing, and waves crashing onto the shore. The effect was surreal, an unreal, dream-like space where you can watch an accelerated, repetitive outside world through a shadow on the floor. I've never seen a museum like it, with every aspect (of course including the bathroom) complementing and referencing the rest and creating a complex relationship between interior and exterior worlds.

I walked from the Lee Ufan museum along the beach and up a hill to Benesse House, a hotel and museum complex also designed by Tadao Ando. Opened in 1992, the brochure says it focuses on the concept of "coexistence of nature, architecture and art", so along very similar lines as the Lee Ufan museum. The brochure, in typical Japanese translation style, also wished: "may your encounter with art here, sublimed by the stunning landscapes of the Seto Inland Sea, be a delightful and enriching experience."

Time Exposed, Hiroshi Sugimoto, 1980-97, Benesse House

It definitely was, although the museum wasn't as perfectly coherent as the Lee Ufan museum. It has forty contemporary artworks spread over three floors by a wide variety of Japanese and international artists, including Andy Warhol. Again, the sprawling architecture was amazing and often played off the art and vice versa. For example I really liked the piece Time Exposed by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Along two walls are a number of photographs which initially all look like the same image, blocks of white and black. When you look closer, you realise they are all images of an ocean. Over almost two decades, Sugimoto took photographs of oceans from different corners of the world, exploring the concepts of time, distance and unity. The works were displayed on Ando's characteristic concrete walls outside, with a gap looking out on the Sea, offering a view similar to the subject of the work and inspiring a sensation of the timelessness of nature. As the photographs are permanently outdoors, they themselves show the wear of time through fading and exposure to various weather conditions. I found the exhibition comforting somehow, that no matter what we do to the planet, no matter what buildings we build and how easy it has become to travel across the world, the ocean will outlive us.

Sonatine for Goldfish, Nam June Paik, 1992
http://ffffound.com

I found some of the other artworks at Benesse House simply hilarious. The American Korean artist Nam June Paik put an aquarium inside a cast of a TV. There's a goldfish swimming around inside which many people found amazing and definitely spent longer looking at than the other artworks put together. The piece is as old as I am, and all I could think about was how many goldfish have they put inside that TV set in the last 23 years? I guess the piece is also a comment on our perception of the world we find ourselves in... the series of goldfish must all have died with a god complex, having spent their lives being stared at in awe and hearing the questions "is it a real goldfish? What does it mean?" Another funny piece was Jonathan Borofsky's Three Chattering Men, 1986, which comprises of three statues of men attached to speakers repeating the word "chatter, chatter, chatter". The recorded men had an American accent and I was just reminded of all the American travellers I've met who just won't stop talking about nothing. (Sorry Americans!)

I could probably write a novel about all the art I saw in Benesse House, but for the sake of (relative) brevity I will move on to the Chichu Art Museum, also brilliantly designed by Ando. This is definitely the most popular museum on the island, and you have to go there early to get timed tickets for later in the day. The museum is entirely underground with only windows visible from above.

Chichu Art Museum, Photo: Iwan Baan, (http://111.89.141.224/en/chichu)

There are only three "art spaces" inside, the most popular being a large room lit by natural light displaying five pieces from Monet's Water Lily series. The Japanese are absolutely obsessed with Monet, and while in the past I always found his repetitive themes somewhat boring, I gained a new appreciation for him in this room. The reason the museum needs timed tickets is that they only let a few people into any art space at one time, meaning that you have a much more personal experience of the art. There is nothing as disappointing as going to the Louvre in Paris to see the Mona Lisa, only to find a tiny canvas surrounded by a crowd of tourists struggling to take pictures. Understandably, of course, because reproduced images of the Mona Lisa are so rare... Being almost alone with these paintings in a large, bright room was incredible. The paintings were from Monet's later life, and therefore more experimental and rough in style. I found that the further away I stood, the clearer they became, and it was fun experimenting to find the ideal distance from each painting. 

Another art space was one giant hall (below), called Time/ Timeless/ No Time by Walter de Maria. When my friend (from the airbnb) and I first went in, it took our breath away. It was unexpectedly large and cavernous, and we were the first to enter. My friend, Maja, said it reminded her of a cathedral, while I had immediately thought of ancient temples and sacrificial alters. The window to the sky, the steps, the organ-pipe-like gold leaf sculptures, and the mysterious, 2.2m diameter granite sphere, all felt religious or mystical and, combined, certainly impressive. This space is also a prime example for how Tadao Ando and the respective artists (excluding Monet, for some reason) worked together to create the museum. The architecture in these museums is part of the art, which, in any other space, wouldn't have half the impact.

Time/ Timeless/ No Time, Walter de Maria, 2004
openbuildings.com

Coming up: Naoshima Island, Part Two, starring art as an interactive experience and Teshima Island