Side trips - Okayama and Naoshima

I stayed the night at Okayama Plaza Hotel.  Very friendly and helpful but not as much English spoken.  (Who am I complain.  If I come back, I'll take Japanese lessons first!)  It was right beside Korakuen, a famous Japanese garden, so I went for a wander.  It was very orderly which rather took from the atmosphere.  Had some beautiful specimens and interesting places but Shin Sien remains my firm favourite.

 


I did discover a delightful  public walkway by the river and had an ice-cream in one of the cafés.

View from cafe - Okayama castle in background.

At the hotel that night I was presented with a menu in Japanese (with no pictures)  but the kind waitress took me outside to look at plastic replicas and I chose something that looked innocuous and did the trick nicely.

Naoshima Art Island

Up early to head for Naoshima, which had been highly recommended.  First a taxi to the station, then local train to Uno and ferry to the island. Had found a direct train on hyperdia.com so that was easy. A market was just getting started on the dock and there were tall ships in the harbout so it was a pleasant wait.

We meandered through the islands for about 20 minutes before landing at Miyanoura Port, where we were herded onto the local bus.  It was fun going off on an adventure with a load of other tourists from all countries (not least Japan).  The local bus connected with a shuttle bus around the various galleries at that end of the island.  You can't take pictures but there are pictures on the web. I must admit I found Tadao Ando's buildings rather stark and the Chichu museum positively claustrophobic but some of the galleries were stunning and the use of natural lighting was extraordinarily clever.

A Monet garden on the walk to Chichu is designed to get you in the mood for the Monet room, where you can see Monet waterlily paintings, one of which is ginormous. 

I walked to the next museum (the Lee Ufan gallery).  I really liked his work .  

Then it was back on the bus to go to the Art house project at Honmura.  This was like a treasure hunt through a really lovely village. Some of the houses were interesting but I don't know if it was tiredness, but I didn't find any of the ones I saw particularly impressive.  I did love walking through the village though.  I think it would have been much more memorable if I'd stayed a night in a b-and-b at Honmura and taken it all at a more leisurely pace.    

The local bus, ferry, train, taxi ride back to Okayama was quite straightforward and the ferry was a gem.

I sat here and watched the world go by.