Japan 17: The canal and Myst, Naoshima Island

I left early this morning to make sure I arrived in Kurashiki right in time for the museums to open.  When I got off the train, I immediately noticed just how loud it was.  As I approached the canal area, the sound was at its worst.  I assume it is cicadas.  I took this short video just to illustrate how loud they were.

First, I went to the Museum of Folkcraft.  It was expensive, but very small and mostly unimpressive.



The Ohara Museum of Art was next.  The first building was of a decent size, and there were two other buildings nearby.  Photography wasn't allowed in most of the exhibits.

Here were some that I liked.



I could not take pictures of my two favorites.  One was a Picasso.  I ended up finding postcards of them in the gift shop.  The one on the right looked much better in the larger, real life version.



One room of the museum was dedicated to "Annunciation."  It was a typical Jesus picture to me.  On the wall, it explained that while founding the museum, one of its creators was abroad in France and fell in love with it.  The other creators fell in love with it too.  I found it again, in the gift shop, but did not purchase it myself.



I peaked into the four roomed Japan Rural Toy Museum.  I didn't bother, since it was only four rooms.  The gift shop was nice though.



I spent time browsing the local pottery shops.  In one shop, a sign explained that the pottery absorbed alcohol, making it shinier.  It had to do with the surface being unglazed.  They also said that it made alcoholic drinks taste better.  The town is known for its Bizen pottery.  I took a picture of one of the shopkeepers.



Afterwards, I went back to my hotel, took two trains and a ferry, and arrived at my next destination, Naoshima Island.  This island has been greatly influenced by a company that decided to set up shop and create art all over the island.  It is known for a few pumpkins.



I am staying above one of the museums.  When I read online that you had to take a monorail to some of the rooms, I knew I had to try to get in there.  If the monorail was at the top while you were at the bottom, you would have to press a button to call it over.  The monorail is very, very slow.  The air conditioning makes it a joy to ride, however!

Viewing this area of the hotel reminded me very much of an old adventure computer game named Myst.  Myst helped sell the idea of the cd-rom drive by having lifelike imagery on beautiful islands.  You'd explore empty, museumlike structures, working out puzzles.  There are only six rooms to this complex, which adds to the isolated look.

The six rooms are those blue doors surrounding this pool

If you don't want to wait for the monorail, you could always walk

There is a path that leads onto the top of the structure, which had some great views.



When I was planning the trip, Grant asked if I wanted to make reservations at the hotel's restaurants for dinner, as there are no other places relatively close by to the hotel.  I did not give this much thought, and said yes.  When I arrived, they wanted me to choose a menu, out of three.  Two of the choices had fish, with the one remaining being all vegetarian.  It was a very expensive nine course meal.  I have never had a nine course meal before.

I canceled my second night's reservations due to the cost.  I tend to feel very uncomfortable at expensive restaurants, and I am not much of a foodie.  I have been mostly eating $3-8 bowls of beef and rice or noodles this trip.  Since it was last minute, I kept the reservation for the night, deciding to see what it was like.  I mentioned that I wasn't crazy about eating tofu, as soy is not so great on the stomach, and I try to avoid it when I can.  In response, they gave me a huge list of food types and asked me to label which ones I did not want.  I crossed off all seafood, tofu, and alcohol.  Once in the room, I received a phone call, asking if I could have alcohol if it was made in the meal(rather than the drink).  I said yes, as long as it was burned off in the process.  I did not get the impression that she understood me.

At the dinner table was a list of all the foods that would be served to me.  I decided to skip the last course, as my stomach doesn't do too well with fruits, and I wasn't sure if the alcohol would have been burned off somehow, as I didn't know if they'd be cooking the fruit.  I also know nothing about cooking, and I'd rather not have alcohol.  Here are the pictures of every dish served, in order, as shown on the menu.  I tried and ate almost everything, aside from potatoes, which included the jelly like dish that was said to be made of potatoes, and seaweed.



After dinner, I decided to walk to the port.  I was warned by the hotel's front desk, that breakfast was small.  There was a 7-11 near the port, so I figured I would pick up some snacks just in case.  The walk took about an hour.  I took the last bus of the night from the port to its final stop, which was a fifteen minute walk from my part of the hotel



Right before the last curve in the road, there was a sign indicating a shortcut up some steps.  I decided to go this route and almost immediately ran into a cat.  It did not seem disturbed in the slightest by me or my noisy 7-11 bag.



I rode up the monorail and went back to my room for the night.  One of the perks of this hotel is that you get free access to their small museum and only hotel guests can go inside from 9-11 PM.  I plan to do it tomorrow, as I am way too tired tonight!

View from the monorail front window while heading up