Naoshima

So on a very enthusiastic recommendation from a colleague, I spent only one night in Kyoto and took 3 trains and a ferry each way to Naoshima Island in the Seto Inland Sea for one night. The Benesse Corporation purchased land on this island to build a home for its growing modern art collection in the early 1990's. The Benesse House is a hotel complex within a museum designed by Tadao Ando. The nearby Chichu Museum is an architectural and contemporary art marvel in that the museum is largely underground, designed with specific art installations selected for it, and lit solely by natural light. Works include several Monet water lilies, sculptures by Walter de Maria, and remarkable installations by James Turrell. Check it all out at: http://wikitravel.org/en/Naoshima


The closer I got to the ferry port via train stations, the less English was spoken or provided as public way finding aids - the ferry sign was an anomaly! Here are some snaps from the late afternoon ferry journey, which docked at dusk in Miyanoura Port:







While in Manhattan over Christmas, I discovered Kusama's spotted pumpkins - an icon of Japanese contemporary art - there was a small one in the apartment where I was staying for a week. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama. One month later, I came across a huge one in Naoshima, which has apparently been appropriated as the local logo of this art lover's destination as evidenced on the local bus:





This one is on the premises of the hotel:





The 4-hour journey from Kyoto was rewarded with an overnight stay in a hotel designed by Tadao Ando with many contemporary art installations. It was extraordinary! Here's a view from my room at dusk with a view to the Seto Sea and a steel installation in the water feature below my balcony:



Here's the info on the Benesse House Art Site: http://www.benesse-artsite.jp/en/benessehouse-museum/portfolio.html.

My accommodation included another kaiseki meal but it was served in the hotel restaurant. Because I am a foodie at heart (and hopefully not a wretched western tourist), I snapped photos of all the courses and think I actually figured out the "food" setting on my Lumix. So here's another culinary report:

Course 1: Hors d'oeuvres of prawn and cicely dressed in a yolk and vinegar sauce; bamboo shoot with sansho pepper and spinach; thick omelet; rape flower dressed with a mustard sauce; fish roe rolled in radish; fried sliced arrowhead; mamakari fish; carrot; and Chinese yam.








Course 2: Soup of oyster minced and steamed; carrot; spinach; thin-sliced turnip; and citrus shaped like a pine needle.





Course 3: Sashimi of sea bream and tuna.







Course 4: Cooked dish of sea bream with soy sauce.






Course 5: Grilled dish of butterfish broiled with slated entrails of sea cucumber.



Course 6: Additional dish of prawn and vegetable tempura (always served with a small sheet of wax paper).



Course 7: Rice dish of rice porridge with Chinese yellow chives and pickles.






Course 8: Dessert of orange jelly and strawberry.



Bon appetit!

After dinner I walked around the Benesse House Museum, open only to hotel guests until midnight and just loved this installation by Yukinori Yanagi called "The World Flag Ant Farm" (1990)....it is a series of rectangular plastic containers connected to one another with plastic tubes that are filled with sand and houses an ant colony for "fun." It was fascinating and I'll let you determine why:





I walked around the island the next day after a continental breakfast and took a few pics of the winter landscape and external installations before being blown away at the Chichu. If you are a museum enthusiast or professional, your life is not complete if you do not visit the Chichu Museum.