Naoshima - September 16th, 2012

I was excited to finally be going to Naoshima after discussions with Angelina and others about the island. There had been the potential of going in August over Obon, but as you blog readers know I spent that time in Niihama and Saijo soaking up the summer sun and melting in the heat. However it seemed that September was the time for me to finally get to the island. By going at this time I was able to go with Angelina, Bret and Gavin. Which made the day both fun and interesting.

We had an early start that day as we were driving from Niihama to Takamatsu. It was a nice ride – if a little cramped with four adults and a dog. As we drove in we rocked out to a little J-Pop in the form of AKB48. Getting to Takamatsu took a couple hours and we got into the city just in time for lunch.

After a delicious lunch of Panini sandwiches, we made our way to the Takamatsu port where we caught the ferry that would take us to Naoshima.

The ferry ride was long, but as you can see by the photos we found ways to entertain ourselves. After forty minutes we could finally see the island.

The draw of Naoshima is the many contemporary art museums, as well as the different displays of art around.

What we didn’t know was that the last ferry back to Takamatsu was at 5pm, when we found that out it put a little damper on the day because we wouldn't be able to explore the whole of the island. This didn’t stop us though from exploring a little bit of it.

We rented bikes and set off to see the main cluster of art galleries.

The biking was a struggle since it was almost all uphill. (Although it made the drive down fun, if a little scary)

We stopped in at the Lee Ufan, we didn’t go in but wanted to check out the outer installation. Unfortunately at that moment the weather gave out and decided to rain. We decided instead of going back we would go on and see if we could catch shelter at the next museum, however we must have been lucky because it stopped raining at that moment.

The next stop we made was at Cultural Melting Bath installation. The artwork consisted of rocks placed around a closed bath or hot tub. The rocks were interesting, some looked like they sprung out of the earth, while others looked like they were melted into the ground.

It was also here that we took a little break at the seashore. This was the first time I had been to the Inland Sea since getting to Japan in June. We took a bunch of fun photos in the sand and even had a long jump competition – which Bret won.

After our little stop at the water we headed back to our bikes and to the Chichu Art Museum. This museum is interesting as the whole thing is underground and uses natural light as part of the art. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of the displays, not that the photos would do them justice, most of the displays needed to be experienced. It was really cool to see.

When we got out the museum we realized that we had 30 minutes to get back to the ferry. We made quick work of the down hill journey and dropped off our bikes, which gave us the convenience of seeing this quite interesting building that is the “I ♥ Yu” bath house.

We then took our final photos at the red pumpkin.

The day was quite fun. We were lucky that the weather held out for most of it, it really poured down after our dinner in Takamatsu and continued all the way home to Niihama.

If you ever find yourself in Takamatsu I’d say make a trip out to the island it’s beautiful and if you love art you’ll love the place.

Photos on FB: Naoshima