Day Day 18: Naoshima, Teshima and Inujima

 

Day 18: Naoshima, Teshima and Inujima

QOTD:  How hot is it?

Weather: mid to high 80s, with humidity

Pics:  Which room is THB’s? Yayoi Kusama, on the ferry, Teshima cab driver tool, the only not clean car in Japan, #26, #25 from outside and café, e-bikes, #18, #26, bike sign, ferry, skorpa, asleep on the Seto Inland Sea, #91 café, #91 bricks and bathroom “graffiti”, Kohei’s #93 sign (another no pic request), #95, #97 (baseball)

Dept of clarification: Yesterday (in today’s post, THB promises not to talk about the infamous “private ferry” driver that picked up his buddy before ever acknowledging the paying guests) we had pre-paid reservations for the 3:30 time slot at the Chichu Art Museum which also included the admission fee. At the same time we were redeeming our reservations, we bought “passports” for $45pp for the Setouchi Triennial 2013 art festival. The passport gets you into the museums and special installations either free (the vast majority of the time) or half price (a few big museums); that meant we got an immediate refund of $10/pp on our Chichu admission fees. More about the passports in this post.

THB now knows the importance of product placement: the Benesse has put THB in a room at the end of a longgggggg hallway, furthest from the dining room; it must be a quarter of a mile from the food. Hmmmm…intentional? Note the importance of the room number for those of you that remember when we lived in Oaktown.

Before breakfast, we take a tour of the grounds for a picture beside one of the two large Yayoi Kusama pumpkins on Naoshima. There is a stampede for breakfast as for some unknown reason a) the Park breakfast buffet doesn’t open until 7:30 and b) they have managed to intermingle the continental and Japanese breakfast items so the people picking over the smoked fish for just the right piece get caught up with the others looking for the perfect piece of French toast. In meantime, it looks like no one wants the coffee or they prefer it hot and wait until they have their food.

We are nervous about getting on the 9:30 public ferry to Teshima and so hustle to get on the hotel shuttle and across the island to the ferry terminal, even splitting up temporarily. Good news: we get on the ferry, the bad news is that almost all the seats are gone when we board and we sit on not-too-bad fold out seats at end of the row. At least it was for a good cause: more pics with Yayoi!

 We have three ferry rides today: the first costs $6, the second $12, and the third $18 (which is the reverse direction of the first two combined). We wanted to buy one $36pp ticket, that wasn’t on with our limited (i.e., none) Japanese.

On Teshima, where we visit multiple sites: two that are permanent for sure, two that may be temporary, and one driveby, hiring a taxi (the only one on the island) to get us around. Good news: driver uses a white board to tell us the pickup time at each spot, and he doesn’t bring a friend along. Back to Japanese courtesy.

-          The Heartbeat, aka Les Archives de Couer: the artist, Christian Boltanksi,  has recorded over 35,000 heart beats (you can pay to have yours recorded and added to the queue). Loud and insistent. We get our passports stamped. There is a number for every site open during the festival, and when you visit you can stamp the appropriate number in the passport. This is right up THB’s alley!!! He loves ticking off visited sites…if you have followed the blog and missed that, start with the first posting and work your way up, again; think stadiums, national parks, states, etc.

-          Teshima Art Museum: Currently voted #1 art site on this trip by our group, and many others. Hard to describe, the entire museum is one piece, a very large almost circular space with two holes cut out in the roof (think Turrell skyscapes), two thin filaments hanging in a semi-circle from the holes, and many small spouts in the floor where water trickle outs, slowly moves toward barely discernible low points, meets up with other squiggles or sperm-shaped trickles and either forms large ponds or disappears down small holes. Mesmerizing, an hour isn’t quite enough time. Time stops. No photos, shoes or talking allowed. By interior space artist Rei Naito and Sana architect Ryue Nishizawa (Toledo Glass Museum, Naoshima Ferry building and others, with a different partner)

-          No One Wins, multiple hoops on a island-shaped backboard (bonus points for remembering where THB was when he saw something similar)

-          Teshima Yakoo House  crazy, with a glass floor in a tower that makes THB feel like he is floating precariously just before falling into the center of the earth

-          Other sites duly noted with stamps in THB’s passport

Back on another ferry, to Inujima, where THB has been before and described exhaustively in the blog: best “bricks” ever. When we visited in 2010, there may have been 4 other people here; today there are over a 100, all of them seemingly ahead of THB in the line to pay for the return ferry and/or in the line to pick out lunch in the small café. We share rice balls, THB has most of the last bento box of rice and smoked fish and pickles, ginger lemonades, price unknown (DB paid, maybe). Lunch was probably half hour late to quell low blood sugar, it was right on time to let the crowds get to the art before us and make our viewing much more pleasurable.

 The permanent exhibit (inside joke: THB thought it was temporary, unlike everyone else who has ever visited) is an old copper smelting plant with a deconstructed house that is similar to a famous writer’s (Mishima) house. Pics in the men’s restroom showing what happens to the waste?

After that visit, the four of us stroll the rest of the installation pieces (getting those stamps!!), some familiar to DB from here 2011 visit, some not, one by Bubble Boy, aka Kohei Nawa (work described in a prior posting, though this is very different for most part than what we saw in the studio) , and one video called Art House Project that features baseball (see THB at home plate swinging at something low and outside).

Another ferry ride, back to Naoshima (the long one equaling the other two) and the hotel, this time we get prime seats on the back deck. Prime if you think getting periodically splashed by the wake of the ferry is prime. Since it has been very hot and humid today, it is not entirely unwelcome. DB gets soaked.

Quick showers and we take the short shuttle ride to the sister hotel to the Park, the Benesse Art Museum Hotel, for dinner. This is where THB and DB stayed in 2010, and you can wander the museum after it closes, which we do again tonight after dinner in the Japanese dining room. Two 9 course veggie kaisekis  (DB and E) and two 8 course fish kaisekis (THB and J), with one bottle of wine and one draft brewski, $86 per couple. THB would describe these meals in excruciating detail except it would fill up an already long posting and he is very tired from walking the hallway back and forth to his room.

 A walk back in the dark, with THB leading the way down a switchback trail; everyone survives to chase art another day.

 Book Review: Submergence, J M Legard (novel): Professor meets MI6 agent cute and the story is told in flashbacks and current after agent is captured in Somalia by jihadists. Short chapter after short chapter of lectures or recitations of the characters resumes. THB did not sit well through lectures in school and gave up around a third of the way through. Not recommended