Teshima, Part 2.

So, we had already packed a day's experiences into half a day in Teshima, but there was more.  The most famous artwork on the island is the Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito, and I definitely wanted to see that. 

 It's not my idea of a museum really, but it is a most striking and zen-like place.   Set on a terraced hillside overlooking the inland sea, it is approached by a woodland path.  After removing your shoes you enter through a low white tunnel and find yourself inside a white, irregularly shaped dome, illuminated only by the light from the sky which enters the dimness through two large holes in the roof.  You stay silent or speak only in whispers in the cathedral-like atmosphere. 

Do you see the people sitting silently below? 

Many of them were actually watching water oozing gently from the floor.  The floor isn't level, so the drops of water emerge slowly from it and then run, apparently at random, to blend with other watr-drops to form tiny streams and gather into pools which eventually seep away.  

 I think the idea is to help you think about life and our place in the universe, how we ourselves are just like drops of water which eventually join the great stream. Or, that's how I understood it, anyhow. 

I found it so absorbing that I could have stayed there for hours. We only actually stayed about half an hour, and to be honest, T was less enthusiastic than me.  Having obediently removed his shoes, we both kept accidentally stepping in little puddles of water, and he didn't enjoy having cold, wet socks.

 Outside again, we dried the socks in the sun and noticed something was going on across the road, in a valley surrounded by very small,  terraced fields.  So we walked over, through strips of cosmos and other crops.

What could those people be watching?  We bought some rice and vegetables at a stall and joined them on the edge of the valley.  And this is what we saw....

I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Something was written on a blackboard in Japanese but it meant nothing to me, nor did I understand the purpose of all the balloons you can see in the film.

On we wandered, with something unexpected, it seemed, around almost every corner. These two life sized dolls were standing in a farm barn together with what I suppose are bags of satsuma fertiliser. 

We passed a place called the Lemon Hotel, an artwork you can really stay in, apparently.  It is a place where people take selfies of themselves with lemons ....

And drink lemon squash

... and even the phones are lemon yellow.

To be honest, I didn't think the Lemon Hotel was up to the standard of the other art installations, or perhaps my brain had had as much art as it could handle that day.  Anyhow, the shadows were lengthening, so we caught the bus back to the main stop, which was about a kilometre from Kurieshi's house, and walked back.

We passed quite a collection of cats -  must have been at least a dozen by the water.  "Cat tourism" is a feature of some of the Seto Sea islands, and not a very popular one, because feral cats are often sick and some of the visitors who seek to feed them often trespass right into peoples' homes, I was told.

But most of these cats had collars, which suggested that perhaps this was just a place where cats like to go to socialise - if cats do socialise.  I never thought they particularly did, but on Teshima, who knows?

Kurieshi's house was interesting. It was actually his old house - I think his grandma might have lived there. Anyway, he's built a new one across the courtyard for himself and lets out the old one on Airbnb.  It is traditional Japanese style and boasts what is known as a goemon buro - a traditional stone bath, at least a hundred years old, lined with metal and originally heated from the bottom with a fire. 

In my picture, you can see the loose circular white plate at the bottom that you crouch on to avoid getting burned by the fire below - but I'm glad to say that Kurieshi had converted the hot water to electricity so we didn't have to worry about that problem.  



Goemon was a sort of Robin Hood character in old folklore. It's hard to know if he was really good or bad, but one good thing about him is that, when he was being boiled to death for his sins, he held his son (who'd also been put in the pot with him) above his head to protect him. 

Most Japanese people I spoke to about goemon buro remembered their parents or grandparents having one. Several people said that, as children, they were rather scared of it, and with that fire at the bottom, I'm not surprised.  It was interesting to bathe in it, but I decided I preferred the modern sort of Japanese bath, which keeps the temperature at 42 degrees and tells you in a bright little voice when it's ready. 

So we unrolled the futons, had a frugal supper, and a bath in the goemon buro,  and that was our day on Teshima. We had to leave early next morning, and I know we didn't see half of what there was to see.  I hope we can go back one day and see more of the art. Maybe by then, Kurieshi (who is nuts on all kind of vehicles) will have got his  Mini Cooper roadworthy again.  It would certainly be fun to see that neon welcome sign flashing for us at the port.

If you are interested in finding out more about the art islands yourself, by far the best resource I have found is David Billa's blog, "Setouchi Explorer."    David is French, but married to a Japanese, and he also speaks perfect English. We had a very interesting meal together in Takamatsu, in which he told me so much about the background of these island art projects, both in Teshima and elsewhere. He has fired my wish to return.