Naoshima Art Island
Before we left Kotohira we thought it might be worthwhile joining another pilgrimage route, this time to the famed temple of Kotohira-Gu, a Shinto shrine dedicated to the guardian gods of the sea, fertility and medicine. This one’s a little different though, as it’s situated up a long flight of 785 steps and draws scholars, pilgrims and the curious from all over Japan. The route itself is lined with other temples of lesser importance, but just as pretty and with plenty of opportunity for resting – not that we needed that as we seemed to get to the top with relative ease. This is serious stuff for some though – we saw several elderly people making their way upwards painfully slowly, one step at a time but with a clear determination to get there eventually.
Torii gate on the approach to Kotohira-Gu
Shrine near Kotohira-Gu
The grand temple at Kotohira-Gu
The temples were lovely in the morning sunshine and we were inspired to walk the further 583 steps to the very top, where sits the vermillion coloured Izutama shrine and a fabulous view across the countryside. In most countries you tend to get a little ‘templed out’ after a while. It’s not the case here….
On the approach to Ituzama shrine
Ituzama shrine
There’s a little private electrified railway that connects Kotohira with Takamatsu, our last stop in Japan, run with just a few cars and with remarkably cheap fares. The stock looks at least 60 years old and slowly rattles, clanks & trundles between stops with an abundance of charm and charisma. It seems a feature in Kyushu and Shikoku, probably Japan all-round, that the ultra modern happily sits side by side with the dog-eared and ancient, but on the whole it somehow seems to work.
Also somewhat rough around the edges was Takamatsu itself. It’s a rather nondescript place, but was useful as a base to visit the island of Naoshima (where accommodation is sparse, expensive and always fully booked it would seem). Naoshima is famous for being one of the area’s ‘art islands’ with numerous installations and galleries and our major reason for being here.
Firstly though, our self-made udon beckoned. Having done a little research on the subject we decided to make a classic udon soup, though the act of making the damned stuff turned into sheer purgatory. Along with woeful equipment, the cooker in the apartment was faulty and the gas would only stay on if the knob was pressed in. Tempers frayed, patience was lost, expletives abounded. We nearly lost all our noodles down the cavernous plug-hole in our attempt to drain them. Catching very hot slithery udon in your bare hands and throwing it onto the draining board is not an activity we’d entirely recommend. However, it did all come together eventually and we all calmed down and drank some sake. We were rewarded with a marvellous result too (so good we made it again a few days later once the cooker was fixed)……
Naoshima Island beach
Naoshima is probably the best known of the art islands off the coast of Shikoku and has the best of the galleries. The whole island is a visual treat, though what exactly constitutes ‘art’ is a debate I’ve had for years and at times I wasn’t wholly convinced at what was on offer. Most visits start by seeing one of Naoshima’s enormous pumpkin installations, designed by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The most famous, and most photographed, is the bright yellow version with black dots, cunningly called ‘Pumpkin’ and positioned on its own little jetty sticking out into the bay. Even at quiet times, there’s a queue that forms around the pathway nearby and people wait patiently for others to stroll down the jetty, take some hasty pictures, and quickly leave. It’s not exactly spontaneous appreciation by any means, but at least the piece itself is impressive, perhaps more so for its clever positioning in the landscape.
The ‘Pumpkin’, Naoshima Island
This one’s better, in our opinion, than its monstrous red counterpart located at the ferry dock which looks like it’s been inseminated with the genes of a portly ladybird, then sat on. Here you’re able to get inside and pop your head out, so half the time it looks like the thing has contracted a bad infestation of wriggling human worms.
The other ‘Pumkin’, Naoshima Island
The Benesse House Museum gallery was a mixed bag. An installation of driftwood arranged in a circle, next to two circles painted on the wall and smeared with mud were of interest, as were two beautifully smooth and enormous ‘pebbles’ arranged as a modern take on the zen garden. There was also a trio of human figures, with moving jaws and attached speakers that said ‘chatter’ in an American accent every 2 or 3 seconds. I’d misheard it as ‘cheddar’ and was a tad disappointed it wasn’t all about cheese. Other pieces were not so great though – painted black boxes and bright bits of cardboard stuck on each other – it looked like someone had run out of time and ideas for their sixth form art project. The thing that really impressed here was the sleek concrete building itself, and the wonderful views from the terraces.
At the Benesse House Museum
Benesse House Museum
“Cheddar”? Alas, no…
Big pebbles, Benesse House Museum
Mud & wood, Benesse House Museum
Balls at Valley Gallery
Benesse House Museum
The attached Valley Gallery promised more. Here areas of the natural landscape were used to display bowling-ball sized silver spheres. Some were strewn under trees, others placed in a pond to move around in the wind (it was windy so they’d all buggered off to the wrong end to shelter in a raft). Others were placed in a purpose built house with angled holes to reflect the different light as the day moved on. Quite effective to be honest.
We also toured the grounds of the Lee Ufan galley, a South Korean minimalist painter & sculptor, which included a mightily impressive arch made of thin steel under which another long steel strip was arranged on the ground. A party of schoolgirls decided to use the latter as an impromptu catwalk, posing, pouting and falling about laughing. Not a bad use for it, we thought.
One of the lovely things about the island is the ability to wander freely around from place to place and discover ‘hidden’ installations. We came across a party of free standing stone monoliths, congregated around a wooden box with two taps on either side, entitled ‘The Meeting at the Bathing Pool’. Whether the rocks intended to bathe was unclear, but no attempt was made whilst we were there. No doubt they were shy in our presence.
Ablutophobic rocks, Naoshima Island
The real highlight though, was the Chichu gallery. We’d actually missed our slot to get in (someone had booked the same entry time for both galleries), but the kindly receptionist took pity on us and gave us a pass in anyway.
There are strictly no photos allowed here, from a certain point anyway, and more’s the pity as the place is an architectural wonder. Built mostly underground to preserve the landscape above, it’s constructed using silky smooth concrete punctuated with distinctive round holes. A long tunnel lit by natural light at one end and a simple blue strip along the side of the floor leads you in. You pass through the galleries at the top of the building, then walk down to the underground installations via an enclosed square concrete corridor built around a courtyard, open to the elements on the left by a foot-high gap. The photo below is from a postcard we bought and at least gives you a sense of what it’s like there. No substitute for the real thing of course.
Chichu gallery walkway (postcard)
Chichu gallery entrance
The Chichu only has 3 exhibits, but each one is a marvel. The first has a half-dozen, extremely large canvases of Monet’s ‘Water Lillies’, painted in the final years of his life at his house & gardens in Giverny. Big, bold and abstract – huge merging purples and bright green hues. Shoes have to be off & special white slippers donned. Then you’re led into a transit space, and finally the gallery itself – a huge white cube-like room lit from above via natural light spilling out around a massive white concrete square in the ceiling. Except for the paintings, all is white, from the walls, to the tiny mosaic flooring, to the clothes of the attendant who guards the space. It was entirely built for the purpose and arguably threatens to outshine the artworks. But everyone loves a Monet or two and the selections complimented each other wonderfully well.
The second is an immersive experience by the American artist James Turrell, who’s known as the ‘master of light’ and with good reason. Only 6 people at a time can view it, so a queue forms outside and snakes around a waiting room, partly open to the elements above. The day was sunny, so our vertical view was blue sky with the odd tiny cloud drifting by, framed and viewed though the perfect white square of the ceiling. Once it’s your turn, it’s shoes off again and you’re led into a room to line up facing a small black marble staircase. After a few minutes, you’re asked to climb the stairs and step inside the aperture of a large white box, line up again, and wait. There’s a strip of light in the wall behind you, just above the hole you’ve just entered through, and this gives the entire room a pink hue. After a few more minutes, the light changes to a deep orange and it’s then that the effect takes hold. Standing still and staring into the box, you feel as if you’re floating in a world that’s nothing more than a bright orange glow. You can’t see the sides or the corners of the box, it’s just you and, well, orange. Your only reference point is other people – had it not been for the constraints of visitor numbers I suspect the gallery would have been better to have let you go in individually to really feel it. However, the intensity of being utterly lost in this mad orange space would no doubt freak some people out…….
Imagine seeing this all around & nothing else……
The last is enclosed in the underground chambers of the gallery and is by another American artist, Walter De Maria. Here you’re led into a huge concrete room at the base of a flight of steps. On the walls around you are niches supporting trios of gold coloured plinths of various shapes, but of equal lengths. The stairs plateau-out half-way up, then continue to the top. In the middle, on the plateau, stands an enormous polished granite sphere, around 2 metres in diameter. You can climb the stairs, touch the sphere, sit and admire the space, but you’re asked to remain silent. Again, no photos allowed here, but I’ve included some of the postcards we bought. It might sound a little ridiculous, but the impact of the room is immense. It feels like you’ve stepped into the temple of a god worshipped by other beings. It’s far outside your own experience but it reminds you of a dozen sci-fi films where the unsuspecting discover a marvellous & strange alien intelligence. The effect is hugely impressive, yet simultaneously eerie and mysterious.
Walter De Maria’s ‘temple’ Chichu gallery (postcard)
Walter De Maria’s ‘temple’ Chichu gallery (postcard)
What a place. We brought ourselves back down to earth (or in this case walked back up to it) and found a lovely cafe near the docks, run by a charming lady who’d trained at a French restaurant. As you’d expect, her creme brulee and chocolate fondant we’re something to behold. Straight out of a top-class Parisian pattiserie….
To cap that, we took in the Ritsurin Gardens back in Takamatsu, one of the best and largest ‘strolling gardens’ in Japan. Carefully cultivated and trimmed black pine trees, vivid oranges and reds of fading Japanese maples, a wild duck hunting moat and the biggest Koi you’ve ever seen. A quite fabulous place.
Ritsurin Gardens, Takamatsu
Ritsurin Gardens, Takamatsu
Ritsurin Gardens, Takamatsu
Ritsurin Gardens, Takamatsu
Ritsurin Gardens, Takamatsu
Further excursions were suspended after this as we really needed to work out what we wanted to do in Vietnam over Christmas and New Year, so that was largely it for Shikoku and Japan as a whole. We spent a very brief afternoon in Hiroshima on our way to catch our flight to Taipei, but decided against another depressing atomic bomb review as we’d ‘done that’ 13 years ago on our last visit.
How to sum up Japan…. After last time, we expected to like it and like it we most definitely did. To be fair, just as in South Korea, we’ve loved it here and had a lot more fun than we might have imagined. Since the Yen has been devalued over the past few years, interest in and visitors to Japan have increased dramatically and by all accounts the more famous places to go, like Kyoto, are now becoming ‘overrun’ with tourists. Not so here. A lot of the time we’ve been the only Westerners about and even when we’ve not been, the numbers have been pretty low. Ironically, in our few hours in Hiroshima we saw more Europeans than on the rest of this trip put together – a real contrast that made us glad we skirted the more obvious places on this occasion.
On to Taiwan now, which we’re going to count as a new country, even though technically (from a UN perspective at least) it’s considered part of China. To all other intents and purposes though, it’s as independent as it’s possible to be. So we’re counting it and if China doesn’t like it it knows what it can do with itself…..
Foodnote: More tiny izakayas and mini restaurants to finish our time in Japan. Places where only bar space is available, where there’s not an English word in sight (thank you Mr Google for the gift of translation, even though it’s most imperfect. Horse hair shashimi? Try again. Ah yes, Horse mackerel shashmi….) and yet where the chef and the restaurateurs are most welcoming. A cold beer or sake, a guess at what might be nice, not so hard as most things are, and an hour or two wondering what you’re eating but marvelling at it nonetheless. We’re having debates now, between ourselves and with each other, as to whether South Korean or Japanese food is best. You know you’re on to a winner when that’s what you’ve got to argue about…..
Simon (26th November 2025)
Fabulous photos again Simon, I think you will be sad to leave Japan, Another great experience.
Yes, you’re right. It’s a special place and we’re thinking how we can go back (this time to Hokkaido, maybe in winter) – probably not for this trip though…