We started off the day with presentation #2 from James our National Geographic expert photographer. We talked about garbage and litter he showed us some areas of I want to say Nepal but can't quite remember (that rough region) that doesn't have trash or sewer processing. Rough lives being led in that area and it's basically being overtaken by garbage. I'm not a super-environmentalist but I see these types of stories and follow items like the Ocean Cleanup on social media and it does resonate with me that too many in the world just dump stuff wherever they want without thinking of long-term repercussions. typically when you leave something somewhere, it stays there. Gives me an appreciation thinking back on this that I was mildly bugged of course at the lack of garbage cans throughout the course of our trip since it meant carrying our garbage with us throughout the day until we could find somewhere to properly dispose of it; but the people of Japan are pretty united in keeping it clean and that was something awesome to see throughout as well. These presentations and discussions were awesome each time.
For the day we toured the town of Naoshima. It had lots of little art exhibits throughout the town. Basically I'd equate it to a little village and many of the homes are setup as mini-museums with some type of art exhibit in them. I liked some, didn't like others. Overall mixed bag. We had a different guide today because we had to split up into two groups. She was from Hiroshima I'm forgetting her name but she had great English and was a wonderful guide for the day.
One of the first fun things we learned about walking through town was the Japanese Racoon Dog or "Tanuki". This is a legendary symbol in Japan and we started noticing them all over after having them pointed out to us. They always have a bottle of sake in one hand and a ledger in the other. The ledger is supposed to represent work for cash in/cash out. They also have a notoriously large scrotum which we all laughed at. I've read here online that this area is referred to as the "golden bags" because in the early 19th century they would wrap gold in Tanuki scrotum prior to hammering it out into thin gold leaf.
There was a particularly cool exhibit to me that is the black building in the below. We entered the back of the building into a completely dark room and sat in the back. After our eyes totally adjusted they had us stand up and walk forward. You reached the front of the room and realized the middle of the room had a large cutout (basically waste high. . .think of a big-screen tv cutout in the wall). . you basically reached into the void beyond the wall it was a bit trippy and your eyes are of course messed up on depth perception. Cool exhibit.
We also ended up at a unique temple that had glass steps up to the shrine and down the hill you could enter the "basement" of the shrine where the glass steps actually began. Quite literally a stairway to heaven from the depths. That was also a cool exhibit.
We went back and had lunch at the main museum. Traditional Japanese bento box. We had already toured the musuem so we walked around some other exhibits after lunch. The entire area had random art exhibits just out and about. The branding landmark exhibit seemed to be the giant yellow pumpkin on the pier. I bought a little folder of this pumpkin I actually thought it was pretty cool.
The late afternoon we went up to the Chichu Museum. This was an interesting museum it was an entirely concrete structure built into the ground almost like a dystopian bomb shelter or something. We couldn't take pics once we were inside. Had multiple cool exhibits. My favorite was this room where you were walking seemingly downward in a large box and the colors of the walls would change on you. It reminded me of Drake's "Hotline Bling" music video so we kept singing that the rest of the day.
At dinner this night Mike decided we needed a pizza so he was on a quest to find a pizza place on the island. Funny enough the dinners at the Benesse House were relatively western style instead of pure traditional Japanese but I can also confirm we were all ready for some pizza! They didn't really have delivery option so he had to locate an open pizza place and take a taxi over to pick it up and bring it back.
After dinner we went to this lounge/bar area of the hotel to eat our pizza and play some cards. Our guide Junko-san played with us. Again there is nowhere to put trash and there was certainly nowhere for us to sit and eat an "outside" pizza so we had to improvise. Junko-san told us that yes the hosts at the hotel bar weren't pumped we were bringing in a pizza but nobody else was there so they let it go. We ended up having bigger eyes than stomachs and had a whole extra pizza that we gave to the bartenders and I think they were actually happy about it in the end.
This island and museums/hotel were awesome overall. The hotel had a great breakfast/dinner restaurant looking out to the ocean. I felt like I could've stayed there longer. Good day.
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