Friends were visiting Japan, and we decided to meet up on Naoshima, a small island in the Seto sea which has been largely transformed by the Benesse corporation into a mini art amusement getaway.
The beautiful Seto sea from the Ferry.
As we were all artists we couldn’t afford to stay in the expensive Benesse House where you can sleep in Tadeo Ando designed luxury with some of the Benesse collection on your walls. We stayed in a little Minshuku, Oyajinoumi, in Honmura. Which had a beautiful garden and nice rooms, but was a little like living in a paper balloon noise wise. One night I heard one of the girls next door get up and eat a rice cracker, every crunch.
Our room (note pheasant)
Honmura is a very beautiful town, small quiet and well kept, with many amazing gardens. The buildings are largely traditional and are often clad in wooden planks burnt black on the outside. The town seems prosperous, probably due to the Benesse Art House project, which has bought up several vacant traditional buildings and given them to artists to make a project inside. We all enjoyed the James Turrell ‘dark side of the moon’ the best, at first you walk into a huge space - totally dark and are guided to a bench, after around 5 minutes you start to see a pale hovering rectangle of bluish light, you can then get up and walk towards this shape, a really strange and difficult spatial experience. Marcin put his hand into the shape but his glow in the dark watch messed things up. A few we didn’t get to see due to closures and no “booking” vacancies.
streets of Honmura with Michelle, Marcin and Kiki.
Honmura also has two of the best hang-out-for-hours relaxed cafes I have been into in Japan. Cafe Maruya and Genmai Shinshoku - a macrobiotic place.
Marcin and Kiki in Macrobiotic cafe.
Kiki was getting a lot of Kawaii attention, too many photos and too much staring for us adults. Japan really is a childs paradise, and people really love kids here.
Benesse House collection was pretty boring with lots of middle to late 20th cent minor works from famous people. But the Chichu musuem was pretty amazing, another Ando building it is tunnelled into the side of a hill looking out over the ocean. Only three artists, Monet (3 waterlilly paintings), James Turrell and Walter De Maria; and of course you have to count Tadeo Ando as the building is so prominant. The Monets and Turrells blew us away but the De Maria was heavy handed and boring, big granite balls and gold sticks that just reminded me of giant grandiose wickets.
The public art sprinkled around the island is pretty good too - even if it is high on the amusement scale.
Michelle and Kiki inside Yayoi Kusuama’s Pumpkin.
Was lovely to spend time with good friends and I realised that I need to do more travelling away from Kitakyushu.
Back in Kitakyushu on Christmas day, I met Tamara and Karen at Ikki for a delicious Takoyaki dinner with very light and fluffy sponge ‘christmas cake’.
Weather turned very cold, hailing and snowing. On New Years Eve, Takako, Karen, Tama-chan and I made a delicious nabe dinner. Quiet in the studios with the snow falling outside.
around 12 we braved the cold and walked to two temples and a shrine to bring in the new year. The first temple we were afraid was a strange, gas loving new religion but just turned out to be an old temple built in a very western style - with a lot of gold leaf. We got to strike the gong, one go for each of us. Tak was trying to find a temple where they make longevity soba at 12, and so asked for noodles - a very dismayed but gracious lady gave us a mountainous bag of chips!
Onto the actual noodle temple, further up the hill, a party atmosphere with more gongs, fairy lights and a long line of people serving delious free soba. Here we are in the line.
The shrine was all outdoors and cold, but beautiful with many fortunes and prayers to buy. Tak went into interpreter overdrive to translate all of our fortunes - my year will be like a branch of blossom slowly opening up, by the way. Takachan looked after us so well, and made my Japanese New year beautiful. She even made us special lucky breakfast the next day.
I arrived in Tokyo at 5 am, waited for docking and sleepily got on a train at 6. Tokyo has an excellent train system and so much english signage I found my way around very easily. I got to Asakusa at around 7 and wandered around the Kannon Temple, watching the schoolboys buying lucky prayers, old women feeding the birds and the sellers of new years decorations setting up their stock. Pine seedlings, coloured Kale and many types of straw rope were for sale to make your own decorations or there were premade wreathes and standing bamboo arrangements. Asakusa has a warren of covered shopping streets with fantastic sweets shops away from the touristy central avenue.
After making my way to the Ryokan, I weirdly just bumped into Karen and went with her to have breakfast. The Asakusa district is quiet and calm, and I think having this quiet base is one of the reasons I really enjoyed Tokyo. Later that day I met Takako at Ueno station and we went on a wander to Skai the Bathouse (gallery converted from old cento bath). We walked through Ueno park and the cemetary where Tak’s family have a section. Again so quiet and beautiful.
Then we went downtown towards Shibuya and visited the Watari-Um museum which had a fascinating exhibition of historical material and botanic drawings of Minakata Kumagusu, a very famous Japanese botanist and writer who specialised in the study of fungi, particularly of slime moulds. He also wrote the Minakata Mandala, a quasi spiritual/scientific text about interconnectedness. This show was my favorite exhibition in Tokyo apart from the Pipillotti Rist show at the Hara Museum. Mostly things I saw were too designy and all a bit easy. The Roppongi Crossing show at the Mori was the worst example of this, but I did not even go to see the ‘Space for your future’ show at the Musem of Contemporary Art Tokyo, as Karen had the catalogue and it looked just too annoying for me.
Again wierdly (for such a giant city) bumped into Adam at the Roppongi Crossing show and we had a juice in the Mori tower lounge looking over the city.
which never ends it seems. Such a dense moss of buildings and people, but I didnt feel scared or depressed the whole time I was there. Tokyo is really very clean and so alive. I love how people can keep their bonzai on the street outside their house.
In Tokyo I went into starbucks for the first time, here is a view of Shibuya station from the window of that establishment.
I visited Tokyo for the first time in the week leading upto christmas. Out of some sort of perversity or desire for solitude I took a ferry from Kitakyushu to Tokyo - 36 hours. The ferry was great, like a floating roadside truckstop, with comfy carpeted rooms to sleep in, a basic japanese canteen, many vending machines and the ultimate luxury of a cento bath. the weather was sunny for december and i spent most of my time outside reading Alasdair Grey’s ‘Lanark’, one man eager for english practice asked me if it was a bible.
I had a bath around sunset one night, and had the whole room to myself. The bathroom was tiled in peach and had a large window with rounded corners set over the bath. Sitting in hot water, watching the grey waves and a soft sunset, paradise.
Last week the Nippon Steel festival was celebrated in Kitakyushu. The festival commemorates a bad blast furnace accident. As the steel mill operation is now greatly reduced in size, the festival had a curiously empty feel, as though there was no heart to the maze of food stalls, Enka singers, dancing contests and more food on sticks stall, reminding me of Australian Agricultural shows, but without the more interesting activities. Seeing a crowd of people in Yahata was a strange experience though, suddenly our sleepy neighbourhood was, well, populated. Youichirou organised for the CCA artists to have a small exhibition in a disused shop - mostly visitors were too intimidated by the Gaijen sitting the show to come in unfortunately.
There were several stalls selling small turtles, or red and black goldfish. 500yen.
The final fireworks were preceeded by a strange Jpop lookalike concert. In orderly Japanese fashion, blue tarps were layed out on the ground, everyone taking their shoes off before sitting down.
The fireworks were overshadowed by green lazers. Maybe we invent fireworks because the stars get boring, just to cover them up with strobing combs of green light. A depressing sight.
On wednesday I went on a road trip to Beppu, driven by the lovely Youichirou and accompanied by the lovely Carl and Tamara. Beppu is famous for its Onsen, for bathing and “Hells”, that are volcanic water and mud features for looking at. Our practical excuse for going was to help Youchan collect spring water for his bar, however we had a great day exploring waterfalls, gorges, going to farmer’s shops, eating on bamboo covered mountainsides, marvelling at sulphurous steam craters and of course soaking in a hot mineral spring.
stowing the spring water.
One of the springs we collected from, this one is in a temple.
ummm volcanos.
Youfuin Gorge, a river gorge carved out of volcanic cliffs.
Tamara and Carl climbing up near a gigantic waterfall.
in Beppu town.
Volcanic mud crater. This being Japan, there was a woman wearing insanely high stilletoes and an evening dress right next to this boiling and sulphurous pool.
smelly!
ahh our own onsen. The water tasted coppery, i think we still smell like money.
On friday the lovely staff at the CCA and the artists had a japanese style BBQ. It was fun and delicious. Us westerners are not all that adapted to Konjak yet though, and barbecued slabs of it is kind of difficult to eat, but also to refuse. Then we all got a little roudy and insisted the music be at least the same volume as people talking, which worried the staff, as they have much experience of noise complaints. Sometimes it is hard to remember that the Japanese have such an obedient and considerate culture, around public/private space.
Sorry that these posts seem to be getting fluffier and fluffier - but when you are in a nice country like Japan it is hard not to just blog the fun stuff. I will make a concerted effort to get more art stuff up on here soon.
On Saturday I went to Fukuoka (about an hours train trip) to meet Michael Yuen. Michael had been doing a residency in Seoul, and had come across to Japan for a holdiay. We had a ball, eating, shopping, eating and chatting about the general strangeness of artists residencies. I now have wonderful new silver and red Onitsuka Tiger sneakers due to Michaels encouragement - and he has new Tiger bowling boots and jacket due to mine - ah a beautiful friendship. We shopped at the massive Canal City shopping centre, which was decked out in extremely early halloween decorations.
Here we are post shop, drinking Calpis next to the river. Yes i was really tired.
We had dinner at a great sushi place called ‘tok tok’ near the port and fish market area. Delicious sashimi!
and then to fill up the corners some grilled enoki and bacon skewers at a street stall. We think the guy ripped us off a little though - hmmm. Still a beautiful sight, hundreds of people milling around, tent like stalls selling food and beer.
Fukuoka is a big city (6 million) and it was so nice to get lost in a crowd, there were also many Gaijin everywhere - inlcuding a hugely tall completely bald white guy in a basketball uniform who was about twice the height of the Japanese passing him by. I kept starting at the other Gaijin - it has been a while since I have seen other foreigners! (apart from CCA artists) I nearly missed the train and got back to sleepy Yahata about 1am.
Fridays seem to have become the CCA artists’ swimming day. This Friday I suggested (and then had to orchestrate) a bit of an ambitious project - a visit to the Sugao Taki(waterfall). To get there we had to take a train to Kokura and then a bus out of the city, and then a taxi to the falls. The closest town is the tiny Dobaru, perhaps 100 houses if that. To get back we hitched to the bus stop. All this envolved me using a LOT of my extremely basic Japanese, but I was so proud of us for getting there and being able to ask so many charming and helpful people. The waterfall is in heavily forested and mountainous valley, the floor of which is covered in tiny rice and vegetable farms. It was extremely beautiful being out in the countryside, the rice harvest is happening now, and sheaves of rice were hung over wooden hurdles to dry, the stubble was smouldering in some areas, woodsmoke over the valley and green plumes of bamboo on the mountain.
There is a very large monastery next to the taki, and literally hundreds of stone buddas and shinto gods line the approach and surround the falls. The figures all wear clothes - either a bib like garment (often actual children’s bibs- hello kitty) or elaborate robes. The bibs were all a bit mouldy and the surrounding buildings were falling into decay, Quite Kwai, spooky.
At first we felt somewhat apprehensive about swimming, but then soon got into the swing of things. The water was freezing, but it is still so hot here the chance to feel cold was lovely.
I have just realised I haven’t been reporting on the most important thing about my travels - well to some people. appologies to Graham who has already read this.
i ate some of my friend’s natto and didnt throw up.
i ate okonomiake cooked by a tiny old woman in her teeny old shop lined with sagging bookshelves of manga. She was a beautiful old woman that has been running her shop for 40 years (but she still cooks a mean pancake).
i ate really reallly good 6 course chicken dinner, with homemade tofu, perfect mackeral sashimi salad, chicken soup, fried and toriyaki chicken (aparently from the neck - which is a kyushu speciality) delicious soba and kyushu style fried rice.
I ate handmade Udon in rich broth from a place that would be a truck stop in Australia.
I ate upscale version of japanese antipasto in a beautiful traditional bar.
I ate at the best soba place in Kitakyushu (so say the CCA staff).
I ate a delicious tea ceremony sweet with foamy Matcha.
I ate many many takoyaki.
i have also been eating a lot of food cooked by the other 6 artists in our big studio kitchen. AND of course much beer, sake and shochu.
