A Trip Round The Islands - Naoshima

The island trips continue. Naoshima is a very special place and it was great to spend the night there, without the pressure of a 5pm ferry on our minds. We camped out in yurts by the sea, had a BBQ for dinner and drank prosecco on the beach (champagne is beyond our budget).

This time we got to see all of the Art House Project buildings. It was interesting to see traditional spaces converted into something altogether different. There was a great variation in quality though. One or two of the buildings made you wonder why they had bothered at all. Nonetheless, I enjoyed wandering the streets and not knowing what to expect each time I walked through the door.

We also finally made it to the sento, which is really unusual and almost a work of art in itself. The bath had a mosaic floor that was pieced together from photographs, drawings and other oddities. Above the bath stood a life-size model of an elephant. It was a strange atmosphere but it did feel relaxing which is the point I guess.

The James Bond Museum was a real oddity. They’ve centered the museum around a post-Fleming Bond novel in which the climax is set on Naoshima. It has lines like ““Japanese women are the most beautiful in the world” thought Bond, as he sipped his Martini”. They’d made their own Bond film/documentary which involved some unusual “acting”. Still, it made me laugh and I enjoyed browsing through the Bond tat that they had collected over the years.

I’m sorry this entry reads as a bit of a list of stuff that I did. I’ve had a funny week, really. I got a bill from Softbank that was as much as a shinkansen ticket. It floored me. The lesson is to never, ever use your Japanese-contract phone abroad. Even for a minute. Feeling totally screwed, I handed over my not especially hard-earned money at the combini and muttered to myself in a crazy person fashion.

Crazy person muttering is not a good look for me.