Sleeping Under Keith Haring

Mt. Fuji from Train

Boat to take us to Naoshima Island

Monorail to our room

View from our room

Sky Room

Our Room and reflecting Pool

Keith Haring looking down on our beds

The Museum empty that we can walk thru at night

This was a travel day. We left our hotel by Taxi and headed for Tokyo Station. This is a giant train station (the main one for Tokyo). It is huge. We were on a mission. Buy some good Sake to take with us for the next few days. We finally found an upscale Sake store and bought our Sake and headed for the Bullet Train. We thought the train left at 10:30am but decided to head up to the track a little early. Just as we arrived, the conductor motioned to us to get on the train and it left the station. We were lucky we went early. Actually, what we needed to do is to double check the time on the tickets. Lesson learned, no harm no foul.

The Bullet Train is fast and smooth. It is embarrassing that we in America don’t have trains like this. The train tracks lead it past Mt. Fuji, which is a sight to behold. It really is a beautiful snow capped mountain.

We departed our train in Oyama. Upon leaving the station we had some difficulty finding our driver for the next part of our journey, but it all worked out. He then drove us to the tiny Port City of Uno. We were met there by a private ferry that took us to the island of Naoshima (we learned my first Kanji character (ima) which means island). This was a return visit to this art island. We first came here in 2007. The museums and art installations have grown since that time. Upon disembarking at Naoshima, we were then driven to Benesse House where we are staying. After checking in we then took the hotel’s monorail to the top of the mountain where our room overlooks Inland Sea of Japan. It is a spectacular setting.

The entire island is an art installation. There are multiple museums and exhibits. Our room is decorated with original Kieth Haring’s.  We quickly left our room for our first scheduled event, James Terrell’s: Open Sky. This is a 45 minute experience. James Terrell, who currently has major retrospectives everywhere (including  a large one in LA at LACMA) plays with light.

It was getting cool, and I knew from the name Open Sky, that we would be exposed to the elements. I was a little weary of being exposed to the weather (rain was also threatening). We were bussed to a staging area where we then were walked to the Chiu Chiu Museum designed by Ando, where we walked down hallways twisting and turning until we came to the Open Sky room. I was afraid I could be chilled, but when we entered the square cement room, we were told to sit on the cement bench that runs along all 4 walls. We immediately noticed the wall was very warm to the touch. Somehow they have heated the cement, to keep the chill away. They also gave each person a small blanket. The roof of the room is open to the sky. We arrived at 5:30 just after sunset. There is a changing color of ambient lighting within the room. There is a square hole in the ceiling that I would estimate to be about 20 feet in each direction. Basically by changing the ambient lighting he changes your perception of the sky. Sometimes the sky looks black, he can change it to red, or white, or make it disappear entirely, or flip it so the sky is all of a sudden white.

For 45 minutes we stared at the hole in the ceiling without moving. Terrell knows how the eye perceives color and light! This should have been built at LACMA rather than the Rock!

We returned to our room opened one of the bottles of Sake and drank outside loving the view. We then went to a 9 course Kaiseki dinner in the Hotel’s dining room. Kaiseki is a form of eating, where you are served course after course of exquisite tiny dishes. It has been a VERY full day or travelling, drinking and eating! The Internet sucks here! Can't have everything.