The first thing I think you need when planning to leave Japan, going westwards, by ferry is to match up the schedules for the ferry with the long-distance onward train whether that be Trans-Mongolian / Manchurian / Siberian, Baikal-Amur Mainline etc. This is because the trains west of Moscow are much more frequent, and therefore more flexible. ＊＊＊ However, don’t forget that European tickets are cheaper the earlier you buy them so try to get through this difficult planning stage early so you can make savings on your European trains.

Note: Ferries worldwide continue to go bankrupt because of unfair tax and subsidies that are disproportionately lenient to air travel. Check that these ferries are still running before you plan your journey.
If they’re not, please leave me a comment to update this page.

Figure out your requirements

My requirements are:
• To leave (comfortably) asap after 10am on June 6th from Tokyo.
• To minimise stop overs to speed up the journey, spend less on accommodation, and maximise time in the UK
• To not spend too much – each route has its associated costs – visas, expensive Japanese transport to the port location, mandatory stopovers and the number of them.

Your requirements are likely to include
• Places where you DO want to stopover – some routes may leave you a choice of 6 hours or 6 days in one location. You need to plan carefully so you end up stopping over for the right amount of time in the places you want to visit along the way. In 2007 I had a really good distribution – 6 hours in Berlin, 2 full days (1 night) in St. Petersburg, 1 full day (8am ~ 9.30pm) in Moscow, 4 nights in Mongolia, 4 nights in Beijing, a day and a half in Shanghai. This was pretty luxurious and wonderful. This time, I need to focus my budget a bit more.

If you are flexible about when you leave, and how much it costs, the easiest thing to do is pick the country you want to visit – If you want to see China / Mongolia / Tibet? / Kazakhstan? ~ you need to go to China. If you want to see South Korea / the Russian far east along the way, you have to chose the ferry that swings those ways. If like me you need to make a slightly more practical decision based on time and budget, you may feel overwhelmed with figuring out which way actually is the fastest / cheapest.

Use a spreadsheet

If you don’t have spreadsheet software on your computer you can use google docs for free if you sign up for a free email account. If your journey is more simple, maybe you don’t need it, but chances are there are several things you need to work out and a spreadsheet can really help.


So, I’m going to get all the info that I’ve gathered into the maps above into a timetable on a spreadsheet with some estimated costs so I can figure out the first part of the journey. Check back here in a couple of days.

UPDATE: April 12th

So, like I was saying, build a spreadsheet. In 2007, although I was a lot clearer on which route to take, my biggest headache was making sure I didn’t get stuck in Mongolia for 12 days or on the other hand miss it out altogether by having to leave within a few hours of arriving… (how many times do you get to go to Mongolia in one lifetime?!)

This is what my spreadsheet looked like then. You’ll notice that with plenty of stopovers, a decent food and board budget, with visas, heavy luggage shipping and travel insurance all in, it came in at around £1800 for the 24 days, which isn’t so bad. If you’re not actually moving to the other side of the world you can minus the luggage shipping, and if you’re more organised with the trains you can get much better discounts on the European side, and you can of course choose cheaper hotels, lower classes on the trains (I took mostly 2nd with occasional 1st – Mongolia – Beijing, Bejing to Shanghai).


This took a little effort but wasn’t altogether too bad.

On the other hand, there are a hell of a lot of decisions to be made this year!
This is an ongoing process, but basically I’ve selected 3 routes which might work. warning: this is a mammoth image, it will take a moment to load.

Some things I’ve noticed already:
• There is a serious scarcity of info on the Kholmsk – Vanino (Sakhalin to Mainland Russia) ferry. When does it leave? What time is the ticket office open? Does it run everyday? Everyone seems to have a different answer. I emailed about 10 email addresses for various Russian companies associated with SASCO who run this line. I also hit up some couch surfers in the area. I’ll let you know if anything bares fruit.
• On the other hand, trains from Vanino can be booked by emailing the lovely, cheap (compared to other agencies), and reliable Svezhy Veter Russian agency. I had a good experience with them in 2007 and will be using them again this year.
• Tianjin port looks really useful for Beijing connections, but the lack of reliable transport at the port has put me off using it. Qingdao is much better served with more boats running (about 3 per week from Japan and 3 per week from Korea), and a highspeed rail station about a mile and a half down the road.

So there you have it I hope this gives you an idea of how to plan your overland journey starting in Japan. If you know which route you want to go and can be flexible about which day you leave, you should be able to focus on just one route which shouldn’t be too difficult.

Required reading

Seat 61’s itinerary planner
Check Russian / Chinese / Mongolian train times (You can’t book until 45 days before, for more obscure trains – like Vanino to Khabarovsk and BAM – email Svezy Veter)
Check Moscow <> London train times (You probably need to actually book the trains that connect to Russia through a Russian agency though)
Check ferry times via links on my google map - some links go to Japanese only sites

I’m heading off again, so join me for another jaunt across the world without planes or a great deal of cash, exploring alternative travel with fewer environmental impacts.


I realise that in 2007 I didn’t go into a lot of detail about one of the trickier parts of complicated journeys involving several train and boat schedules across many countries…

The Planning

Hopefully this section will be useful to anyone trying to figure out how to choose the best route out of Japan via ferry and on through Asia by train. Unlike the UK, where taking the eurostar is the most obvious, regular and easy to plan option, there are many route options from Japan to continental Asia including: Kobe to Shanghai, Kobe to Tianjin, various places to Korea and then Korea to China, Matsue to Vladivostok via Korea, Wakkanai to Sakhalin to Kholmsk to Vanino. I still have no idea which route I will be taking. I’m planning to leave in the week June 6th – 12th, the final date will depend on which ferry. Stay tuned for more information in the coming days on this travel jigsaw puzzle.

Part 1 – Getting off the island: Planning the sea crossing and connecting long-distance train

March looks to be the hardest month on Masanobu Fukuoka’s seasonal cycle, and so, taking carrots as a pivot, I fell back on a fusion dish, some o-nigiri – adaptable to any season – and which is surprisingly hard to learn how to make, finally a slight cheat with carrot and coriander soup.

Soba

I’m indebted to Abel & Cole, the organic veg box company I used to get seasonal organic veg from in the UK for this recipe. They sent out each box with a recipe that correlated to the ingredients inside, and I managed to grab a handful of these sheets that had Japanese ingredients listed on them before I left the UK. Within reason, the vegetables could be substituted for whatever you have at hand.

Method

1) Make the sauce by whisking the ingredients together until well blended, then season to taste with salt and pepper, set aside.
2) Cook the soba noodles, drain, and rinse with cold water.
3) Heat cooking oil in a large wok, add the ginger and stir for 30s
4) Add the asparagus and carrot and stir fry for about 2 mins
5) Add the white parts of the onion and mirin and stir fry for 3 mins
6) Add the tofu and stir until heated through.
7) transfer to a large bowl and toss with the sauce, sprinkle with peanuts and the green parts of the onion and serve

konomi o-nigiri

o-nigiri is a Japanese staple – the Japanese sandwich. As such, it is infinitely adaptable, and only limited by your imagination. It is however, surprisingly tricky to get the hang of (o-nigiri bloopers to follow). My biggest piece of advice is to wait until the rice has cooled properly! In any case, if you are finding yourself buying sugar filled bleach-white bread and plastic cheese… as new arrivals seem doomed to do, get out the rice cooker and master this quick healthy meal option.

Method
1 ) After cooking the rice, measure your portion size by putting the amount of rice you want to eat into a bowl.
2 ) Put the rice into a larger bowl, and leave to cool a little (this is important!)
3 ) Prepare a bowl of cold water to protect your hands and reduce stickiness
4 ) Use the rice spatula to gently chop the rice with the sesame o-nigiri mix. Be careful not to squish the rice.
5 ) Now that the rice has cooled (important!), wet your hands lightly in the cold water and take a handful of rice and shape it into a triangle. This is done by the cupped shape of both your hands fitting together.
6) Make a small hole in the middle and add filling.
7) Cover with rice and pat in to shape again, maintaining a gentle touch.
8 ) Wrap in a piece of Nori and eat!

Carrot and Coriander soup

This is a standard recipe that you can find almost anywhere. The only thing to note is that finding stock cubes in Japanese supermarkets can be a challenge. Since the chances of having an oven in Japan are 0 to minimal, making stock the old fashioned way doesn’t tie neatly in to the roast dinner lifestyle of the UK. Hats off to you if you make the stock from scratch, otherwise head for the condiment aisle, and look for a packet like this, called consommé, rather than stock, (or コンソメ. This one is by Ainomoto.
Coriander on the other hand can be easily grown on your balcony and should be available to purchase at a neighborhood plant shops. Herbs on my south-facing balcony seem to be pretty resilient, growing quite happily from late March / April through to November or December. Well the winter weather is lingering this year so I used a heavy dose of the dried stuff.

Method

1) Heat some cooking oil in a pot and saute the onions until translucent
2) Add the carrots and potato and fry for a few minutes
3) Stir in the ground or fresh coriander
4) Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the vegetables are softened.
5) Leave chunky or put in the blender.

Soup Garnish

Making soup gives me the opportunity to make use of any bread that didn’t get eaten, so for some fresh croutons try this:

Method

1) Cut bread into cubes
2) fry in the olive oil with with herbs and salt and pepper, put on top of soup.

A small zine exhibition / market / festival is happening on February 19th in Ichigaya featuring zine artists who were selected in the 2010 bi-monthly illustration competition run by the Japanese magazine “Illustration”.

View Larger Map


Venue: Yamawaki Gallery
Date: Saturday 19th February 2011
Time: 1pm ~ 5pm


Web: The Choice, annual exhibition

Re-posting this from last year!

Leading on from my last post, here are 3 recipes for seasonal Japanese food in February. The end of winter, before new vegetables are ready to harvest, is not traditionally the high point of the food calendar. However, the following three are tasty and full of variety in these dark evenings under the kotatsu.

Kinpira Gobo

Method

1) Cut carrots and burdock into thin strips 4cm long
2) Remove Chili seeds and cut into tiny strips
3) Heat cooking oil, then add chili and sizzle for a minute
4) Add burdock and carrot and stir fry for 3-4 minutes until softened
5) Add soy sauce and mirin on a ratio of 2:1, to a strength of your taste
6) Mix in 1tsp each of seasame oil and caster sugar and serve.

Komatsuna Salad

Method
1 ) Wrap tofu in a kitchen towel or kitchen paper to remove excess water, cut into 3 squares..
2 ) If using whole white sesame, grind seeds with a pestle and mortar until at least about half has turned to powder, a little lumpy is fine.
3 ) Mix tofu into ground sesame and stir until it forms a paste.

4 ) Wash and then ease the whole bunch of Komatsuna into a pot of heated water and bring to the boil.
5 ) Drain Komatsuna and run through cold water.
6 ) Hold the Komatsuna from the root and squeeze down with your hand to drain out the greater part of the water. Komatsuna should bunch so that you can cut it in to 5cm chunks. Start at the root and when you get to the ends of the leaf, once again drain by holding it in your fist.

7 ) Add soy sauce and salt & pepper
8 ) Spoon in Tofu paste, mix and serve.

Squid and Bamboo Shoot Stir Fry

Method
Preparing the squid (Click through images)

Cooking
1) Heat oil in a pan
2) Fry squid for 2-3 mins until translucency disappears
3) Add the mushrooms and bamboo shoot and stir fry for a few minutes
4) Season with soy sauce and mirin to taste
5) serve with torn green perilla leaves sprinkled on top.

This is a local festival / market that happens twice a year selling old kimonos, antiques, bric-a-brac, curios and Japanese festival food like yakisoba, yakiniku, as well as mochi, broth and Korean chijimi etc. Its not very big but its right on my doorstep twice a year and attracts a huge crowd. It also has a long and interesting history. It apparently has its origins as far back as 1578 when the Daimyo of Odawara (close to Mt. Fuji and Hakone), Hojo Ujimasa, decided to enliven the post town of Setagaya, which lay between Odawara and Edo. He created a festival called “rakuichi” and it was held on the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st and 26th of every month. When he was overthrown in 1590 the festival soon disappeared but since the area was an important agricultural area in the suburbs of Edo, it gradually resurfaced as a farm tools market held at the end of each year. From that time to this it has continued, and at its most thriving, the festival featured over 2000 stalls.


Today it is held every year on December the 15th and 16th and January the 15th and 16th, regardless of what day of the week it is. It currently advertises around 700 stalls and reportedly is visited by 200,000 people over two days! Its certainly hard to get down the street during the festival but its worth a visit if you are in the area. In 1994, the festival was designated as an “abstract” folk cultural property.

Access Info

Boroichi is held every year:
December 15th & 16th, January 15th & 16th. 9am-9pm
From Shibuya:
Take Den-en-toshi line to Sangenjaya, change to Setagaya line and get off at Setagaya or Kamimachi Sta. or
Take the number 21, 23, 24, 26 bus from the West side entrance of JR Shibuya station and get off at Setagaya Kuyakusho Mae or the following bus stop.
From Shinjuku:
Take Odakyu line to Gotokuji, change to Setagaya line and get off at Kamimachi or Setagaya Sta.

The Shoto Art Museum, a medium sized, expensive looking, prime real-estate located art museum run under city management in Shibuya Ward holds varyingly successful exhibitions that escape many people’s attention owing to their publicity strategy (or lack of one).

The Japanese website is a single page with the same navigation and design as the rest of this otherwise city-council website and consequently it’s hard to tell whether they are advertising an art exhibition or warning you about earthquake procedures. The English website doesn’t publish any information on the current exhibition and it’s exhibitions haven’t been publicised on Tokyo Art Beat for a year and a half! All this means you may have missed information about their current exhibition which is a little unusual and well worth a visit.

Boom Years for Modern Japanese Illustration

The exhibition contains over 300 examples of book covers, book illustrations, magazine covers, envelopes, postcards, and all kinds of printed ephemera from the Taisho era (1912-1926).

This was an era when imported western print technologies were becoming more widespread and greater literacy rates created both the audience (demand) and the publication methods (supply) for books and magazines. This had a profound effect on art in Japan because it meant that a much greater number of artists could support themselves through commercial work – you didn’t have to have private family wealth to make a living. It was a time when famous Japanese artists such as Kishida Ryusei, Murayama Tomoyoshi, and others were crossing boundaries between galleries and children’s book publishing seamlessly in a way not found before or since. The word “shōgyō bijutsu”, commercial art, was born in this period. Some artists even actively chose the print medium because it was less elitist or it could reach wider audiences. Gennifer Weisenfeld quotes Murayama and his contemporary Yanase Masamu, both members of the avant-garde group Mavo thus,

“’The old art aesthetic was that poster art is the prostitution of painting; journalism is the prostitution of literature; moving pictures are the prostitution of theater.’ He sought to replace this elitist notion by making ‘the practical’ (jitsuyoteki) an integral component in Sanka and Mavo art work.”

– Murayama
Yanase went further, totally ceasing to make “fine art”,

“I have gradually become dissociated from the field of literature and art. Why is that? For me, everything is irritating. Paintings that fit in a frame, trends in essays that are like black tea, all of them are just little arts for the living room. Decorations for capitalist society”

Although much of the printed materials that these artists did for a jobbing wage were part of a new consumerism and was frequently associated with the new department stores such as Mitsukoshi, avant-garde artists saw no contradiction in print media, instead seeing it as a medium for mass culture. Onchi Kōshirō, one of the leaders of the Creative Print Movement was also greatly inspired by graphic design, stating design and illustration represented “the harmony between culture in daily life and the fine arts,” and that it was “an anti-commercialistic industrial art”.

World of Taisho Imagery Exhibition

Here are some random picks from the exhibition catalogue.

Takahashi Shunka (高橋春佳)
This is possibly (?) a female illustrator, and not very well known. According to the catalogue she was a design apprentice in Kyoto before becoming an illustrator for postcards and such like these


Kawabata Ryūshi (川端龍子) Kawabata Ryūshi (1885-1966) is more well known. He studied western painting (yōga) among the elite Hakubakai circle but became more closely associated with the neo-traditionalist nihonga movement. I really like these covers for “young girl’s companion” magazine


Itō Toshio (伊藤としを) Only known for these elaborately illustrated paper envelopes


Saitō Kazō (斉藤佳三)Saitō Kazō(1887-1955) was born in Akita and worked as a designer, composer, theatre set artist and actor. He originally entered the Tokyo School of Music but later reapplied to the Tokyo Art School (Both now part of modern day Tokyo University of the Arts). The catalogue attributes him with first coining the phrase “Shōgyō design” (commercial design).


Yamada Shinkichi (山田伸吉) 1904-1982 from Osaka. Best known for his hand drawn typography and constructivist style such as these.





Tachibana Sayume (橘小夢) 1892-1970. One of the more focal artists in the exhibition with many pieces on display. He studied western painting under Kuroda Seiki and nihonga at the Kawabata school. Mostly it’s his printmaking that features in this exhibition and particularly these highly detailed black and white prints that draw a really clear line from Ukiyo-e to Aubrey Beardsley and back again.


Sugiura Hisui (杉浦非水) Sugiura (1876-1965) is well known in Japan for his Mitsukoshi posters, particularly a highly decorational one featuring a young woman in kimono browsing a Mitsukoshi catalogue, as well as the poster for the opening of the Tokyo subway. He is another leading artist in the exhibition


Katō Masao (加藤まさを) Katō Masao, (1897-1977) learnt at the Kawabata school and studied English literature which made him well versed to illustrate such stories which were becoming popular among young women at the time.

Info

Exhibition closes soon so hurry! – until January 23rd 2011
Closed Monday 17th

Regular entry is ¥300
Open 9am til 5pm (I think)
google map link (note: Shinsen station on the Keio Inokashira line is fractionally closer if you use that line anyway, otherwise walking distance from Shibuya.

Yes I know what a dreary name for a post, tragically so much of the damage being inflicted on our planet’s ecosystems is incredibly dreary, mundane, offensively dull… so I’ll continue.

New Years is the traditional time of celebration in Japan, so unlike Christmas there is an order events to be observed.

On New Year’s Eve you begin with Ō-sōji (big cleaning) and go through the house cleaning down things that you don’t get a chance to clean during the rest of the year and prepare the house to start afresh. One of the things on my list of jobs was to clear out a certain cupboard under the grill where I put plastic bags that escaped a reusable fabric alternative because I either forgot, bought too much for it to fit into the one I brought with me, or was just socially conditioned into not refusing the one the over zealous shop clerk was thrusting at me. Even though yesterday I discovered that over 50% of the bags in this cupboard were completely useless for any obvious function, it seems I felt so guilty about throwing them away that they built up into a veritable frothing polythene monster that after decompression seemed to fill the entire room.


It was a little bit shocking, not only that I had enough money this year to make so many purchases but the thought of a similar sized (or think of the people who don’t ever use a reusable alternative, much bigger) polythene guilt monster attacking people all over Japan in the big cleaning escapade. There were three types of establishments that seem to be my main weak points.
• Clothes shops
For some reason, asking the shop clerk to put something anything more expensive than a kilo of spuds into a non-branded eco-bag registers a little bit koo-koo on the hippy scale, and I didn’t whip out the netting.
• Bread shops
Bread shops in Japan are among the worst for over packaging, and it’s usually at the end of a grocery shop that I visit such a vendor, fully laden and no extra space for the bread. On top of this, the bags are completely useless for anything obvious.
• Corner shops / Convenience stores
How do they get those puny one litre bags around a single purchase so fast and why am I in such a zombie state not to prevent them. Well that’s not true, I often do stop them (and you have to be mighty quick to do so) but that extra pint of milk you need at 9pm on a Sunday happens so often in the year I guess it was a law of averages.


So, with A TRILLION plastic bags being consumed every year, I thought I’d try to tackle my three blind spots this year. Otherwise I’ll be back wrestling the polythene guilt monster next year, or else I’ll be building a new one of these every year: taken at the Nakanojo Biennale in 2009, plastic bag pyramid art.


Did you do any better than me this year?

Sorry I’ve been too busy to blog recently!
There were five highways created during the Edo period to traverse the central region of Honshu and particularly the distance between the old imperial capital Kyoto and the Shogunate power centre of Edo (Tokyo). Many will know the 53 stations of the Tokaido from Hiroshige’s woodblock prints. This was the busiest route along the coast and now carries the bullet train on the Tokyo-Nagoya-Kyoto-Osaka route.




The Nakasendo cut inland through the mountains, and with terrain less suited to development it fell into economic decline while the coastal south blanketed over in concrete. In these mountains a small district called the Kiso valley was bypassed by encroaching development, and after being neglected for some time was finally cordoned off by the government for protection, even prohibiting the overhead electricity cables that blight the rest of Japan in the picturesque and perfectly preserved village of Tsumagome.



There are many towns along the Nakasendo, and the region is surprisingly inaccessible (one express train per two hours, at least in the winter season, from Matsumoto) so a little planning is advised. The main attraction is the village of Tsumagome and the next town Magome which are connected by the old highway on a two-three hour easy walk. (Start at Magome for a short steep climb followed by a long ambling downward path, or go the other way for a long rambling ascent and a steep downward finish). The path is well maintained all the way and stone-paved in many parts.



• You can get a bus from Nagiso JR station to Tsumagome or Magome though they are quite infrequent. (Especially in winter!)
• A taxi from Nagiso JR station to Tsumagome should be about 1500 yen (in 2010…) or 4000 yen from Nagiso JR station to Magome.
• Alternatively there is a bus from another JR station, Nakatsugawa to Magome at more regular intervals.
• The distance between Nagiso JR station and Tsumagome could be walked with an extra 45 mins to 1hr journey time.


There are lockers for your baggage at Nagiso JR station. Directly across the road from the station is a small open room labeled in Japanese “案内所” (annai sho) (information point) but it is actually just a small empty room with a desk by the door and lockers on the far wall. It’s not locked but the door might be closed. Ask the tourist information people who are on the left in a separate building as you come out the station if you are not sure. They may or may not speak English but they’ll probably understand “locker”. There are also some lockers in the centre of Tsumagome at the tourist information / village hall like building. There are *probably* lockers at Nakatsugawa station too, but I haven’t checked. Some guidebooks say that in summer there is a baggage carrying service but there certainly wasn’t in the winter. We opted to put our bags in at Nagiso station and ended up getting a taxi to Magome because there were no buses and the trains were so infrequent. We then walked back. The route is simple and signposted. Make sure you have time to wander a little around the houses when you reach your destination.



There are many places to stay in the Kiso valley but the ones inside the towns do not have onsen (hot spring) facilities attached to them as far as I could figure. If you want the full experience, I really recommend the fantastic hotel we stayed in, “Fukinomori”. It is a little way up in the mountains but the staff will collect you from either Nagiso station or Tsumagome (maybe Magome too).
You can book in English on this website and muddle through once you get there if you are brave –
itcj hotel booking service, fukinomori hotel.


The thing to know about this and all traditional style hotels with onsen facilities in Japan is that it’s not just a room for you to crash in. You are there to enjoy the hotel as much as the sites outside so it’s best to arrive earlier rather than later. Have some green tea and sweets, provided free in your room, dress in the cotton kimono yukata (and cardigan like top garment if its cold), head down for a pre-dinner dip in the onsen and outside bath looking over the mountains. Use all sorts of lovely exotic free lotions and potions like coal face cream and tsubaki oil before going for dinner (Fukinomori has seating in a restaurant with private tatami-mat booths rather than in-room meals like the more expensive places). Dinner will be extravagant – ours had about 7 courses, all inspired by the local flavours. Return to your room which will have been transformed in your absence into a futon filled bedroom where you can lounge about (gorotto suru) feeling super over fed. Head back down to the baths or even rent a private bath for an extra 2000 yen that is big enough for a family or if you are feeling luxurious, all to yourself. Finally, Fukinomori has a beautifully designed wooden lounge with enormous windows looking out over the mountain. There is free coffee there for you to pour yourself from a little espresso machine and they show a video of the constellations at night so you can try to pick them out in the window. Wake up and have a truly enormous breakfast and be on your merry way!

“Sea and mountain, from these two view points you can enjoy the charms of this island to the full. In this abundant place, the artwork of Asia’s artists meets in fusion. In a relaxed mood, allow the beautiful scenes of country and sea to be etched into your memory.”
P112 Setouchi International Art Festival, 2010 guidebook.




We only briefly visited Shodoshima. It is the most accessible of all the islands, and the biggest. It is also the least rural. It was even a little bit of a shock back to reality coming out of the port building – Shodoshima has busy roads, a commercial Onsen complex attached to a mega mall and modern concrete buildings in the area around Tonosho port. As you move away from the towns though there are still remnants of a more rural existence in the hills. According to the guidebook it was an important transportation hub on shipping routes between Osaka and Shanghai, producing salt in older times. For the Setouchi International Art Festival, it has a somewhat smaller selection of artwork than other islands, and the modern attire of the towns and roads may be off-putting for some, but Shodoshima has other sights outside of the festival that may be worth seeing if you are here for a slightly longer period of time.






Of the 11 exhibits on the island, 9 of them are in the Hitoyama • Nakayama area. You can get there by the festival shuttle bus or the local bus. Both stop running early so try to get there in time to leave by around 17:30 – 18:00. We only had time to go to this area.

No. 66 Wang Wen-Chih – House of Shodoshima

Wang Wen-Chih’s House of Shodoshima is the headline piece of this area. It is a massive bamboo structure that dominates the view from the road. You can enter the structure through long winding corridors. and lounge around on a stage like elevation in the centre. This piece was really special.

The ones we missed

We missed (No. 59) Treasure Ship by Ryo Toyofuku and (No. 60) Net-Work by Suh Do-Ho because they were located outside of the Hitoyama • Nakayama area and we didn’t have time. The festival shuttle bus should also run to the area where these works are situated. We missed (No. 61) Giant in our Minds by Tatsuo Kawaguchi and (No. 62) Soil Library Project / Setouchi by Koichi Kurita which I am a little sad about because I love his idea of collecting all the soils from around Setouchi and making this library with them. The colours in the photo are so incredibly diverse. We missed them out because they were on the extreme end of the area, separated by about 400m and we would have missed the last bus. Similarly, (No. 69) Tsugi-Tsugi-Kintsugi by Masayuki Kishimoto which is a piece made from junk thrown out by people in the region, because this was on the other extreme end of the Hitoyama • Nakayama area. Lastly (No. 65) Straw Art by a team from Musashino Art University will not be open until September 25th. Here are other people’s photographs of them:

Other Sites of Interest on Shodoshima

Hitoyama Agricultural Kabuki Theatre
The area around Shodoshima, Kobe, Osaka is known for Bunraku puppet theatre. Maybe in time for the festival, the Noson Kabuki theatre was restored to a working theatre building. Performances were advertised, so if you are lucky enough to be there, you can picnic on the small amphitheatre. The theatre is inside a shrine on the path between Artwork 63 and 65 on the map above.



24 Eyes • Movie set museum
Shodoshima is known for a novel that was turned into an award winning film in 1954. The novel is called Nijushi no Hitomi or 24 eyes by Sakae Tsuboi. The synopsis of the film from IMDB is “Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi struggles to imbue her students with a positive view of the world and their place in it, despite the fact that she knows full well that most of them will die in the war”. It won a golden globe in 1954, and this commemorative museum houses the buildings that feature in the film. The museum is some distance away from the festival sites, maybe 10km from Kusakabe port – No.25 on the main map at the top of this page.

For even longer stays, the island also has a cable car that runs down through a gorge called Kankakei gorge which is over run by thieving but adorable wild monkeys, onsen facilities in a couple of locations and an olive park with Japanese home-grown olive products. Ask at the tourist office when you arrive.