Ieshima and Naoshima Islands Group Tour

Naoshima Red Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama

A friend told us about a group tour that was looking for foreigners to join their experience. We're so glad we got to go. We had a really great time. The day started out by meeting the tour group at Himeji Station where they had a bus prepared to take us to Himeji Port to board a charter boat to takes us to the first spot: Ieshima Island.
 

On Ieshima we had a tour guide with us as we walked around the island and visited the shrine. The tour guide spoke Japanese but they gave us a translating device to carry with us. We were on a schedule so we couldn't spend too much time in one place as we had to be back to the port in time to get on the boat for the next island: Naoshima.

On the boat they gave us a bento lunch! Once we were on the island we got electric bikes and were free to explore on our own. The only time constraint was that we had a timed entry to the Chichu Art Musuem. Although I was nervous since it was my first time on an electric bike I was glad they were electric because there were some parts on the island where we were riding on an incline. I think I would've had to walk my bike up on those parts if it had been a regular bike.

 

Naoshima is famous for its red and yellow pumpkin sculptures from Yayoi Kusama. I did not realize that you can actually go inside the red pumpkin! That was a cool experience as it is completely black inside except for the few areas where natural lighting can come in. 

 

After viewing the pumpkins we made our way to Chichu Art Musuem, which is an underground museum ("Chichu" means underground). On the way there we saw a sculpture of a giant trashcan. To be honest I had not looked up what the museum was like, I went in blind and that might have added to my experience because it was not like any other art museum I've been to. 

As I mentioned before it is underground, and has concrete walls. There aren't really any paintings except for one white room with four Monet paintings to view in natural lighting. Some of my favorites from the museum were the James Turell space, Open Field, Open Sky, and the Walter de Maria space. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend checking it out!

 

My favorite one was Open Field by James Turell. You are in a white room that has black stairs leading up to what looks like a giant blue rectangular projection on the wall.At first it seems like you can only look at the stairs and projection, but then the workers encourage you to go up the stairs. There's hesitance in the room, as normally you don't interact like this with the artwork in a museum. We all went up stopping at the last step, seeing the blue rectangular projection much closer, and the color seemed to be a bit different from when we first entered the room. Then there was further encouragement from the workers to continue and there was a mix of confusion and hesitation in the room. I lifted my right hand up slowly to touch the projection on the wall but there is NO WALL, my hand went through the blue light and I was the first to take the step inside and lead the way into an infinite purplish-blue room as if entering a different dimension. Both the museum and Naoshima overall were really unique experiences.

Naoshima port to head back to Himeji port