Add On Tour, October 2010

For those who wish to stay longer we will begin at the bustling Antiques market held in the precincts of the Tō-ji temple on the first Sunday of each month. Here you can buy all kinds of ephemera as well as sample local food.
A train journey will take us west and south across the inland sea to Takamatsu the largest town on Shikoku Island. The breathtaking ride by train goes over a series of bridges, hopping from one tiny island to another. Here we will visit Ritsuren, the finest of the Japanese stroll gardens, where we will enjoy the autumn colours at their peak in the landscape, which forms its backdrop.  We will also visit a bonsai nursery.

The local Folk House open-air museum, Shikoku-Mura, showing various examples of old Japanese buildings and their settings will be included too. Among them the modern architect Tadao Andeo has designed and built a remarkable modern museum and water garden.

We will visit the home and workshops, at Mure, of the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi who designed the UNESCO headquarters garden in Paris. Here are displayed many of his fine sculptural pieces including a homage to Brancusi, one of his teachers, and many unfinished pieces. Articles on Noguchi appear in Shakkei the Journal of the Japanese Garden Society in Britain volume 15 no 4 2008 and volume 16 no 2 2009.

Travelling back to Osaka, we get off the train at Okayama, and if you wish we can visit the third fine stroll garden in this part of Japan, Korakuen, founded in 1686.