Meteor Plaza

 

Meteor Plaza is located in the port of Shichirui on the Shimane Peninsuka. Now part ofMihonoseki which itself is now part of nMatsue City.

Its primary function is as a ferry terminal operating car ferries and high-speed ferries to the Oki Islands.

Meteor Plaza was designed by Shimane-born architect Shin Takamatsu and opened in 1995

As well as the ferry terminal the complex also houses a saltwater swimming pool and a museum and performance space, although I am unsure how often the pool opens nowadays.

The museum is devoted to the meteor that struck the earth a few kilometers away in 1992.

The cone of the structure represents the meteor's trajectory, and the weird curved shape is the shape of the meteor itself.

The meteor crashed  through a local house and embedded itself in the earth. The inhabitants, who were home at the time, didn't notice it until next morning as the night was very noisy with a thunderstorm

Inside the big space is a kind of auditorium that puts on a light show and a short movie about the meteor.

When we visited we were the only people there so it was kind of eerie.

The meteor itself is on display inside the cone structure. It weighs 6.8 kilos and is just over 25 cms long.

The architecture appeals to me and I have posted on many other Shin Takamatsu buildings, like his ferry terminal in Nagasaki, his public onsen in Tamatsukuri, a Buddhist Hall on a mountain, and of course, his Sand Museum in his hometown.

The curved interior of the performance space offered me plenty of opportunity for the kind of geometric abstract photos I am partial to...

Reflections of Hunting the Turquoise

 

Day 1 in Mitsu.

Day 2 in Kaga

Da3 in Kasaura

Day 4 Katae

Day 5 Mihonoseki

Hunting the Turquoise

 November is my favorite time of the year to go walking in Japan, and I usually spend a lot of time walking pilgrimage routes stalking the autumn colors. For obvious reasons this year is a little different and instead I chose to stay local and explore the coast of Shimane. Whe the sun is shining and the sea is calm then it becomes turquoise....... I went on a five day walk along the eastern half of the Shimane Peninsula in search of this turquoise.

On the first day I walked from Kashima to Kaga, The photo was taken in Owashi.

Day 2 was from Kaga up to Tako. This is the harbor in Okidomari in Tako village.

On the third day while heading for Sagiura, I turned a bend in the road and came to this stunning view looking down on Kitaura.

Before reaching Shichirui on the 4th day I skirted Tamayu Bay.

My destination at the end of 5 days was Mihonoseki.

Uppurui Bay

Inome has a wonderful little sheltered cove and beach. Off to the left is a cave that is one of the entrances to Yomi, the Underworld, but I still had a lot of ground to cover on this first day of my Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage so I turned right and headed along the coast.

The road and tunnel are modern creations. There were trails up and over the mountains, but in pre-modern times communication and travel between these little fishing villages would have been by boat.

The coast road heads along the south side of Uppurui Bay, a deep bite into the coast of the Shimane Peninsular. It was here in this bay that I got my first glimpses of flying fish. We were heading into Uppurui by yacht to seek shelter from a forecasted typhoon and I was amazed at how low to the water the flocks of birds were flying until the "birds" disappeared!!! They resurfaced and again flew inches above the water for about 50 meters, and it was then I realized they were fish, not birds.

The name, Uppurui, given to the village on the far side of the bay is most certainly not Japanese, on that everyone agrees, but what it means and what language the word is derived from is a mystery.

After a couple of kilometers I turn and head inland back up into the mountains that I had earlier crossed over. The road up to Gakuenji gets narrower and steeper and the sound of running water is the only sound...