Izumo Mansion & Izumo-style Garden

 

The Izumo Mansion was formerly the residence of the Ezumi family, a wealthy farming family of the Izumo region.

Their main house was dismantled and reassembled within the grounds of what is now the Izumo Cultural Heritage Museum, located between downtown Izumo and the Izumo Taisha area.

As well as moving the substantial house, they also moved the very large garden.

The Nagayamon, gatehouse, was also relocated and serves as the entrance to the museum compound.

The garden is very large and is  a dry garden with large areas of white gravel.

It can be viewed from the southern, shoin, room of the mansion.

It was a stroll-type garden, but unfortunately cannot be entered, only viewed from the house.

It is planted mostly with evergreen shrubs and trees, including a lot of black pine.

The arrangement of stepping stones is in the Izumo-style.

The house was originally built in 1896, and all the rooms can be explored.

Next door is a restaurant that offers a different view of the garden.

The Izumo Cultural Heritage Museum has exhibits on Izumo crafts and offers workshops. Two large, modern galleries show interesting temporary exhibits that require an entrance fee. I saw a fantastic exhibition of yokai prints and paintings here. The mansion and gardens are free to enter.

For garden enthusiasts there is an extra bonus here, a replica of a teahouse by Sen no Rikyu once owned by the famed Matsue tea master Fumai, with a series of gardens including one designed by Fumai himself. I will post pictures of that next.

The previous post in this series exploring the delights of Izumo and Matsue was on Jozan Inari Shrine.

Sasebo Port Revisited

 

On my last day in Sasebo I went back and visited the recently redeveloped port and harbour area.

I had been based in Sasebo for a week and each day took the local trains out into the surrounding areas of northern Nagasaki and western Saga visiting a cluster of temples on the Kyushu 108 temple pilgrimage.

Lots of interesting architecture but not a lot of people.

Sasebo is a major naval port for both Japan and the USA.

I did post earlier on this area like this one on Sasebo port, and this one on the ferry terminal.

The previous post was on some interesting buildings nearby.

This was the end of day 71 of my walk and the next day I headed north on the final week's worth of walking to complete the pilgrimage up in Munakata Fukuoka.

Awa Ikeda Udatsu House & Museum of Tobacco

 

Awa Ikeda was in important transport and trading hub on the Yoshino River in what is now Miyoshi City in Tokushima on Shikoku.

This very large Edo period property belonged to a wealthy tobacco manufacturer and is open to the public.

In the entrance area is a nice display of puppets, as this area of Shikoku, Awa, is home to a long tradition of puppetry.

After sitting in the entrance for a while, trading tobaccos and smoking with the curator, he then took me on a guided tour of the house. It was a huge complex surrounding a nice courtyard  garden.

This first section of the property was formerly the residential area and each room was tastefully arranged with traditional, minimal, decorations...

Incidentally, udatsu are the external architectural features that are found protruding from the second floor of buildings and are meant to prevent the spread of fire from building to building. They are a common feature of a historic town a little further down the river in Mima.

At the rear of the property, which was where the workshops were, is the tobacco museum, spread over about ten rooms with a wide range of displays.

Tobacco was introduced into Japan in the late 16th century, probably by the Portuguese. The government unsuccessfully tried to ban it, but its use became widespread among men and women, and it became a lucrative cash crop throughout Japan.

Tobacco was smoked using a kiseru, a small pipe with a metal bowl and mouthpiece. Kiseru developed into an artform, some with intricate engraving. Another artform that came from tobacco was netsuke, the tiny ivory ornaments used in tobacco pouches.

The type of tobacco for kiseru was called kizami, a very finely chopped form. Kiseru and kizami began to disappear after the Meiji Restoration when cigarettes started to become available.

In 1898, to secure the considerable tax income, the Japanese government established a monopoly on the sale of tobacco leaf. In 1904 they expanded the monopoly to cover all aspects of tobacco production. In 1985 the government sold off Japan Tobacco, but retained a large percentage of shares, and JT has become one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world, buying u foreign companies like the Gallagher Group.

Even if you have no interest in Tobacco, it is a fascinating small museum to visit. The displays are all well made and though there is no English, the very friendly curator does his best to explain things. The traditional house is also worth a visit by itself. I find many museums in Japan to be overpriced and not so interesting, but there are plenty like this one that are excellent value for money but rarely visited.

I visited on the 4th day of my walk along the Shikoku Fudo Myoo pilgrimage. The previous post was Maruyama Shrine.

Interesting Modern Architecture in Sasebo

 

One of my favorite subjects for photography has always been modern architecture, and the cities and even the countryside of Japan have been great locations to find such.

Walking around Sasebo in Nagasaki I came across a few buildings that while not amazing, were quite interesting. These first three shots show the Sasebo City Library. 

I can not find the architect, but believe it was built in 1993.

Literally across the road is the Sasebo City Museum Shimanose Art Center. A somewhat brutalist building housing many galleries and arts facilities and also an archeology museum.

Again, I could not find who the architect was, but it was built in 1983.

The next 2 shots are of a headquarters  for Shinwa Bank. Of the three it is quite well known and was designed by Seichi Shirai who seems to have been fairly well known.

Built in three stages with each of the three sections distinctly different, the section shown, known as Kaisho-kan, was the last built, in 1975.

Finally, back near the port another shot of Arcus Sasebo, the newest, and for me, the most interesting of the modern structures in Sasebo.

The previous post was Miyajitake Shrine.

Mugiwara Zaiku Traditional Straw Crafts

 

Mugiwara Zaiku is a traditional type of craft that nowadays is practiced in just one location in Japan, Kinosaki Onsen in northern Hyogo.

It uses dyed wheat straw that is cut into intricate patterns kind of like marquetry and other types of inlay.

It is most commonly used to decorate boxes, though it is also used for other objects like fans or dolls.

The straw is prepared, dyed, then cut and flattened.

Nowadays modern chemical dyes allow a wide range of sometimes bright colours, but traditionally the colours would have been more natural earth tones.

As well as being cut, like veneers in traditional marquetry, the strips of straw are sometimes woven into patterns before being used.

In the early 18th century a visitor to the hot springs from Tottori, a certain Hanhichi, made small objects out of the local straw to help fund his travels.

Local people imitated his work and now Kinosaki is the only place in the country where it is still practiced.

The European physician Siebold took examples of mugiwara zaiku back with him in the 19th centuryand are on display at several museums in Europe.

The collections are of such good quality that craftsmen from Kinosaki traveled to Europe in 2001 to study them. As well as shops selling the crafts now in Kinosaki there is also a small museum dedicated to the craft housed in a former storehouse. Here visitors can take classes and produce their own articles.

The previous post in those series on Toyooka was on Gokurakuji Temple