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Naoshima now

An electric bicycle is the best way to explore the island at your own pace. There are buses but these are infrequent and the drivers don’t speak English. If you have the time, walk. Each destination is about 30 to 60 minutes away on foot, plus it’s the best way to take in the natural beauty of Naoshima.

I’ll admit it. I went to Japan to see pumpkins. Giant, polka-dotted pumpkins on Naoshima Island, to be exact.

Created by Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist with a penchant for bright-red wigs and polka dots, the Red Pumpkin is the first cheery thing that greets you as the ferry sails into Miyanoura Port on the island’s west coast.

Its more photographed sister, Yellow Pumpkin, sits on the southern side of the island, near the Benesse House Museum and Hotel. With the scenic Seto Inland Sea as backdrop, it is easy to see why the Yellow Pumpkin is the more popular squash.

WHERE FOR ART THOU?

You’ve got to love how accessible art, like Kusama’s sculptures, is on the 17-sq-km island. No velvet rope, glass wall or security guard to control the crowd.

At the Benesse Art Site, Dutch artist Christiaan Karel Appel’s childlike totem, Frog and Cat, was the first to be erected. You can’t miss French artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculptures that double as planters and look like giant, colourful Plasticine animals moulded by children.

Up on a knoll, George Ricky’s installation, Three Squares Vertical Diagonal, pivot on their corners in the wind like grounded metal kites.

Down at the beach, Shinro Ohtake’s Shipyard Works: Stern with Hole pays homage to Naoshima’s fishing heritage with an installation that looks like a giant cheese grater from the movie set of Gulliver’s Travels.

Naoshima doesn’t get its reputation as a modern art and architecture island from these installations alone. There are four main museums to explore — Benesse House Museum, Chichu Art Museum, Ando Museum and Lee Ufan Museum — in chronological order of their openings.

HUSH NOW

If you don’t have enough time to fit all four museums into your schedule, zero in on the Chichu Art Museum. From the air, the museum looks like seven lid-less boxes of various shapes and sizes sunken into the ground (“chichu” means below the earth in Japanese).

The clever use of light and space by award-winning, self-taught Osakan architect Tadao Ando makes the museum an art installation in itself — a ziggurat-like staircase here, a tilted corridor there — all done in a minimalist and almost monastic style.

Every room is created for each artist’s work, like the glowing, corner-less Monet room that makes the five Water Lilies paintings look like windows into heaven.

James Turrell’s light wonder appears as a giant, blue TV screen as you approach it, then becomes an infinite room as you step into it. His other work, aptly named Open Sky, is a ceiling-less room that draws your eyes up to the expanse of blue above.

In Walter de Maria’s installation, Time/Timeless/No Time, a shiny, colossal orb sits at the top of a grand staircase, seemingly ready to roll down and crush you.

It was tempting to re-enact an Indiana-Jones-style scene for a selfie, but in this sonorous shrine dedicated to precision, that thought seemed crude.

Plus, no photography in the entire museum please.

ART HOUSES

Besides the museums, there are other exhibitions to see on Naoshima. The Art House Project in the Honmura district, for instance, tells the history of seven empty houses through the eyes of artists.

There is the Go’o Shrine by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, which connects an underground stone chamber to a restored Shinto shrine with a staircase made of glass blocks as steps.

Even the public bath house is an art installation. Resembling Howl’s Moving Castle in the Studio Ghibli cartoon, I Love Yu (“yu” is a play on the Japanese word for bath) incorporates recycled objects from all over Japan to create its eclectic patchwork aesthetics.

- Getting there

Tokyo is 3 hours and 20 minutes from Okayama Station via the JR Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen line. At Okayama Station, take a bus to Uno Port, followed by a ferry.

From Osaka, take a 40-minute ride from Shin-Osaka to Okayama Station on the Shinkansen (bullet train).

An electric bicycle is the best way to explore Naoshima Island at your own pace. There are buses but these are infrequent and the drivers don’t speak English. If you have the time, walk. Each destination is about 30 to 60 minutes away on foot, plus it’s the best way to take in the natural beauty of Naoshima.

- Where to stay

Choose from beachfront Mongolian-style yurts (¥3,780 or S$45 per night per person), ocean-front Japanese-style cottages (¥4,760 per person per night), caravans, guesthouses (from ¥3,200), ryokans to even an art hotel (Benesse House Hotel’s cheapest twin/double room costs ¥26,000 yen per person during the regular season).

- Dos and don’ts

Don’t bring kids who are too young to appreciate the artworks. They might become a nuisance to other visitors instead. March to November are the peak months, so avoid them if you don’t fancy crowds. Wear shoes that can be easily removed as some spaces require you to remove them before entering.

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