Coming out of the Wind Museum and walking a little further in, the Water Museum appears.
The ‘Su’ (Water) Museum
From the outside I couldn’t get a sense of what the inside would be like. What sort of scene would it make out of water..
Inside
A round piece of sky shows above the flat fountain.
Inside
A building of squares and circles. The stones seemed to serve as seats.
Looking straight ahead from inside
A wondrous, moving place.
Sky and water
The round sky is reflected on the floor of the square pool. It is as if the I Ching’s “round heaven, square earth” had been turned into a work of art. It seems meant to let you meditate on the principle of yin and yang, but where on earth did an idea like this come from.. My respects to the architect and his gifts
A tree
On the way out I looked up and saw a beautiful tree above me. The Water Museum was the end of the museum tour, so the goal was achieved, but the next destination needed no thinking about: the garden where that tree stands.
The long garden
They say the garden at the Adachi Museum of Art is big, but is it as big as this? There was no one around and our group had the whole walk to ourselves. I don’t know how to describe what it feels like to enjoy a garden on this scale to your heart’s content, with nobody else to mind. The people who live in Biotopia must have it good..
Garden view
It was beautifully looked after.
Garden view
The rugged, untamed feel of nature here is different from a Japanese garden, but it is good in its own way. If you prefer gardens with a man-made beauty, you would have to go to Kyoto.
Garden view
A bridge
A bridge had been laid across the walking path.
Back at the Wind Museum again
The garden is so vast that we ended up back where the Wind Museum stands. The Wind Museum looks wonderful from this side too.
The pond
The silver grass in the background was really something, but the photo doesn’t do it justice.
The garden
I could walk for ages without ever getting tired of it.
Lotus flowers
The flowers were beautiful, but I didn’t have a telephoto lens, so they didn’t come out properly.
The garden
Go all the way to the end and there is an ecological park too, but it was so big I could not even bring myself to attempt it. Leaving those moving museums and gardens behind, we left Biotopia and headed for Bangju Church, the Ark Church, Itami Jun’s final building.
Bangju Church
The building is gorgeous, but I visited on a Sunday morning and a service was in full swing, so I didn’t get to see the inside. It’s a place I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back to, so that was a bit of a shame.