Oki-ke House, Garden, & Museum

 

The Oki-ke is a traditional, large residence next door to the Tamawakasu Shrine on Dogen, the largest of the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan.

It is built in a style unique to the Oki Islands.

It is the home of the Oki family, hereditary priests of the shrine since ancient times.

It was built in 1801 and is designated an Important Cultural Property.

The family still reside there, so it cannot be entered, though one can see inside from a couple of spots.

There is a quite nice garden surrounding the residence and the museum building next door.

I don't remember having seen this kind of bamboo before. It' called Kikko bamboo.

I thought it must have been manipulated in some way to force the strange zig-zag pattern, but its natural.

Inside the museum the pride of place goes to the ekirei, station bell. It seem this is the only remaining example in Japan.

This small copper bell was a mark of status since the ritsuryo-state period of ancient Japan. It gave the person carrying it the right to horses at stations along the old imperial routes.

There are other things on display that may be of interest to some....

The previous post was on the neighbouring Tamawakasu Shrine, also with Important Cultural Properties.

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Mizunokuni (outside)

This is one of my favorite museums in all of Japan. The setting, landscaping and water-scaping, architecture, artworks, and even the lunches in the cafe are all excellent, and yet the place is empty most days.

It's only a few kilometers from where I live, and I drove by it hundreds of times and never went in, presuming it to be overpriced and boring like so many provincial museums.

When I finally made it in I was gobsmacked and have been back many times since.

The museums proper name is Museum 104 (104 degrees being the angle between the 2 hydrogen atoms in a water molecule.... but you knew that already!)

 but it is known as Mizunokuni,.... Waterland...., and as might be guessed, it focuses on the art, and science, of water.

The museum was designed by Takano Hiroyuki, and opened in 1997.

The main building is meant to represent Noah's Ark resting on Mount Ararat, but to me it looks more like a bridge.

Unfortunately, the museum closed to the public a few years ago.

The buildings still stand so much of what is in these photos can still be seen....

Muroya no Sono Merchant Mansion and Gardens

 

This is one of the largest Edo-period merchant residences in all of Japan that still stands.

It is located in Yanai, a small river port on the south coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Muroya was the trading name for the Oda Family who were one of the biggest oil traders in Western Japan.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the primary oil traded would have been rapeseed oil, which I believe is marketed as canola oil in the west. The Japanese rarely used oil in cooking, so its main use would have been lighting.

At their peak the Oda family owned a fleet of 50 trading ships and operated over the area from Kyushu to Osaka.

The property is open to the public as a museum, and was so full of features and displays that I have split it into two large separate posts.

The property is huge, encompassing more than 2,500  square metres and with internal floorspace of more than 1,500 square metres.

The street frontage was 14 meters wide, but the property extended 119 meters ( see second photo of the post)

Such a long, narrow property was known as "sleeping palce of an eel"

It consists of 11 buildings with a total of 35 rooms.

As well as the main family residence, there is a main warehouse, an accounting house, a rice warehouse, and a tooshed.

Additionally there are stables, tenements for servants and workers, and an oil-pressing room.

Most of the rooms are filled with artifacts and displays relating to the room, and I will cover these in the next post.

There are several gardens, a large one planted in the main courtyard area, another for the main house, and several "pocket" gardens .

The property is next to the river at the eastern end of the historic trading town of Yanai.

It is a Historic Preservation District known for its white walls and goldfish lanterns.

I will cover Yanai in later posts. I like Yanai a lot and I highly recommend a visit.

I was visiting early on day 19 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage. The previous post was on my walk down the coast to Yanai from Iwakuni.

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