Shimane Prefectural Office Gardens

 

The Shimane Prefectural Offices are located in the Matsue City, the prefectural capital.

Opened in 1959, they were built adjacent to the inner castle and its moat in what would have been the outer bailey of the castle complex.

Designed by Yasuda Shin, a Shimane-born architect, the building was recently made an Important Cultural Property.

The inner courtyard garden was completed in 1966.

The garden was designed by Shigemori Kando, the oldest son of the greatest 20th century Japanese garden designer Shigemori Mirei.

I found it interesting that the draincovers were incorporated into the raked sand design...

The influence of his father was quite strong.....

Another unusual feature that I found intriguing was that light reflected off the windows and created unnatural shadow patterns

Shigemori Kando later designed the garden at Tottori Prefectural Government Offices, and while some elements are common to both gardens, it is quite different.

If you are visiting the castle and have an interest in gardens, then it is certainly worth a visit, especially as there is no entry fee.

A second garden can be found in another part of the complex.

It is long and narrow and seems to represent the coastline.

The final two photos are stone arrangements in different parts of the park around the offices.

The previous post on gardens in Matsue was on the Meimei-an Teahouse.

Scenic Ferry Ride from Tsuneishi to Onomichi

 

After leaving Abuto Kannon, I walked up the west coast of the peninsula until as far as Tsuneishi from where I hopped on a small car ferry heading to Onomichi.

Japan is an archipelago of thousands of islands, and one of the areas of Japan where this is most obvious is the Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku.

A good chunk of the shipbuilding industry is centred here as the waters are relatively calm.

This curious piece of architecture is called Ribbon Hall and seems to be used primarily as a wedding chapel at a resort.

Nowadays many of the islands are connected by bridges to each other or two the main islands of Hinshu, Shikoku, or Kyushu,  but small ferries are still needed for the numerous unconnected islands.

Looking back, I had earlier walked past the Utsumi Bridge which connects the Numakuma Peninsula to Tajima Island.

First stop of the ferry was Momojima Island.

The "floating torii" of Itsukushima Shrine in Urasaki was built in 1977 emulating its head shrine on Miyajima.

A small car ferry links Tozaki on the peninsula with Uta on Mukaishima Island.

The Inland Sea, Setnaikai in Japanese, was the main transportation route in historical Japan, a country with many mountains, few wheeled vehicles, and few roads.

Getting closer to Onomichi, the big shipbuilding area lies to the east of the town.

The channel between Onomichi  and Mukaijima is as narrow as a river, but some serious, ocean-going vessels are built and repaired here.

While so much of Japan has been "renovated" there are still remnant of a funkier type of architecture, as below....

The Shimanami Kaido, an expressway that links Honshu to Shikoku via 6 islands, crosses the narrow strait. The small bridge carries non-expressway traffic.

Striking because of its rarity, a domestic house with stylish, modern architecture, rather than the cooki-cutter houses of most of Japan...

Just a few minutes away from the destination....

The final two photos are of the two pilgrimage temples, Jodo-ji, and Senko-ji, that I will visit once the ferry docks.

The previous post in this series was on Abuto Kannon, the striking vermillion temple overlooking the sea.

Fukuyama Central Library

 

Fukuyama does not have much in the way of interesting modern architecture. Like so many of the bigger cities, it was bombed heavily at the end of the war and then suffered under Japans post war construction mentaliity.

However, the Central Library was quite nice.

With water on a couple of sides and set in Central Park its not particularly unique but quite photogenic.

It was designed by Nikken Sekkei, said to be the biggest architectural office in Japan, so no individual architects get named.

It was originally part of the Sumitomo Zaibatsu.

Their website says the brickwork cladding is made from rammed earth bricks but they look like regular bricks to me...

The last 2 photos give a clue as to why I was at the library....... Central Park was the location of a big festival that evening....

The previous post was on the Sanzo Inari Shrine inside Fukuyama Castle Park