One day in Toshima | A running account from Setouchi to Kyoto

The boats to Toshima are not as frequent as Naoshima. When we arrived at the ticket office at around 8:40 in the morning, we had already missed the 9:00 express boat, and the next one was around 10:00. The queue to buy tickets stretched out more than ten meters away in less than ten minutes. Japan is really a country of personalization and cleverness. Soon, the window showed the additional ship at 9:25.

Before ten o'clock, we arrived at Toshima.

When I got to the island, I picked up an island tour brochure at the pier. Thinking about the torturous hike + small public transportation on Naoshima yesterday, I decided to rent a bicycle today! Rent a bicycle no matter how much you do it!

However, we were too busy shouting slogans. When we got out of the pier, the only bicycle rental and sales point had a "rental end" sign... We could only continue hiking + small public transportation.

First, walk to Toshima Yokokan near the pier. I came across a gas station on the road, and there was a row of bicycles that looked like they were for rent at the door!

At this time, an art tour group from Taiwan, maybe a dozen or twenty people, led by the tour guide, came forward to pick up the car. The people at the gas station helped them calibrate their vehicles one by one. We also stepped forward decisively and said we wanted to rent a car. But the old gentleman kept asking us questions... as if he meant asking us if we were with them. We said NO, but he said No cycle! No cycle!

A moment of glass... Okay, keep walking.

Then, we met an art festival parade called "Shenyangjiao in Jiapu". The procession was mainly children, and each person had various pieces of cloth and paper hanging on his body, perhaps pretending to be a local god. Become a character in the story and act as you go. They also invite tourists to join the parade. But we just looked at it, joined in the fun, and walked towards our destination.

Our destination is Yokokan, an old Japanese house that has been renovated quite brutally. It is said that this is a work by the Japanese artist Yokoo Tadanori that explores the philosophy of "life and death". Later, when I returned to Beijing, I went to see the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki's "Hanyouyou" photo exhibition, and I felt that their expressions of life and death were so vivid. One, so violent and gorgeous.

Come out of the Yokoo Building, return to the pier and wait for the small public, and go to the main destination on the island - Teshima Museum of Art.

I arrived at the Teshima Museum of Art around 11 o'clock and got the visiting number for entry at 14:15 pm. Then go have lunch first. When we asked the girl at the librarian where we could eat nearby, she told us: "Go to the main road and walk uphill for 15 minutes, and you'll find restaurants concentrated there."

OK, got it.

Then we climbed up the hill and kept going up~up~. At our speed, we walked for more than 20 minutes and arrived at the "restaurant center" Tangqi Conference Hall. However, after looking at the signs on the tourist information map, there are only three restaurants here-probably, three restaurants are already very concentrated. There is only one restaurant at Jiapu Pier where we took the boat to land, and then we went to Tangqi Port. , I haven’t seen any of them. No wonder, in the Toshima guide booklet given to us by the lady at the ticket office, there was a line "Please arrange your meals accordingly"...

We followed the road and saw a house first, which was a check-in point for the art festival! First, I stamped my "passport" and walked in. The environment was very nice, with an open kitchen and a very artistic space. However, an older lady came out and told us apologetically that except for drinks, there was no food! When we went out, we discovered that a sign saying "Eating is over" had been hung on the door.

All right. Continue walking up and soon you will find a restaurant called "Canteen 101". There was already a small group of people queuing outside the courtyard gate. We were probably at the fourth table in the waiting area. However, after only a short while, there was a long queue behind us - the 12 o'clock meal, and the restaurant below had "finished eating", so people naturally gathered there This one is nearby.

Although it is called a "canteen", it looks very elegant from the courtyard. An antique Japanese wooden house, with some internal tatami dining spaces vaguely visible through the windows. Guess, there are very few seats inside. After half an hour, we got to a table, which seemed to confirm our suspicion. God, how long do we have to wait! After standing like this for half an hour, I decided to look for the remaining restaurant as a team representative. At this time, new people were still joining the queue from time to time, but no waiter came out to take a look, and the sliding door in the courtyard was always closed.

I looked for it, but I couldn't find the third restaurant. I only saw a stall selling white rice balls. Could this be it?

I walked back angrily and passed by a rural grocery store. I went in and found the air inside was a bit dirty. I saw boxes of instant noodles. The shop owner was an old woman. She pointed to an electric water heater next to me and said something. , probably because there is hot water here when buying instant noodles. I thought for a moment, walked out the door, and returned to where my friends were queuing up. There were still the same people in front of us, and not a single table entered. I said, there is another option, eat instant noodles... They both agreed.

Then we went to eat instant noodles and bought bananas. People came into this low grocery store one after another.

After we finished our instant noodles, we passed by "Canteen 101" on our way to a check-in point. The people who were originally in line in front of us entered a table, and the long queue had dispersed on its own.

The "Storm House" near Tanggui Assembly Hall is a check-in place that I particularly have a sense of experience. There is an old wooden house in the village. When you walk in, you can smell the faint musty smell of the old house. The paper on the partitions has fallen off a bit, but it is overall very clean. Sitting on the tatami, the sky suddenly darkened, as if dark clouds were pressing over the top, and thunder rolled in. Soon it started to rain, and the rainwater flowed down the windows, making people worry about whether the ditch under the window outside the house would overflow. Start... The thunder came more and more, and the lightning was shocking. In an instant, the already dim lamps in the house were extinguished, and the bucket on the tatami used to contain leaking rain also sounded, and then there was pouring water all over my ears. The sound of rain on the roof made my whole body feel the coolness surrounded by summer water vapor... The thunder faded away, the rain gradually stopped, and the sky outside the windows gradually became brighter...

I sat on the tatami for a long time and never left. Here, I deeply experienced the shadowy beauty of Junichiro Tanizaki, and I felt as if I had returned to the old house of my childhood. The old house in the south during summer thunderstorms, although I felt sad in my heart. , but also warm.

Seeing that the time was almost up, I left the Storm House and went to the Teshima Museum of Art. The descent is much easier, and it truly takes "15 minutes" to arrive.

Although the entrance to the Teshima Museum of Art building space is not far from the ticket office, the tour route is designed to take a long way - you need to go around a small mountain forest overlooking the sea and then go to the entrance to take off your shoes - this is the traditional Chinese culture in Eastern culture. A sense of ritual. From the outdoor area where the sun shines directly, through a long circular mountain forest path, when you arrive at the entrance of the building, your mood may have cooled down. At this time, walking into the huge space that is completely gray and white is natural and surprising.

Entering through the entrance that looks like the mouth of a bottle, after walking a few steps, you suddenly see a huge white space with a gray-white floor and a white ceiling, empty of anything, appearing like chaos. On the huge dome, there are two huge gaps without glass, allowing indoor and outdoor sounds to be connected.

People inside can see outdoor trees, distant mountains and blue sky from the entrance of the cave. The sunlight pours down and sprinkles on the ground, forming two "focusing circles". After many people came in, they naturally found a place to sit and lie down by the "aperture". They naturally maintained the utmost silence and said nothing. They just sat, lay down, in a daze, or even fell asleep. ...I also sat down, and soon turned into lying down. Soon, in this ultimate tranquility, I sleepwalked for nine days.

It feels like it has never been so quiet. Occasionally someone makes a cough or a whisper, and it will be amplified and expanded in this silence.

I think this is one of the most extreme experiences in my life.

Leaving the Teshima Museum, we had a drink at the souvenir shop and returned to reality. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Return to the main road and walk downhill to the "Heart Sound" Archives near Tangcai Port. We walked for about forty minutes and watched people renting bicycles pass by. I felt that our backs showed envy in their eyes.

This heart sound archive is like a small clinic, which collects heartbeat sounds recorded by tourists from all over the world. Put on headphones and listen, it feels a bit startling. There is also a small dark room where you can't see your fingers and can only hear your heart.

The heart sounds are different, some are gentle, some are very rapid, some are like muffled thunder, and some are rumbling like an old-fashioned train... Listening to these sounds, some figures emerge in my mind. Is the sound of the heart really like the sound outside of a person? Woolen cloth? Do these sounds reveal any secrets?

Xianhui felt an unspeakable fear at the atmosphere created by these sounds and was the first to walk out. We sat on an outdoor bench for a while. In front of us was the winding coastline. The uninhabited beach looked even whiter under the bright afternoon sun. The ocean showed an artistic gray-blue color, and the sea and the sky connected - this heart sound. Archives are like those "villages on the clouds", standing alone at the end of the world.

The last boat back to Takamatsu from Kaura Port is at 17:20. We need to get back to Kaura Port as soon as possible. Walking is not practical, but you can take a minibus around the island from the nearby Tangqi Port.

However, when we walked to Tangqi Port Pier, a sturdy man told us that the next minibus to Jiapu Port Pier would only leave at 16:50, and it would take 17 minutes to arrive at Jiapu Port Pier.

This, this, there are only 13 minutes left to reach Jiapu Port! I still have to buy tickets, I'm afraid I won't be able to catch the last boat!

But what can be done?

There are only two boats a day from Tangai Port to Takamatsu Port, and they all leave at around three o'clock in the afternoon. There are no taxis here, so we have to wait for the 16:50 minibus.

There was still more than half an hour before 16:50, and we sat on an outdoor waiting bench. There were two or three people sitting on the bench. They should be waiting for the ship. The small room against which the bench is backed is the ticket office of the pier. It seems that there are some shuttle boats going to other islands. In the distance, a large ship is also sailing towards the pier.

We sat there for a while and saw two children eating ice cream. I asked Zhizhi, where do they buy their ice cream? There is only a small ticket office and a parking lot with no cars around.

Zhizhi said that he just saw the mother of the child going to the village over the road, maybe she bought it in the village.

"I also want to eat ice cream..." I said, even though I had already eaten one in Naoshima yesterday.

Xianhui shook his head and said that he didn't dare to eat it. He didn't dare to eat cold food a few times a year and he would definitely not eat it.

Zhizhi hesitated for a while... but decided to eat one.

So we both got up and headed to the village on the other side of the road. But the big brother who just told us the departure time of the minibus caught up with us out of breath, and spoke a string of Japanese to us with difficult gestures... We understood what he meant in a daze, and probably suggested that we take the bus from here to just arrive. This big ship landed at an island first, where you can transfer to a shuttle boat to Takamatsu Port... The information was too complicated and could not be understood without gestures. He asked us to follow him to the ticket hut and pointed to the shuttle boat list above... …Sure enough, it was suggested that we take a boat from here to Tonosho Port in Shodoshima. It takes about an hour. When we get there, there are many boats to Takamatsu Port.

A skinny old man at the ticket window gave us three tickets to Tuzhuang Port, and then the older man took us to the big ship that had just arrived and said goodbye to us.

Happiness simply came too suddenly. Just now I was waiting blankly for the minibus, thinking about how to cope with the situation when I arrived at Jiapu Port and missed the last boat, thinking about buying ice cream, and then, I had the guarantee of returning to Takamatsu Hotel, and I didn’t have to worry anymore...

After getting on the boat, I was still thinking about the ice cream. I bought two at the canteen on the ship... While eating, I watched the news of Trump's visit to Japan being broadcast on TV. Trump watched the sumo match and ate buraku for a day. Xianhui watched and murmured to himself. Said: "I also want to eat tempura from this restaurant..."