Ella’s talked about the tea house in the Lion’s Roar Garden, but what she didn’t mention was the little “traditional Japanese sweet” that, when we were staying in Sparky’s Place back in Naoshima, I confused with a bar of soap that had the same shape and color. On our way out the door to tour the “art houses” I snatched what I thought would be a little sugared energy bite and ended up having to wash out my mouth.
Leaving the peaceful man-made natural beauty of the Lion’s Roar Garden, we skirted behind the larger temple where a growing number of tourists were collected around a large pool.
There was a sign pointing to the “bamboo forest” and even though we had walked through a lovely bamboo forest in Coimbra, Portugal (not to mention the one we slipped and slid through on the Kumano Kodo), I thought, “Why not? While we’re here…”.
Oops. The bamboo forest turned out to be less dense than the marching hordes eager to walk through it. We went about thirty-feet and did an about-face. Time to find a train and visit an art museum. So far in Japan art museums are like zen gardens in the peace they offer to the weary traveler.