As is tradition for this conference series, the fourth day of the conference routinely features an optional day tour of the local sights of the host city. Interestingly, even though the conference saw several hundred attendees, the number of participants who actually signed up for th fourth day excursion was just 21: almost half of which were from my institution! I wonder why: I’m sure many of the local Japanese delegates would have either just returned back to their home cities for work, but very few of the other international delegates join in the tour. I guess they might have felt that there are more interesting cities in Japan?
In any case, the day tour covered four places: Adachi Museum of Art, Izumo Taisha Shrine, Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo, and finally Shimane Winery. None of these places are easily accessible by train: there are no nearby train lines that I saw. So, one has to either drive, go on arranged tours, or take buses.
Of the four, the first stop – the Adachi Museum of Art – proved easily to be the most memorable: and what a spectacular feast for the visual senses it was! The museum occupies a 165,000 sqm area and is home also to one of Japan’s most celebrated gardens. In fact, from Japan-Guide, the garden in Adachi Museum has been annually voted since 2003 in the Journal of Japanese Garden to be Japan’s best garden.
This was only our first stop and in itself was already worth our staying in Matsue an additional day. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Matsue, unlikely as it is for most people since it’s not on the list of places that most international visitors go to, then this museum is a must-visit. We spent just an hour here, but I’d recommend you spend perhaps 2 hours: including the time you’d want to spend just sitting in the viewing galleries and enjoying the serenity.
Our next stop: the Izumo Taisha Shrine!