There's no getting around it - Japan is a really random country. You find the strangest things in the most unlikely places. A Brazilian theme park on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. A vending machine selling huge bags of rice in a small country town. A festival celebrating huge penises. Works of art on manhole covers. Monkey gangs robbing convenience stores in a tourist resort. Ugly concrete tetrablocks on beautiful surfing beaches. I'm continually surprised, occasionally shocked, often delighted and charmed.
On my cycling trip around
Lake Biwa I found
Takashima held a number of surprising finds. Just outside JR Omi-Takashima station there is a large statue of Gulliver. Why Gulliver? I looked for a reason or explanation.
I studied the station map but it didn't offer any clues at all. Later I found out that there is a recreation area called Gulliver Park nearby.
Not too far down the road I found a beautiful area with lovely old traditional Japanese houses surrounded by rice fields. There were ornamental carp swimming in the clear water flowing through irrigation ditches beside the road. This was Harie, and apparently you can have a
guided tour of the houses (but no English.)
A sign said "Prirate School Ruins." Do they mean pirates? On lake Biwa?! Perhaps not... following the tantalizing sign I only found what looked like another country shrine. No more English.
Further along the road I found a beautiful Chinese style garden called
Yomei-en - open to all, and free to enter. That's pretty unusual in Japan. Most places as beautiful and impressive as that garden charge an entry fee. I wanted to know the story behind it. Who built it? Why is it there? I discovered that it was
created as a symbol of the friendship between former Adogawa town (now a part of Takashima city) and Yuyao city in China.
A little later at Shin-Asahi I found Dutch style windmills, and a pond with swans and geese. There were ticket booths but they were broken. I put in money and it fell straight through, so I went in for free. Geese waited expectantly by a vending machine dispensing food.. An extraordinary children's playground nearby held a castle, a pirate ship, and giant geese and mushrooms.
Then, on apparently empty land beside the lake, a very European looking brass mermaid statue.
Like I said, random!
A little later at Shin-Asahi I found Dutch style windmills, and a pond with swans and geese. There were ticket booths but they were broken. I put in money and it fell straight through, so I went in for free. Geese waited expectantly by a vending machine dispensing food.. An extraordinary children's playground nearby held a castle, a pirate ship, and giant geese and mushrooms.
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