Pat's Blog

At last the long awaited Setouchi Triennale Art Festival is underway, the summer part anyway and it’s certainly summer here in Kagawa right now. http://setouchi-artfest.jp/en/



This session kicked off in the Sunport’s Art Plaza near the central station with ‘The Bangladesh Project’ with themes of boat building, the sea, and its transporting power, which can carry flotsam & jetsam that drift all around the world sometimes with messages and clues as to other worlds & cultures. I’ve have firsthand experience of this as a young student on a wild and remote Tasmanian area named Ocean Beach, over 60 miles long. Finding a plastic detergent bottle that fascinated me as I didn’t know it was from a place called Japan, and couldn’t read the katakana and realize it had made its way all the way down to 40 degrees south. It might have been thrown from a Japanese trawler fishing in the southern hemisphere? I don’t know.



The themes are ethnic-centered and interesting. Many Bangladeshi artisans are here working with their traditional crafts and this is a long event in the Sunport area of Takamatsu right near the central JR station. From July 20th~September 1st



There were symposiums and performances and ‘The Quintessence of Bangladesh paintings’ show at the Takamatsu Museum. Entrance JPY 300. Entrance free with a triennale passport.



A great many dignitaries were in attendance including ambassadors and diplomats and the music was great.



This is a worthwhile event but there’s a part of me that is uneasy about it simply because if the prefecture wishes to be taken seriously as a contender in the international arts arena, something it is well capable of doing, then perhaps there should be a separation of ‘cultural events’ like this one and more visceral - intellectual art performances/exhibits. With this exhibition the separation has disappeared and both are blurred. That’s not snobbishness; just my ten-cent’s worth after many years involvement with the visual arts.



In Sunport Takamatsu the wonderful facilities for international shipping are all but unused for over ten years now, and there’s really no more excuse for this being the case. If cobwebs could grow on port facilities and water they would here. Offering incentives & the attraction of reduced berthing fees international passenger carrying lines can be lured from the Yokohama/Kobe/Hiroshima run to visit. No doubt about that at all.


When you’re visiting there are guides and locations everywhere in the city particularly the station area and port areas to help you get around. Brochures for this event are available at all the same Takamatsu information centers and at the stations. I’ll be back soon with more about this and hopefully be able to give you the help you need to visit us. See you soon and stay cool.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu


http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/

http://www.my-kagawa.jp/special/visitor/kanko/index.htm

http://www.i-pal.or.jp/profile/topics/kagawas-welcome-card.html

  

Continuing with the topic this month of rent-a-bicycle, the Takamatsu City have designated “no parking zones for bikes” to curb unwanted bicycles cluttering up the city.


So if you are riding in the city and you see one of these “no parking zones for bikes” or leave a bike or motorbike unattended in these areas for more then 2 hours, keep in mind that there is a risk that if parked in these areas they’ll be carried away and impounded. If a bike is removed, the owner or user must pay 1,500 yen for a bicycle or 2,500 for a motorcycle to get them back from the bike pound. Not a happy thought so be careful.



Renting & riding bicycles in Takamatsu is pretty easy and the facilities for rentals are just great. There’s even a power-assisted ramp to help push one up from the huge underground storage and parking area. There are a couple of these underground rental/parking facilities in Takamatsu City now. This one is right in front of the Takamatsu JR Station and the entrance signs are clearly marked in English. The Youtube link below also shows the main bicycle port underground and in front of the Takamatsu Central Station.



Keep in mind that these bicycles are all shopping bicycles with front baskets for carrying stuff and not designed for speed. Please ride carefully and although this is a pretty safe city to ride bicycles. Accidents are rare but they do happen.



Elevators are another way to get down to the parking lot and they are designed to take both riders and bicycles. Once in the basement, you’ll see a registration desk and here’s a little video to help walk you through the process.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4BRC9bxgmI

There are a total of 7 rent-a-bike ports in the city and the link below will give you the information on fees and where they are located.

http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/living-infomation/traffic/rental-bicycles.html

So please remember we have English speaking staff at our Tourist Information Center located right in front of the Takamatsu JR Central Station and if you’re unsure about how to do any of this, they’ll help you.
The Kagawa Welcome card is another thing you should have as it offers some discounts around the town.
http://www.my-kagawa.jp/special/visitor/kanko/index.htm

or

http://www.i-pal.or.jp/profile/topics/kagawas-welcome-card.html



Takamatsu welcomes you, this is a wonderful city to pedal around in and although not mandatory, helmets are a good idea.

I’ll be back in a week or so with part 3 in this series. Until then, safe pedaling.




http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu

http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/

  

I must have passed these a few times, but never took the time to go over and see what they were?

A vending machine for bicycles and with English instructions. They’re really quite simple to use.

There are now 4 throughout the Takamatsu City downtown area and the bicycles are stored below ground.

One machine holds around 140 bicycles. Two machines are close to the very center of the city in Hyogo machi
First, we select the size of the bicycle and pay 100 yen into the machine, which gives us a token.

We can then ride around the city for a few hours and return the bicycles along with a 100-yen refund. Nothing could be simpler.



Put the token back into the machine and the 100 is refunded. The initiative is twofold; reduce the number of people driving cars around the city and also to ease the congestion of bicycles often left blocking shops entrances.


My very first impression of Takamatsu was that this was a city that encouraged bicycles and there are thousands and thousands of them being pedaled around each day. This is wonderful and how China used to be until they discovered cars and motorways.
So please remember these machines are for everybody, they’re easy to use and the instructions are also in English.
I’ll be back talking about bicycles again this month. Such a sensible and healthy way to travel.
See you then and happy pedaling.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu

http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/