Handpainted train warnings - a true sign of a good rural station. |
Choo-choo. I love tiny train lines in rural Japan, rattling and chucketing through grass fields. I also love Gifu, so what better way to spend a Friday than taking a train through Gifu? This week I got to experience something I'd wanted to see for a while - the Site of Reversible Destiny in the small town of Yoro. Best described as a surrealist park-slash-art-exhibition, the Site of Reversible Destiny promises an Alice in Wonderland-type experience, which toys with your perceptions and aims to leave you disoriented. Did it succeed? We shall see.
Timing ourselves terribly, we got onto the train platform and then had to wait for half an hour for the tiny adorable train to come. It was worth it though. I love trains.
"If thrown off balance when entering the house, call out your name or, if you prefer, someone else's."
"Strive to find a marked resemblance between yourself and the house. If by chance you fail to do so, proceed even so as though the house were your identical twin."
"Should an unexpected even occur, freeze in place for as long as you see fit. Then adopt a more suitable (for being more thought out) position for an additional twenty seconds or so."
"Always question where you are in relation to visible and invisible chains of islands known as Japan."
"Move in slow measured steps through the Cleaving Hall and, with each arm at a distinctly different height, hold both arms out in front of you as sleepwalkers purportedly do."
"It may take several days to find everywhere in the house that the dining room is."
"Inside the Geographical Ghost, renege on all geographically related pledges of allegiance."
"Within the Zone of the Clearest Confusion, always try to be more body and less person."
***
This park/exhibition (parxibition?) was definitely nothing like anything I'd seen before, and the surroundings were gorgeous too .There were a few people around but the park opened quite a few years ago now and you could tell it wasn't a big attraction any more, if it ever was, and was looking a bit run-down. Mostly this added to its charm, but it did have its downsides - for all the playful geometrics, the biggest surprise I actually got was a dead bat in one of the corridors. I don't think it was meant to be there. I also bumped my head on a tunnel roof twice in five minutes, which was a bit painful.
Still, I had a great day out. I really want to make more use of my time and take more day trips like this, not necessarily to big tourist destinations but to nice everyday places with their own quirks. Hopefully fewer spiders though. And dead bats. And tunnels.
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