What do you get when you mix a tropical island with an art museum? Naoshima Island, Japan! Naoshima is a ten square-mile (in area) island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea that is covered completely with art. The cool thing about it is that you stay there over night! There are two amazing museums: the Benesse House and the Chichu Museum, plus a third museum still under construction. The modern Benesse House, the main museum, also serves as your hotel and features over 350 pieces of art. You have a choice of staying in the museum, in the Park, on the Beach, or in the Oval, which is an egg-shaped building on one of the island's tallest hills, with a stunning view of spectacular water falls and forests and is accessed by a monorail that you control! The other museum is the Chichu Museum which is underground. It features many works including Claude Monet's original water lily paintings. To get to it, you go through a beautiful garden with trees, flowers, and ponds modeled after Monet's paintings.
Also, some of God's own art work is displayed here: miles of hiking grounds with rocky cliffs and lush forests. There's lots of outdoor art work, too. Other mysterious artworks include a pool of water that jiggles like Jell-O, a temple with glass stairs that lead down into a cave, and flags made of colored sand that are actually ant farms. Doesn't that just make your mouth drop???
