day 204 - Takamatsu

Bracket-fungus and spores cover a tree in the forest which houses the Shikoku Minka Museum at Yashima near Takamatsu.

Hydro-power isn't new. Water has been used for centuries in Japan to grind cereals and crush sugar -cane.

Shoyugura (Soy Sauce Warehouse, 1836.) Soy sauce has been made since the Edo Period. After manufacture the soy sauce was stored in earthenware flagons. 

The farmers of Shodo Island couldn't get professional Kabuki actors to visit their remote home, so they built this theatre (with revolving stage!) and staged their own amateur productions in autumn and spring to celebrate rice planting and harvest.

A three day weekend on Shikoku and we visited one of the best folk museums to date - Shikoku-Mura. In the 12th Century Yashima  plateau (5K's east of Takasmatsu) was the site for a momentous battle between the powerful Genji and Heike clans. For a place of such historical significance, it's looking a little run-down in 2008, but the museum itself is a gem. There are authentic buildings here from all over the Kagawa-ken prefecture, many of them deconstructed elsewhere  brick-by-brick and post-by-post  and rebuilt here in perpetuity...