Cult Museums and Other Things

This weekend was relatively eventful! Saturday I decided to go visit the Miho Museum in Koka, Shiga. I was amazed at this place since it was literally in the middle of NOWHERE! Besides the exhibits being about average for most museums, the architecture was just amazing! The place was designed by the same arcitect who created the pyramid at the Louvre in Paris.



Miho Museum


You walk through a tunnel to the museum.

The more interesting thing about this museum is that it is run by a cult! How else could you make something so amazing in the middle of nowhere right? The religion is something associated with the Church of World Messianity. The sect that the Miho Museum belongs to is Shinji Shumeikai. The religion basically believes that you can channel divine light to heal people.


Apparently that bulding is the Shumei temple, non-members not allowed to check it out.

But it isn't just because of this religion that the museum could have been built. The museum was the dream of a woman named Mihoko Koyama, founder of Shinji Shumeikai, and one of the richest women in Japan.

After checking out this place it was off to Kyoto for some Churrasco (Brazilian BBQ) with some other JETs. It was delicious and I esspecially liked the Caipirinha (Brazilian National Cocktail). All you could eat meat and salad for two hours! Amazing!

Sunday I decided to go on a bike ride out to a place called Eigenji (temple) to look at more fall colors.


Beautiful Japanese Autumn


Stone Buddhas


Eigenji

After this we stopped at a pretty impressive onsen. Unfortunately when we left it was raining, but luckly not very hard.

After arriving in Yokaichi city (half hour train ride from Hino) I decided to stop at a McDonald's and ended up running into some of my students. When I asked them what they were up two, they responded "nanpa" which means picking up girls. So after a small chat with these students I headed back to the station to go home and end my weekend.