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It had been housed at the Benesse House Museum, a museum-hotel designed by Tadao Ando that is an ideal escape for art lovers. Now abandoned elementary schools and homes exhibit works by James Turrell and others, and old fishing boats are turned into large-scale art installations. Japan's own 93-year-old Pop art icon Yayoi Kusama put these islands on the art map with her enormous yellow polka-dot pumpkin--now removed because of damage from a typhoon. [Extracted from the article]

On the transportation front, a new Shinkansen bullet-train service to Nagasaki begins this September, and a new route and upgrade on the Seven Stars luxury train experience will launch in October. Japan's third largest and most southwesterly island, Kyushu, was the early center of Japanese civilization--much of the nation's rich history and mythology originated there. The island is known as the Land of Fire, thanks to the smoldering volcano Sakurajima and the rejuvenating hot springs of Beppu. [Extracted from the article]