GIFU THE GREAT

Japan's best-kept secret is an inland empire of quiet villages, age-old artisan traditions, quirky museums - and a theme park that confounds all expectations.

- Tamara Shopsin

NEARLY A DECADE AGO my husband, Jason, and I stumbled upon the obituaries of the artist-architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the New York Times. It was a strange way to learn about a duo whose motto was "we have decided not to die." 

The Reversible Destiny Office is the first pavilion visitors encounter at the Site of Reversible Destiny. Upon entering, we were given a set of directions like "Instead of being fearful of losing your balance, look forward to it" and "Try to be more body and less person."

In between pavilions with names like Zone of the Clearest Confusion and Trajectory Membrane Gate, the park's undulating grounds are immaculately kept.

In the Critical Resemblance House, another of the park's pavilions, up becomes down, and walls cleave furniture in half. The floor is a threedimensional map.

In the early 1990s, Arakawa and Gins built a sprawling installation - part theme park, part land art, part philosophy come to life - in Japan's Gifu Prefecture. The Site of Reversible Destiny, as they called it, promises to stave off death by challenging both body and spirit. As soon as we read about it, we knew we had to go.

Yoro Land is a rainbow-colored amusement park in Yoro Park that made our faces hurt from smiling. In addition to rides, there is a fishing pond, a petting zoo with deer and ducks, and an arcade that seems frozen in the mid-80s. (It includes such rare machines as the Sega motorcycle game Hang-On.)

Yoro Falls is a short walk from Takimotokan Yukinosato (doubles from $173), an excellent ryokan. The waterfall was one of the many surprises we encountered at the inn.