Okayama[links]

October 24 - October 25, 2000

Okayama was our next stop, and although we'd backtrack to see Himeji, it was the most convenient place to stay because of the easy access to Shikoku.

We stayed at the Ark Hotel Okayama.  Ark Hotels are a chain, with hotels in Kumamoto, Fukuoka, and Hiroshima, among others.  They're not the most luxurious hotels, certainly, but it was nice to be able to get reservations in other cities at the front desk.  

The Ark Hotel Okayama was our first experience with the pre-fabbed restrooms we'd see through most of the rest of our hotel stays.  The bathrooms had a motor-home feel to them, with one faucet serving both the sink and the tub.

We ate at the restaurant in the hotel, and it was an interesting experience.  Here's Elaine's recollection:

"The food was OK, certainly nothing to shout about.  It was a pretty funny place.  The hotel acts like it wants to be a fancy place, but there's cigarette burns on the tablecloth and on our bedspread and drapes.  The music in the restaurant was accordian, and we wondered if the hostess disappeared to cook the chicken herself.  Oh well, it was good for a smile and something in our stomachs."

In Kyoto, the city buses were the most convenient means of transportation.  In Okayama, it was the streetcars.  Clang, clang, clang went the trolley....

The streetcars were a lot of fun, right down to their perfectly painted exteriors.  The streetcar we took to Korakuen garden was painted like a cat!

Korakuen Garden was the best thing to see in Okayama. From what I read about the garden, the large grassy expanses in the garden are a rarity in Japan. Korakuen Garden is a landscape garden, not a flower garden, and the views are spectacular. Every turn brings a new view, and there are some very interesting items to look at. The pictures on the right show some of the eclectic structures we got to see.

One thing we started to notice at this garden, then at just about every other garden we visited, were the spiders.  If your arachnophobic like someone in our party (not Elaine), that's not too pleasant.  These thing were bright green and yellow, and about 2-3 inches across.  Ick.  Regrettably, I didn't snap a picture of one.

After the spendor of the garden, the adjacent Okayama Castle was a huge disappointment. The exterior is a beautiful black, making the castle a "crow castle".  Check out the picture of it on the right.  It's stunning, just don't pay to go inside it.  Here's Elaine's take: 

"This grand black castle was quite lovely on the outside.  It had been rebuilt, as it was destroyed in WWII.  The inside was basically a modern museum, and nothing was in English.  It was rather disappointing, and if we had realized what it was like inside, we probably wouldn't have spent 800 yen each."

One thing I'd like to put in here.  In Tokyo and Kyoto, as well as Okayama, we noticed that at crosswalks, when the walk sign came on, there was a chirping sound from a small speaker as well.  The crosswalks going east/west had a different chirping pattern than the north/south ones.  We figured it was to assist the blind in crossing the streets.

Elaine wrote about another thing we noticed:

"Another interesting thing we've noticed in all the cities, is that on the sidewalks and in train stations, there are yellow raised pattern paths about 12" wide.  At corners and along train platforms there are big raised dots; along sidewalks there are big dashes.  Perhaps these are to assist the blind as well (like the chirping crosswalks)?"

The garden and castle were all we wanted to see in Okayama, so we left our bags at the hotel and boarded a JR train back to Himeji to see the castle.

Retracing our steps...to Himeji

 

Okayama Links:

[ Main Page ]

The easiest way to get around Okayama was streetcar. And when they look like this, what's not to love?

Korakuen is considered to be one of the three most beautiful landscape gardens in Japan. It's also home to some of the most eclectic views we were privileged to see. For example...

Elaine posing on quite possibly the most convoluted bridge in the world.

What looks like a giant wooden hedgehog wetting its palate is actually an artificial thistle, from what we could gather.

And what looks like a giant rotary Pan pipe (to Seth, at least) is....anybody's guess.

The beautiful exterior of Okayama Castle.  The inside is equally lovely, in a modern way, but not worth the 800 yen entrance fee.