Golden Week Pt III - The City of Okayama

The last day of our Golden Week was dedicated to the city of Okayama itself. It may not be so big and exciting, but it does have a nice castle with a very beautiful and big garden next to it.
The castle was built in the 16th century, and it's also called the "crow castle" because of its black appearance. I thought it looked kind of cool like this. Inside was a decent Samurai exhibition. Here are a few pictures:

Even more interesting than the castle was the "Korakuen" park which is located directly next to the castle. This is rather famous throughout Japan, and has small ponds, hills, creeks, cherry and maple trees, as well as lots of flowers, all in a very quiet and peaceful environment. Definitely a good conclusion of our trip!

Golden Week Pt II - Of Caves and islands, too many bridges, and not enough bikes

After our cultural explorations on the first day, on days 2 and 3 we set out to experience some of the beautiful nature around Okayama. The first trip was to a cave called "ikurado", in fact quite a big cave. Or maybe I should better say "long", because parts were really narrow, which quickly reminded me of the disadvantages of being a western guy: my body size! Our friend Keiko-san also joined us on this day, and even drove us around with her car. This made it easy to visit two other quite remarkable spots: One of the nice Okayama beaches, and also a viewpoint on top of a mountain, from which we could see the bay, including the big bridge leading to Shikoku (the smallest of Japan's 4 major islands). A tasty Sushi dinner concluded this day nicely.

The next day, our plan was to travel to Onomichi (1 hour from Okayama) for biking. Onomichi is starting point of an "island road", meaning a series of small islands that are connected by bridges, ultimately connecting the main island Honshu with Shikoku. The islands and also the bridges have trails made specifically for the purpose of biking, so I thought this sounded like a good plan. The only thing I had forgotten about was that it was Golden Week, and we were not the only people having had this idea. So, when we got there, all the rentable bikes were already gone.. Having learned about this, we decided not to let this ruin our day, and went on to explore one of the islands by ferry and bus. The island was an extremely quiet place, I almost couldn't believe this was still Japan. We visited two places here: A quite nice flower garden, but more impressively a small castle at the very top of the mountain. What made the castle special was its completely being embedded within wild nature, quiet different from the castles I had visited before.

Golden Week Pt. I - Kurashiki

Two weeks ago, Japan was celebrating what is called the "Golden Week": A series of 4 holidays that are not really related to each other, but happen to fall within one week. By taking just a couple days of paid time off, many Japanese make this their longest time off in the year. As for myself and Kayo, we just stuck with the regular holidays, and used the chance to spend four days in and around Okayama. Okayama-city lies in a less populated area, and as it turned out, a place like this is a smart choice for spending one's Golden Week. The reason: Around Golden Week, all of Japan's major places are just packed with people! Knowing how busy places like Osaka or Tokyo are on "normal" weekends, I really didn't want to experience it on Golden Week... Okayama was also busy of course, but still felt somehow relaxing. The plan for the first day was a visit to the nearby Kurashiki for its very beautiful historic town. Traditional white wooden houses are arranged along a small Koi-inhabitated river, and there are plenty of small shops selling hand-crafted Japanese goods. Well, you can see for yourself in these pictures:

One more thing that's worth noting was a wedding ceremony on the river, which looked quite extraordinary (I first thought it was acted, but apparently it was real). Unfortunately I didn't get a good view of it, but at least you can see the bride from the side:

More cherries (& some monkeys)

Around here, the Sakura season lasts about 2 weeks, at least when taking advantage of the different blooming times at different locations. Needless to say that the events from two blog entries ago weren't the only cherry-related events I would be attending: A week later, we went to Arashiyama (嵐山, the "stormy mountain") in Kyoto, which refers to a very beautiful area a little outside of Kyoto. There is a river including a prominent bridge, and alongside the river are some trails and parks that are perfect to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

A trip to Arashiyama would not be complete without visiting the "Monkey Mountain", a mountain containing a big monkey compound. The top of the mountain is about the same height as Kyoto Tower if I remember correctly. After climbing there, one enters something like a reverse monkey cage: Here, the people go in the cage, and the monkeys gather around! This is quite funny, one keeps wondering who is watching who at this place.. Though I guess the monkeys mostly came there to be fed from inside the cage.