A weekend getaway to Western Honshu

  Okayama (and Kurashiki), Japan
Tuesday, July 18, 2006

We're past the early summer drought period. That is not to say early summer in Japan is dry; in fact, it's just the opposite. From early to mid-June until roughly mid-July, the whole of the country (aside from Hokkaido) has to deal with severe humidity and unpredictable weather. But the drought I refer to has more to do with work: from the end of Golden Week in early May until the middle of July, there's nary a vacation day in sight! So, it was with great pleasure that Mayu and I were able to finally have a real weekend and get out of town for a bit. Destination? Okayama prefecture.

Given the time of year, conditions weren't exactly favorable for a brief holiday. Courtesy of the seasonal weather patterns and a typhoon to the south, the forecast for Sunday and Monday was largely a wet one. Still, having booked our train tickets and hotel well in advance, we weren't about to stomach a 30% bite on cancellation. Nothing else to do but cross our fingers and try our luck.

02: Restored kura in Bikan

And luck we had, actually . . . at least for the first day. Sunday morning turned out to be quite warm and sunny, which made for ideal sightseeing conditions. We caught an early bullet train bound for Okayama, from where we caught an express train onwards to Kurashiki. Although relatively unknown outside of Japan, Kurashiki is actually one of the finest examples of a historic city in the country. Certainly, first impressions are a little off-putting, as the train area looks like pretty much any other concrete-heavy, Japanese city. Walk about ten minutes down the main road to the southeast and you

04: A leisurely boat ride

encounter an entirely different townscape - something more out of the feudal Edo-era Japan.

This, of course, means it's touristville. However, like most places in the world, if you get there early enough (9am, in our case) you can beat the hordes. Kurashiki's main draw is its sizeable core of old machiya and kura (merchant homes and storehouses), which have been immaculately restored. The centerpiece is a stretch of willow-lined moat, which is flanked on both sides by beautifully-kept historic architecture. The requisite rickshaws and tourist boats are on hand, and there are naturally souvenir shops by the dozens.

08: Ōhara Museum of Art

That said, a full day is probably enough. The renowned Ōhara Museum of Art is a big highlight, with its collection of works by Matisse, Picasso, Gauguin, Monet and the like. So, big surprise at our luck: they had shipped off all the regular collection for a tour and replaced it with a "special exhibition" of relative unknowns. Gee, that's worth the ¥1000 entrance fee! So, after exploring as much as we could of the historic center and sampling some of the local cuisine, we decided to head for Kurashiki's other attraction.

Kitsch is really big in Japan. This is, after all, the country that made an exact replica of Anaheim's Disneyland, built copies of traditional Spanish, Italian and Dutch "cities" as individual theme parks and developed sizzling hot thermal ponds into tacky tourist attractions. So, it's only natural that Kurashiki has its own slice to offer. This would be Tivoli Park - yes, modelled on the famous one in Copenhagen. I don't know what we were expecting, but it was actually kind of depressing. There's something about novelty theme parks - while they're all the rage when first built, it takes a lot to hold people's interest as the years go on.

10: Pseudo-Danish streets

The blatantly artificial "Danish architecture," expensive, yet crummy food, and complete dearth of visitors (on a Sunday afternoon, no less!) made it stop short of the thrill it was purported to be. It wasn't until later that I figured out how the place stayed afloat. How do you attract tourists to a tacky, long-in-the-tooth theme park? Put on a sound and light show with fireworks! Since our ticket allowed us exit and re-entry, we thought we'd have a look as well and it was suddenly packed! All the same, the "show" lasted only ten minutes and was more memorable for the cheesiness of the music and odd voiceover in heavily-accented English than anything else. Oh well, whatever works.

14: Zen garden at Raikyū-ji, Takahashi

Monday morning we awoke and had breakfast looking out over darkening skies. The rain was finally catching up, apparently. Undeterred, we headed into the mountains to the small castle town of Takahashi. About ten minutes before arriving, the sky turned black and the occasional drizzle became a downpour. Not a good sign. We had to wait in the station for about twenty minutes before it calmed down enough to allow us to trudge out with our umbrellas. Mayu wasn't very happy with me in my quest for authentic, Japanese castles. That was, basically, the sole reason we were there. Takahashi is home to Bitchū-Matsuyama, an original castle that is the highest above sea level in Japan.

15: Old samurai house in Takahashi

Which, naturally, meant we had some climbing ahead of us. After stopping at a lovely Zen temple with its contemplative rock garden, we tried (in vain) to find a taxi. Mayu suggested we walk up towards the castle and just hope to locate one en route. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there wasn't any traffic in the quiet backstreets period. Thus, we opted to head onto the hiking trail (despite the fact that we still couldn't actually see where the castle was). Wouldn't you know it, the respite we were enjoying from the rain quickly ended and we were stuck hiking up a forest trail in the pouring rain. By the time we reached the top, I was drenched through from a combination of sweat and rain.

17: Gloomy donjon

Was it worth it? Well, the view was stunning and embellished with a little extra atmosphere courtesy of the rain and low clouds. The castle itself, though small, was well-preserved and picturesque. Best of all, there were pretty much no tourists (gee, surprise?). A pleasing reward, in my book. Mayu, however, has since vowed that any of my future castle visits would be done alone.

I wisely packed an extra shirt before leaving Nagoya, which came in very handy when we returned to Kurashiki and picked up our bags. Then it was off to the last item on the agenda: a visit to Okayama. Along with Mito and Kanazawa, Okayama has earned a ranking on one of Japan's "Top Three Gardens" list, courtesy of its lovely stroll garden Kōraku-en. Unlike pretty much any other traditional

21: Kōraku-en

garden in the country, Kōraku-en is dominated by large swathes of well-tended lawn, not unlike an English garden. Given the rarity of such a thing over here, it was a pleasant surprise to see. The garden was also designed to incorporate neighboring Okayama castle as "borrowed scenery," a common characteristic of Japanese and Chinese gardens. Out of some stroke of fortune, the rain stopped just before we visited it, so we even got to relax and take it all in as it's meant to be. Perhaps that was a little reward for our perseverance earlier in the day.

Now it's back to a few more weeks of work before the big vacation.