If I had to pick a favourite city in Japan, my choice would be Okayama. A considerably small city compared to the giants like Tokyo and Kyoto, and yet somehow big enough to wander around and get lost. It’s location is by far the best we’ve had in Japan…by that I mean, Okayama is the perfect place to have your accommodation cause you can find a good affordable hotel close to the train station and if you’ve got the Japan Rail Pass (which we did, read about that in a previous post!), the Shinkansen can get you to the other major cities under an hour. We made day trips into Osaka and Hiroshima, and it was Okayama city from which we entered the smallest of Japan’s major islands, Shikoku.
During our wanderings through the city, we found a stream east of the train station in the direction of the Asahi river that runs through Okayama. All along the stream was a lovely pedestrian path lined with trees and bushes, and was surprisingly peaceful for city center location. At the time of our visit which was in Spring (2015), our walks through this area were made even more memorable by the sweet scent of flowers in the air (picture above). With botany being not quite our strong suit, we haven’t been able to determine the name of the tree. (If you happen to know what it is called, do drop me a line or leave a comment! 🙂 ) The Okayama castle (岡山城) sits along the Asahi river with the Korakuen garden (後楽園) across the water. Unfortunately we didn’t get to visit either on this visit leaving us with a perfect excuse to plan another trip into Japan.
As on most days, we had to find dinner in our host city and in Okayama we found an excellent ramen shop a short 5 minute walk away from the hotel called Hakata Tonkotsu Bari (博多とんこつばり 岡山駅前店) (website only in Japanese). We love the vending machine concept in Japan which allows us to purchase our meal through a vending machine (it even has pictures of the dishes on it!), obtain a printed slip which we could hand to the shop assistants and then find a seat to wait patiently for our food. None of the “erms” and “ahs” and sign language needed to get something unexpected. Not that the people there were hostile. On the contrary, they were very friendly and even attempted to speak English with us. But importantly :), the ramen at Hakata Tonkotsu was heavenly! They offered 4 signature dishes which were distinct from each other. The one we found most interesting (and not at all in a negative way) had lemon added to its base, giving the dish a refreshing twist. We even returned to Okayama a week later, after our tour through Shikoku, to grab a bowl of these savoury noodles.
The roof over our heads:
During our brief visit, we stayed at the Daiwa Roynet Hotel Okayama-Ekimae (reservations were made through booking.com). Located across the street from the Okayama train station and situated above an electronics department store, the hotel was surprisingly posh at first glance. Checking in was painless with friendly staff to assist the process. We thought it was a rather smart economical strategy that they asked and provided a basket of toiletries to pick out of during check-in. Our reservation was for a standard double room (non-smoking) for 2 nights and although our room was not extravagant, it was clean and comfortable. We were even allowed to leave our rolling luggage with the hotel reception for a week while we traveled through Shikoku; a gesture on the part of the hotel which we greatly appreciate! Our only negative critique (and not a really major one) is the location of it’s lift and the lack of any signs to direct us to it. We went around in circles trying a couple of elevators hoping they would get us to the hotel’s lobby on the 5th floor only to realize that the lift belonged to the department store and didn’t reach the 5th floor. If we had gotten out of the train station at the correct exit (I believe it was the east exit) and not the main exit, it would have saved us a lot of time. Despite this, the hotel’s location and helpful staff would most certainly draw us back there again.
Belosophy 