Had a really nice breakfast in Comfort Hotel Okayama. After that, we waited for another friend, Tee to come to pick us. He came to Okayama by Shinkansen, after that, he went to the Madza rental car company to take the rental car. After we gathered, we decided to go to Korakuen 後楽園 first. It was a garden too! However, like the Adachi Museum, summer was not the season, it was ok, but not great. We just walked one round and left. Then, we went to Kurashiki 倉敷. It was so nice to sit inside a car and do not have to rush for bus or train! (^-^)
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| Okayama castle (can be seen from Korakuen) |
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| scene from Kurakuen |
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| scene from Kurakuen |
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| scene from Kurakuen |
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| there was a lake full of beautiful fishes |
Kurashiki Bikan historical quarter 倉敷美観 was an old traditional merchant town centered around a canal. The view was almost like the Yanagawa in Fukuoka. There were a lot of small shops that sell knick-knacks and a few small museum. Our target was to visit the Momotaru Karakuri Hakubutsukan 桃太郎の博物館. Momotaru was a character from Japanese folklore. I remembered that I read about this when I was a small kid. Momotaru was born from a peach and adopted by a kind couple and he was a smart kid who outwits monster or something like that with some tricks. This museum was small and homely. I suspected that this was a private museum, not something like government endorsed museum because after the person at the counter knew that we were foreigners, she gave us discount just like that. Inside the museum, there were some tricks displayed and books about the Momotaru. I considered this not bad. There were other museums, like Ohara Museum of Art, Japan toy museum, etc. Since we were not that arty, we decided to skip others because if we chose to go to all the museums, it would be a big sum of money!
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| Street view from Bikan area |
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| manage to catch this photo (canal in Bikan) |
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| Momotaru Museum |
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| Momotaru musuem - illusion |
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| Momotaru museum - illusion |
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| I like this umbrella, after water was splashed , pictures would show up! (got sakura, dogs, etc) - sold in souvenir shop |
After lunch, we decided to start our journey to Kobe and if the time permitted, went to the Himeji Castle 姫路城 along the way. Again, we arrived too late, and although it was not close, no other tourists were allowed to go in. Well, we just took a photo outside the main gate. Actually the Himeji Castle was covered up for restoration work, if we go inside, we can only walked around the castle also. So, save money by not going inside. Then, we proceeded to Kobe!
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| Himeji castle - it was covered for restoration |
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| front gate of Himeji Castle |
Since this was summer holiday, the road was jam packed with cars. We reached our dorm (Kobe Dears Backpacker house) quite late, around 9pm, the receptionist already wanted to close shop! She just waited for us. Since we haven't eat yet, we went out to eat. However, almost all the road was one way street, quite difficult to manoeuvre, lucky I was not the driver. Since our group was big with 6 persons, all the shop seems reluctant to let us in because we did not reserve. After that, we went to a franchise shop to have our dinner. It was a shop famous with dumplings, but I forgot the name. The waiters were fast, ping ping pang, dat dat dat, ok already!
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| books corner at Kobe dears |
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| Outside of Kobe dears - good accommodation! |
After having our dinner, back to the dorm and queued up to take bath.
Day 1:
Matsue
Day 2:
Sakaiminato
Day 3:
Tottori
Day 4:
Okayama
Day 5:
Tokushima (Shikoku)
Day 6:
Shodoshima (Shikoku)
Day 7:
Oboke & Kochi (Shikoku)
Day 8:
Ehime
Day 9:
Onomichi
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