In the wake of three very long and busy days in the vicinity of Okayama, most of my time in Hiroshima was just spent chilling at home with the family and watching the Olympics. Rock climbing at Mount Mikura-dake was undoubtedly the main event from my time there but there were a few other fairly notable little excursions from the sofa. One of them was Continue reading
Much of Hiroshima prefecture consists of mountains leading towards bordering Shimane prefecture which is welcome news for my father-in-law and I as we both enjoy mountain climbing and so gives us an interest which we can share together. After just one rest day following my sole venture in Okayama, the activities began again as went to do some rock climbing at Mount Mikura-dake.
This mountain is located in Ōtake city and what I love about it is that it is clearly visible from the bottom and is actually something very beautiful to look at thanks to the sacred mountain of granite protruding from the forested area surrounding it.
At only 702 metres I wasn’t expecting too much Continue reading
Even before ‘The Wolverine‘ (2013) was released, I was tracking down some of the locations based solely on the trailer. Then, in 2014 I cycled the Wolverine trail of Tokyo and last year I went to Fukuyama and Tomonoura in Hiroshima-ken which filled in for “Nagasaki” as did another island some 65 km further west.
Scenes in Tomonoura are blended in with Omishima island in Ehime prefecture and for a while now I have had my heart set on visiting this Seto Island Sea location to complete my mission of having been to all the locales used in the sixth X-Men film. I hoped to do it last Christmas but it wasn’t to be. No messing this time though, and following a couple of days in Okayama, I took a bus from Fukuyama to Omishima (below) where I rented a bicycle to get round the island.
Omishima is actually just south of Okunoshima a.k.a. Rabbit Island and first appears Continue reading
The Seto Inland Sea is the body of water separating three of Japan’s four main islands. It serves as a waterway, connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan and there are some 3000 islands and islets dotted amidst this area stretching for over 400 kilometres.
Apart from a couple of very quick jaunts over to Mukaishima Island from Onomichi, I have never really visited this scenic waterway so decided to head to one of the islands. Omishima was my island of choice and Continue reading
Feed a 007 fan the words ‘The Man With…‘ and most of them would probably finish that sentence off with the ‘…The Golden Gun‘ relating to the 1974 James Bond movie. Not those on the arty island of Naoshima though! Instead, they would probably complete it with the words ‘…The Red Tattoo‘ as that is the name of the Bond novel which this museum is dedicated to.
The novel was written by Raymond Benson in 2002 and is set in part on Naoshima. Since its release the local government and people of Kagawa prefecture have been engaging in activities to promote the idea of turning the book into a film to be shot on location in Naoshima. One such idea included Continue reading
Japan is actually made up of over 6000 islands but only around 400 of them are inhabited with four major ones hosting the majority of the 127 million population. There’s always something exciting and a little exotic about going to islands and one island I’ve wanted to visit for a long time has been Naoshima which is famed for its art.
The island is dotted with calming concrete art installations which is something even I can appreciate and I am severely lacking in knowledge when it comes to this subject! I was quite surprised how long it took me to get to Naoshima from Okayama. Trains to Uno and the boats from the ferry port in Uno weren’t as frequent as I assumed they would be. Thankfully I got up early and had already ticked Korakuen gardens and Okayama-jo castle off my list before 10am.
No sooner had I arrived on Naoshima and I was off to my first port of call whilst most people who had been on the boat went to the tourist information. I went to the Continue reading
This shrine didn’t feature in my Okayama guidebook and wasn’t high up the online lists of recommended places. However, I had read about Saijo-Inari Shrine in a book called ‘The Fox And The Jewel‘ by Karen A. Smyers which one lady very kindly sent me a copy of having read some of my fox/inari stuff on Tokyo Fox, particularly ‘On The Fox Trail……In Oji (Tokyo).‘
That heightened my interest a bit but I still wasn’t too sure about visiting it due to it’s location. It’s a bit out of the way but is in the vicinity of the Airport so knowing that I wouldn’t be returning to the airport to leave Okayama I decided that I would just take a taxi as soon as I landed.
Subsequently, I was already at Saijo Inari before 10am and the weather was absolutely Continue reading
Three is the magic number in Japan when it comes to rating and numbering things. The Japanese like to categorise in three’s and one such example is the trio of most celebrated gardens. Okayama’s Korakuen Gardens are considered to be one of the three finest gardens in Japan with the others being Kenroku-en in Kanazawa and Kairaku-en in Mito.
As I was up early each morning I thought I’d take advantage of them opening early and so was there at 8am (they actually open at 7:30am) with just a few other people present during my time there which was so Continue reading
It had already been a long, long day for me but time is money and all that, so with a couple of hours of daylight remaining I decided to squeeze in one more site before retiring to my capsule hotel for some much needed rest.
Following my lone appearance at Washuzan Highland Theme Park I ventured on to Kurashiki which is a city famed for its Bikan historical area just fifteen minutes away from Okayama by train on the Sanyo Line. It was 5:30pm when I arrived and ten minutes later I had already found my way over to the historical quarter located by the picturesque canal area.
The entrance area possesses some scenic townscape preserving history from Continue reading
Have you ever met anyone who went to an amusement park by themselves? Probably not as that is pretty sad, isn’t it! As you can probably guess though, that is exactly what I did on my first afternoon in Okayama!
Keen to experience the Sky Cycle ride which brought this theme park to my attention a few months ago I had no real choice but to go alone with my wife out of the way. With no idea when I may next be in Okayama I thought I had better take this opportunity even if I did have to fly solo!
Washuzan Highland is actually some kind of Brazilian themed amusement park where the staff all Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 