Okayama City is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chugoku region of Japan.
The city was founded in arond 1889, so it is not exactly old according to Japan's history.
The major tourist attraction in the city includes the Korakuen Garden (後楽園庭園)and the Okayama Castle (岡山城).
The Korakeun Garden is one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan. It was built by daimyo Ikeda and it dates back to around 1700.
The design of the garden is well-documented: there are many Edo period paintings and Ikeda family records on the garden. So the government of Okayama was able to restore the garden back to the original formation after WWII. The garden itself is pretty big.
Having walked from the hotel to the Okayama castle, we decided to skip it. I am sure it will be extrodinary beautiful during the cherry blossum period and the autumn period.
The Okayama castle is rather special because it is almost jet black. The castle was destroyed after WWII and rebuilt in 1960s so what we saw wasn't the original. We didn't enter it either because it was quite crowded (long weekend in Japan). In the slope immediately below the castle's main ground, the remaining foundation of the houses and shops were digged up for show. I find them very interesting before most of the houses/shops are really tiny. They must be for tiny people!
Other than that, Okayama City is also reasonably close to Shikoku (四国) island. On this island, you can supposedly find the best udon in Takamatsu (高松市). Accordingly to The Observer, 'Slurp udon noodles in Takamatsu' is one of the 50 things that every foodie should do. Ms YI also emphasised the udons a few times to me, so it must be pretty good. This is going on my to-do list!
2 comments:
too many pictures of yourselves, show some more of Japan...
???? There is only one photo of ourselves in this post.
Anyway, if you want to see more photos of Japan, click on the Japan label on the right hand side and it will show you all the posts from my Japan trip.
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