Okayama doesn't tend to feature on many Japanese itineraries and, I must confess, it was a last-minute switch for us; originally the three nights we spent in Okayama were supposed to be spent in Kyoto.
But because we'd read reports that Kyoto was seriously overcrowded with tourists - and because we knew we could do a day trip to Kyoto from
Osaka - we rebooked for Okayama. Not because of Okayama, but because the city makes a great base to do
Naoshima and
Hiroshima from: Hiroshima is totally doable as a day trip from Osaka or Kyoto, but the journey to Naoshima would have been around three hours, each way, instead of an hour.
We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Okayama which took 3 hours, 17 minutes, and cost £102.18 each. (Booked on the
Klook app before we got to Japan.) Sit on the right of the train for your chance to see Mount Fuji, if it's clear! We could sort of see it, but not really. (Thankfully we saw it properly from the air flying back from the Okinawa islands to Tokyo.) And as for where we stayed, we were right next to the station at
Hotel Granvia, which was a great location considering we were using Okayama as a base to make day trips on the train.
This was the city that introduced us to colourful manhole covers (drain covers) - yes, that is a real, and true, sentence I've just typed out. But look how colourful they are! We had great fun hunting them out in other cities once we knew about their existence. (Missed out in Osaka though as turns out there's a museum dedicated to them!) But, back to Okayama, which is known to be the location of the fairy tale Momotaro, which means "Peach Boy" - you'll spot peach manhole covers in town, too. (I became obsessed!)
Speaking of food, in Okayama we ate at a steak place called
Moby (average) and a great Indian restaurant called
Taj-Namaste. On our final night we had a teppanyaki experience at
Teppan Ku-Ya, which was excellent and the sort of steak experience you want to have in Japan. Teppan Ku-Ya is a small family-run restaurant, and we had a great dinner there. Definitely recommend you pay them a visit if you're in town. We also had drinks at the hotel's bar on the 19th floor - the view is mostly of the train station, but we discovered there that Okayama Gin is a fab gin. (The other gin we loved in Japan was KI NO BI Gin.)
Finally, we did get chance to explore the city before we left for Osaka - we spent our last morning at
Korakuen Garden, which is right by Okayama Castle (another castle that was rebuilt after it was destroyed in World War II - the garden, if you're curious, was completed in 1700). Entry to Korakuen Garden is ¥500 (around £2.67) and the gardens are considered to be some of the best in Japan. We didn't see that when we were there in late April, but I later read that they are more spectacular when there's autumnal foliage. Still, it was a cute enough garden, and good to tick something off in Okayama itself since we were in town. x
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