We are now in Western Japan, in Okayama prefecture. The town of Okayama, with its castle and Korakuen Garden, is the capital of the prefecture, but we decided to stay in the smaller town of Kurashiki about 30 minutes away. It’s a beautiful town with a well preserved historic quarter and our hotel was within walking distance of everything.
We arrived in the afternoon and wanted to get a bird’s eye view of town, so we climbed many stairs to the top of Tsurugata-yama Mountain. It’s not really much of a mountain at only 141 feet elevation, but it does offer some nice viewpoints and has a temple and shrine complex at the top. Until about 400 years ago, this small mountain was an island surrounded by a shallow sea. In Edo times, the land in this area was reclaimed using seawalls, embankments, and canals. But even when this mountain (hill) was an island, it was still the site of the Achi Shrine, which has existed on this spot for over 1700 years. Next to the temple is Kanryu-ji Buddhist Temple which, in comparison, has only been here since the 1600s.
There are a couple of different paths up the hill to Achi Shrine. We sort of took the back route past the Buddhist temple and just before we got to the Achi Shrine we saw an amazing sight. Several huge trellises supporting a single wisteria vine in full bloom! So my wisteria wish (...wishteria?) has finally come true!
In Japanese, wisteria flowers are called "fuji no hana". Squadrons of buzzing bees were visiting the flowers. The droning hum sounded almost like a meditative mantra, very appropriate for the vine’s shrine setting.
This single vine is at least 300 years old, according to a sign near it. We later noticed a few other wisteria vines along the path, but none of them could really compare to this one. There were surprisingly few people up on the hill, so there were moments when we had the spot completely to ourselves.
While walking through town later, I realized that the streets of Kurashiki give you a clue about the Achi wisteria vines. Check out the manhole covers!
Elsewhere in the Achi shrine, tendrils of paper cranes hang down from the ceiling. These are senbazuru “one thousand cranes”. In Edo Japan they believed that cranes lived for a thousand years. So when the senbazuru tradition began, folding 1000 paper cranes indicated a wish for a long life. In modern times senbazuru has evolved into wishing for a happy marriage, a recovery from illness, or even just as a meditative practice.
We arrived in town on a Monday, and most of the shops and cafes in the old Bikan Historical Quarter were closed. It was still enjoyable to walk around a bit -- the town has so much character and charm.
We were glad we had booked three nights in this area. On Tuesday morning we took a quick train ride to Okayama for a peek at the castle and famous garden.
Okayama castle is nicknamed the "Crow Castle" due to its black color. As with many of the castles in Japan, the original castle was destroyed (by allied bombs in WWII) and reconstructed more recently (1960s)
The interior of the castle focused more on education and was very modern inside, with interesting exhibits on the castle and feudal lords associated with it. It was helpful to see a model of what the surrounding buildings would have looked like in Edo times.
As I mentioned, the interior of the castle was very modern. Even though on the outside it looks like it is only 3 levels, it actually had six floors inside (and even an elevator up to the 4th floor). We did go up the extra two flights of stairs to see the view from the top. The carp finials on the castle roof are actually a mythical Japanese creature called a shachihoko, which is a symbol of wealth and power and also has magical powers that can summon rain in case of fire.
Getting to Korakuen Garden was easy - it was right across the river from the castle. (Not this bridge though, this one was in the garden.)
Other than a few highlights, like this cultivated hill, and a few teahouses, most of the garden is taken up by expansive lawns and large ponds. The land used to be farmland, so it was probably easier to plant grass when it was converted to a public garden in the 1880s.
After seeing Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, we were a little underwhelmed by Korakuen Garden in Okayama. Korakuen is also listed in the top three gardens in Japan and we probably just had too high of expectations based on that. And maybe at this point we are just spoiled and have seen too many beautiful gardens. But Korakuen did have a view of the castle, which Kenrokuen did not have (because there’s no castle there yet!).
We had hoped to see some local art at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art. Kevin took a look at the collection online and it looked like it would be something we'd be interested to see. Unfortunately...
The permanent collection halls were temporarily closed and the only exhibition on display was yet ANOTHER Hello Kitty display. The first one we saw in Tokyo was just mostly displays of old Sanrio merchandise and for the most part, this was pretty much the same. Except for the "fashion" exhibits.
Ironically, you are allowed to take all the photos you want inside the exhibit, but you are reminded several times that absolutely no photos are allowed of the gift shop, which is also just Sanrio merchandise. People were going nuts in there, they had a limit of buying maximum 40 items. Who on earth needs 40 Hello Kitty items?! But I did appreciate seeing just one more view of Mount Fuji.
After spending most of the day in Okayama, we were pretty happy that we did not base ourselves here. It's a nice city but Kurashiki definitely has more charm. But it was a pleasant day and we enjoyed the views of Okayama castle, even if we weren't bowled over by the garden or the museum.
We got back from Okayama in plenty of time to discover how atmospheric Kurashiki is at night.
The soft glow of the lanterns makes everything look inviting.
Strolling along the canal in the Bikan Historical Quarter under the moonlight will be one of my favorite memories of this town.
We spent the next day exploring the history of Kurashiki. There are so many wonderfully preserved old merchant homes in the historical quarter. We happened upon the Inoue Residence, the former home of a prosperous landowning family that is now a museum. It was built around 1721 and is the oldest house in the Kurashiki Riverside preservation district. The current generation of the Inoue family spent ten years restoring the home, using teams of craftsmen with a good understanding of historical techniques and materials. We were so lucky that the current owner was there to give us the story of the renovations and to show us all the wonderful secrets of this beautiful home.
We've now visited many restored historical Japanese homes and by far this one was the most furnished inside. Having Mr. Inoue there to explain and open all the closet doors, drawers, and storage areas in the house really helped us to understand how a Japanese family would have lived in the Edo period.
When the land around Kurashiki was reclaimed from the ocean, the soil was still too salty to grow rice, but it was a great spot to grow cotton.
Growing cotton was just the beginning of Kurashiki's ties to the textile industry. Over the decades, a merchant class arose here that became wealthy in the wholesale cotton trade. The river and canals provided a direct outlet to the Seto Sea for commerce. Eventually several enterprises built spinning mills here and textile companies such as Kurabo Industries built several red brick storehouses and production factory at Ivy Square. The company got its start producing yarn and uniforms from the 1890s to the 1920s.
The company continued to grow and built a power plant, company housing, a hospital, and state-of-the-art research facilities, which allowed it to expand to products like synthetic fibers and bedding materials. But in the 1970s the textile company pivoted to the manufacture of denim. More recently, the manufacturing sites have been moved out of town, and the beautiful brick buildings have been repurposed into a hotel, cafes, and shops selling denim items, of course.
In fact Kurashiki is recognized as the birthplace of Japanese denim. It even has a street dedicated to this fabric. In Denim Street you can buy all kinds of items made from jean fabric- bags, hats, shoes, house decor, and of course jeans. Even the food vendors are in on the fun—this menu has denim ice cream, soda spritzers, and even indigo-colored pork buns.
The Japanese love for all things kawaii (cute) makes for some familiar fashion tie-ins, like Minions denim overalls.
One of the other things that Okayama prefecture, and Kurashiki in particular, is known for is being the "Fruit Kingdom" of Japan. In summer, the town is known for white hakuto peaches, while in autumn the muscat grape takes center stage. Since we were there in spring, strawberries were in season and we went to the dessert shop Momoko for one of its over-the-top fruit parfaits.
One of the other memorable historical buildings in town also happens to be the site of the Kurashiki Ukiyo-e Museum that features the work of Kunioshi Utagawa who created a rich and varied series of woodblock prints in the early 1800s.
We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum, but the museum flyer shows one of my favorite works on display. Look closely at the robe the man is wearing. It's covered in skulls. Now look even closer at the skulls. Each skull is made up of drawings of cats. Cats were one of the artist's favorite subjects.
We took a free guided walking tour from the visitor center and our guide gave us some wonderful information about the town (in English). We also were able to get tickets for one of the canal boat tours which gave us a bit of history of how the textile merchant ships would use the canals for trade. The waterways were actually much wider back in the 1800s for shipping; now that Kurashiki is more tourism-focused, the canals were narrowed and the sidewalks were widened.
The boat tour was a highlight, plus we got to wear some fun hats!
I feel like I could have stayed a few days longer in Kurashiki, just soaking up the atmosphere and hitting all the quirky little museums that we missed (there are museums dedicated to old-timey Japanese children's toys, collections of piggy banks, blue jeans, and even a museum dedicated to the folk story hero known as Peach Boy (Momotaro). Unfortunately we will have to save those for a future visit, since I hope to come back to this wonderful town some day.
