Okayama

Today we travelled from Osaka to Kurashiki, about 100 miles away and further west. First pass, the journey was on the bullet train and then we transferred to a local train for the last 20 minutes.

We made the short walk from the station to our hotel but as it was still only about 11:00 a.m. we couldn't actually check in so instead we left our bags and went for a wander.

A hotel is right next to the old quarter of Kurashiki so very convenient for the sightseeing. The main thing to see here is the old District which has been preserved and is full of white and black houses with a grey roof. We spent a couple of hours wandering around before it was time to meet up for the tour that we had booked.

It turned out that we were the only two on the tour which was led by a 9th generation resident of the area and a translator as his English wasn't good enough to do the tour on his own. There's also a third person who was learning the ropes of translation.

We spent an interesting couple of hours with him and the translator where he explained to us some of the history of the area and we visited the temple and shrine. Much of Kurashiki made its money on cotton and there is a plethora of denim shops in the old town. We saw the old factory, which looked very similar to some of the factories you'd see in Britain from the period with red bricks. We were told that the machinery and the engineers to install and maintain had been brought from England.

After the tour we came back to the hotel and checked in. The room was big but a little bit tired but did the job as we're only staying one night.

By now. It was around 5:00 p.m. so we went back out and found a bar for a drink or two and then walked back into the old town to have some yakitori which is chicken on skewers. Then it was back to hotel for a review of the day.Read more