Today we explored our city Okayama. This is a really lovely city with everything you could want. We could not feel more welcome with everyone smiling and saying 'konnichiwa' to us just walking along the street. When being served at a till the staff bow and are so friendly. I love the Japanese. We walked along the canal near our hotel then to Okayama castle. The castle looks impressive but is actually a rebuild as unfortunately many were destroyed when the governm...

We caught the train to Okayama via Yonago which took just under 3 hours. As we travelled from one side of the country to the other the scenery was breathtaking with tree covered mountains and streams. I never new there could be so many variations of green. There were also many small villages and plenty of rice paddies. We arrived at the huge Okayama station into a shopping mall! Thankfully our hotel was only a 15 min walk away. Very pleasant hotel with an interes...