We got the train from Okayama to Hiroshima and arrived to the flower festival. The streets were buzzing with processions, stalls and thousands of people. It was a beautiful sunny day and the atmosphere was amazing. After negotiating our way through the crowds with our packs it was great to dump our bags at the hotel and get back out. The hotel is great with a view to the peace memorial park (see video). The festival was great lots of local groups dressed up and d...

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...

Another day trip on a normal train to Kurashiki, 15 minutes away. This lovely little town, name meaning storehouse village, has an historical old part with quaint narrow streets and cute old granaries which are now shops and restaurants. These are built alongside a pretty canal lined with willows. We enjoyed a lazy day wandering around the town and also the park containing a temple and shrine. We then caught the shinkansen to Aioi (partly because we can and also ...

Day trip to Himeji. We caught the bullet train (shinkansen) from Okayama to Himeji. So impressed with the train. They really do go very fast and have a separate line to other trains. We were not sure where Himeji castle was from the station but as it turned out you could not miss it towering over the town. We had picked up a couple of bento boxes before we caught the train and enjoyed these in a quiet park beside the castle. They were amazing. We then went into t...

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...