Okayama Hidden Gems
Okayama is sheltered on both sides — the Chugoku mountains to the north, Shikoku to the south — and the result is the driest, sunniest weather in Japan, which is why it grows fruit that struggles elsewhere and why so many days here are simply usable. Korakuen was laid out in 1700 as a lord's retreat with an unusual amount of open lawn and working rice paddy inside it, and it is set directly across the river from a black-lacquered castle keep. Kurashiki is the more surprising place: a canal quarter of white-walled warehouses that shipped rice under direct shogunate control, later a textile town, and now the site of the Ohara Museum, which opened in 1930 as Japan's first collection of Western art and bought its El Greco before most European museums were interested. West of the city the Kibi Plain is flat farmland threaded with a cycling route past burial mounds and old temples.
1 spot
Climate & Best Season
The driest, sunniest prefecture in Japan, with few rainy days and almost no snow. Comfortable most of the year.
Famous For (Food)
- White peaches
- Muscat grapes
- Barazushi
- Demi-katsudon
Signature Sights
- Korakuen garden
- Kurashiki Bikan quarter
- Okayama Castle
- Kibi Plain cycling route
When to Go
Okayama records fewer days of rain than almost anywhere in Japan, and there is very little snow, so the shoulder seasons are unusually reliable here. January highs sit near 10°C and August above 33°C with humidity. Fruit dictates the calendar: white peaches ripen from July into August and Muscat grapes from August into October, both with pick-your-own orchards north of the city. Korakuen's spring and autumn night illuminations run for short periods in April and November. The Saidaiji naked festival, held on the third Saturday of February, is one of the odder things in the Japanese calendar.
Getting Around
Okayama is a major junction: the Sanyo Shinkansen reaches it in about three and a quarter hours from Tokyo and 45 minutes from Shin-Osaka, and it is the transfer point for every train crossing to Shikoku over the Seto-Ohashi bridge. Kurashiki is 15 minutes away on the local Sanyo line, so the two are easily combined. Okayama Airport handles domestic routes. Within the city, a short tram line runs to the castle area. The Kibi Plain route is best done by rental bicycle between Bizen-Ichinomiya and Soja, about 15 kilometres. The northern towns of Tsuyama and Bizen need the slow Tsuyama and Ako lines, or a car.
Local Food
White peaches are the prefecture's signature fruit and the pale, low-acid varieties grown here are picked from July; Muscat of Alexandria grapes follow from August. Barazushi is a lidded box of vinegared rice scattered with seafood and vegetables, invented — according to local telling — to satisfy a lord's order that commoners eat only one dish per meal. Demi-katsudon replaces the usual egg with demi-glace sauce and comes from a Western-style restaurant in the city. Hiruzen in the north raises Jersey cattle, and Bizen has fired unglazed pottery for around a thousand years.
