Osaka, Okayama, and Naoshima

We had planned to go on to the Kumano Kodo trail after Kyoto, but Typhoon Hagibis took out the train line down to the start point of our hike, so we made some last-minute alterations. We went over to Osaka the day the typhoon hit, but the weather was (unsuprisingly) quite bad so we weren’t able to do much. We tried to visit the castle and a history museum but both were closed, so we gave up and spent the rest of the day inside.

The weather had cleared up a fair bit the next day and we were able to visit Nara. This is a popular day trip from Osaka, famous for having a lot of deer and a large buddha.

We had a fun meal that night in Osaka. It turns out that the Japan is big on Neopolitan style pizza, and we’ve taken advantage of this a couple of times when we wanted something non-Japanese. This place was a roughly 15 person restaurant, all handled by one man: cooking, serving, and managing the queue. If that wasn’t enough, it also did takeaway. Most importantly, the pizza was really good.

The next day we were travelling over to Okayama, but we stopped off at Himeji-Jo on the way. Referring to the rankings as always, this is apparently the number one in Japan. It was pretty easy to see why when we arrived. We spent a while walking around the grounds and saw the interior of the castle as well.

We spent a full day in Okayama itself. This isn’t necessarily a major tourist attraction, but there was still plenty to do. We walked around some nice gardens in the morning. (Apparently these are also in Japan’s top three, but I’m starting to think all Japanese gardens say this.) The gardens were nice, but the weird pile-up of fish we saw was less so.

In the afternoon we went for a gentle cycle aroudn the countryside, before heading back in to Okayama for some okonomiyaki for dinner.

We picked up our original plan on the Wednesday and got the boat over to Naoshima. This is a small island just off the mainland, and is known for having modern art all over the island. On the first day, we got over to our accommodation and then wandered round some exhibitions in period houses in the small town we were staying in. Some of these were pretty cool, but they were all bettered by the artsy public baths we went to in the evening (no photos, of course).

Most of the actual galleries on Naoshima are to the south, and we went down there on the second day to check those out. We saw the outdoor sculptures, and visited Benesse House Museum. The gallery was good but the setting was what really set this apart.

Before leaving the island to head to Hiroshima, we found this excellent Slowpoke drain hole cover.

(Turns out Slowpoke is a pretty big deal around here.)