Our one night stay in Okayama was to visit Kōraku-en, one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan. We had passed through Okayama several times, and it was Okayama where we picked up and returned the hire car for our trip to Iya Valley. But this was our first time stopping and having a look. The city has a population of 700,000, is the capital of the Okayama prefecture, and is a transport hub – being the gateway to Shikoku and all Shinkansen heading further south pass through.
As we were just spending one night we booked into a hotel rather than an AirBnB. The apartment style we have had through AirBnB has been fantastic and much better than options with hotels, but the ease of check-in and check-out for a hotel, and the ability to leave the bags at a hotel while sight seeing for the day meant the extra expense of a hotel and all sleeping in the one room was worth it.
We even slept in, and so enjoyed the hotel buffet breakfast before heading off to Korakuen which was a 15 minute walk from the hotel.
Korakuen was established by the local feudal lord ordered in 1687 who ordered the construction of the garden as a place of entertainment for the ruling family and a location for receiving important guests. In 1884, a few years after the end of the feudal era, Korakuen became the property of Okayama Prefecture and was opened to the public. The garden suffered damage from floods in 1934 and bombing during the war, but it has always been restored to its original state thanks to the accurate records kept by the garden’s designers.
We are becoming quite familiar with Japanese Gardens and recognised some of the familiar aspects: a large pond with large colourful carp, walking paths presenting different views and different aspects, tea houses and pavilions placed throughout the garden. However, Korakuen had some more unique features with spacious lawn areas (that were looking a little dry after summer), groves of plum, cherry and maple trees, and tea and rice fields. We also enjoyed the large bamboo grove and the views across to the castle.
Also, it must be chrysanthemum season at the moment, as most gardens we have visited including Karakuen have had large chrysanthemum displays. Additionally, Karakuen had a display of flowering bonsai display that we enjoyed and is quite different to the normal bonsai trees we had previously seen.
After the garden we hired a swan shaped pedal boat on the river. The boys captained the bird with Tryphena and I enjoying the somewhat zig-zagging ride up and down the river.
We walked to the Okayama train station via the hotel to pick up the bags. We reserved our seats for Hiroshima and had a long lunch, including crepes for dessert, before the 60-minute Shinkansen ride.
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