Okayama, Beach, Kurashiki

I spent this past weekend in Okayama, visiting my Auntie. Right when I arrived, she took me to her friend's Korean restaurant for dinner. It was tasty.

Her friend, Miyamoto-san, took us over to his other restaurant acorss the street that he has for parties. He designed the interior...it was amazing.

My Auntie lives in Seto-cho, right outside of Okayama city. In the back of her house, she has another corridor that was used as a haiku dojo. It was very spacey.

Breakfast.

Old papers/books in her house.

I took a walk in her garden after breakfast.

Okinawan lion statue.

After breakfast, we headed off to Kourakuen, Okayama's gem. It's known as one of the top three gardens in Japan.

This moss gets raked daily.

The timing was perfect. The iris garden was in bloom.


Maple.

Looking down from the top of the hill

Bamboo grove.

Winding river.

Looking up from the river.

After walking around Okayama, we rode the bus about an hour to the Inland Sea, where we spent the night at a hotel. The beach was beautiful. The sand was mostly clear/pink quartz.

hehe.

Laying on the beach.

Auntie!

Sunset.

We ate at a buffet for dinner....it was THE best. steak, dim sum, sushi, shrimp....everything was so good. This was round 1.

Round two.

Round three and four were mainly the shrimp dim sum and steak.
I spent two hours in the Onsen/Rotenburo...they had inside baths, outside ones, and a sauna too.
This was the view from my room.

Blue ocean, yellow sand.

Miyamoto-san took us for a drive along the coast. We stopped at his friend's hotel along the way where we had coffee. Amazing view of all the little islands.

Seto-Ohashi bridge.

Kurashiki old town.

so many shops.

hanging slippers.

What would shikoku be without sanuki udon?? from the udon capital of japan. I accidently ordered the jumbo size(thinking it was Japanese jumbo), but it ended up being 3x the size of a normal serving....

Went to Kibi-Ji; a temple in Kibi, from the town of Momotaro...hence Kibidango.

Huge Pagoda.