Kurashiki

Since we were traveling by train, we decided to spend the night in a town half-way between Kyoto and Hiroshima, our next destination. Quite by accident, Jeff chose the little town of Kurashiki, never knowing what we would find there – and a great find it turned out to be.
We exited the train station to be greeted with a large promenade with a great villa behind an ornate wall with the word Tivoli plastered upon it and a huge ferris wheel turning over it all. Well, not being able to ignore such a large invitation, we decided to check it out. It was an amusement park, patterned after the original Tivoli located in Copenhagen and not unlike a small version of the original Disneyland. The light! The entire place was decorated for Christmas with red, green and white lights covering everything. They had rides, large and small, to appeal to all age groups and shops of every kind, including a street designed to emulate Copenhagen. The buildings throughout were spectacular, interspersed with tiny gardens, waterfalls and elaborate fountains. We had a fabulous time, walking around and enjoying everything.
Kurashiki is also the home of the O’Hara art museum. The building looks like an old Greek Temple, strange in the middle of a Japanese city. It is considered to be one of the leading western art museums in Japan. It includes pieces by El Greco, Claude Monet, Picasso, Gougan, Renoir and many more. They also included a large Asian art section and many artifacts. It was located along a famous canal zone with graceful swans floating through the water with weeping willows bending to the water. I bet it’s fabulous in the spring!
Next…on to Hiroshima.