Nara to Okayama

We are now at the part of our plan where we head down to Shikoku, one of the main islands that make up Japan. Looking at the maps it was clearly possible to do this in one journey but it would be quite a long day and it was time to go even slower.  So we decided to go as far as the town of Okayama. This required a couple of local trains to get us to Shin Osaka station where we could get the Shinkansen to Okayama. The plan was to arrive in Okayama and either stay there or take a local train to the possibly more picturesque locations nearby. 

Housework can't take long 

Arriving at Okayama we wandered around the station looking for food and eventually found what we wanted - a Teishoku restaurant where you pay for your meal through a machine that swallows your yen and responds when you tap the picture of the meal you want. Teishoku is simply a meal on a tray comprising your chosen main portion and little dishes with rice, tofu, pickles, miso and other things. 

The famous story character, Momotaro, and one of his desciples

Crouching Pigeon, Patient Monkey

Earlier Rosemary had found a list of cheap hotels and rather than traipsing around we went to the information office and asked them to phone for us, ending up with a booking at a Toyoko Inn hotel. 

Street near our hotel wi everyone going to work or school

Toyoko Inn is chain of business hotels throughout Japan and overseas. Like the Super Hotel Lohas in Nara there were two of them, one more expensive than the other. We were in the cheap one. Arriving get at the hotel I noticed a commemorative poster recording the Guinness World Record for the largest hotel chain to be 100% occupied over a 24 hour period. 

We had arrived at 3pm and they have a strict policy of 4pm check in. We gave them our bags to store with the intention of exploring Okayama before returning to our room but when we sat at the lobby tables that, in the morning, double as the breakfast restaurant, to plan our,excursion we decided we had done enough. There was Internet and 4pm rolled around soon enough. 

The room was spacious with opening windows and separate and huge (for Japan) bathroom and toilet. It was only later that it dawned on me that we must have been in an 'accessible' room, thus all the low handles and alarm cords and buttons (one of which I managed to push when trying to flush the toilet). 

I was a bit surprised to find that there is much done here for those with disabilities. The raised lines and bumps on the footpaths for the blind are everywhere and I saw a few blind people walking solo using them. Here they are continuous, not just reserved for intersections and corners. Wheel chair access is ubiquitous and I saw a school boy in uniform in a wheelchair heading off, presumably to school. Later on as we walked through a small park I noticed that it was being tended to by a group of men and women who were [whatever the non-pejorative term is for those who, as kids, we called Mongols, a word that, given my admiration for the achievements of Genghis Khan and his descendants, I would today consider a substantial complement].