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1. Once visitors exit immigration and customs at Kansai Airport, visitors will be on the 1st floor. Follow the signs for “Railways”, taking one of the 4 escalators or 3 elevators to arrive at the 2nd floor.

2. Once on the 2nd floor, follow the signs to one of several walkways and walk across the road to Kansai-airport Station. Visitors need to exit the air terminal building to arrive at the JR Station (two separate buildings connected by a walkway). Two train companies use Kansai-airport Station: JR (blue/green) and Nankai (orange). Only JR can take visitor to the platform Haruka departing from. DO NOT use Nankai.

3. Before entering tickets gate, find JR Ticket Office where visitors can purchase ticket or reserved ticket for JR train.(there is a huge sign in English above their head).JR ticket office staff may or may not speak English, but they can read place names and train types written in the Roman alphabet. 

4. With one’s tickets, go through JR ticket gate and take an escalator to get to Platform 4.

The Ohara Museum of Art was Japan's first museum of Western art. It is a private museum consisting of three adjacent buildings next to the canal and a separate building located in Ivy Square.

The Main Gallery building was constructed when the museum was founded, and features most of the museum's highlights. On display are masterpieces of Western art by Picasso, El Greco, Gauguin, Modigliani, Rodin, Klee, Pollock and Kandinsky among others. The artists in the collection span a wide variety of periods and nationalities.

it features a number of works by Japanese artists, and includes both oil paintings and sculptures. The Craft Art Gallery displays ceramics, woodblock prints, stencil dyeing, and other crafts. The Asiatic Art Gallery includes artifacts from Egypt and antiques from China.

The final building, the Kojima Museum, is located a five minute walk away in Ivy Square and is included in the admission fee. It is a gallery for Kojima Torajiro, a Japanese artist who painted in the Western style.

The main buildings of the Ohara Museum are located at the northern end of Kurashiki's historic canal area. The Kojima Museum is located about 200 meters away from the other buildings, just across the canal within Ivy Square.                                                     

Hours: 9:00 to 17:00 (last entry 16:30)
Closed: Mondays (unless Monday is a national holiday), December 26 to 31
Admission: 1300 yen (includes entrance to the Kojima Museum)
English audio guide available free of charge

Ivy Square is a complex of brick buildings covered in ivy.

This building houses cafes, shops, exhibition spaces, museums and a hotel. .

This is quite a pretty and interesting place to wander around.

The area was the site of the first modern cotton mill in Japan, and the brick buildings were originally built as part of the mill in 1889.

During the Edo Period (1603-1867), before the construction of the mill, the site was used as the office of the local magistrate, who exercised control of the city as a direct representative of the shogunate.

In building Japan's first modern cotton mill, the Kurashiki Bosekijo (Kurashiki spinning mill) company, also known as Kurabo, reaped the profits of introducing new industrial techniques to the country.

The company is still active today in the textile and various other industries.

Kurabo has built a memorial hall in one of the former cotton warehouses which traces the company's history to the present day.

A number of other museums are located within and around Ivy Square.


 

Korakuen is a beautiful landscape garden and Okayama's main attraction. Along with Kanazawa's Kenrokuen and Mito's Kairakuen, Korakuen is ranked as one of Japan's three best landscape gardens. It is located just beside Okayama Castle, which can be seen from the garden as "borrowed scenery".

The local feudal lord ordered the construction of Korakuen in 1687 as a place of entertainment for the ruling family and a location for receiving important guests. Occasionally, the public was permitted to enter the garden.
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.

Korakuen is a spacious garden that incorporates the typical features of a Japanese landscape garden, including a large pond, streams, walking paths and a hill that serves as a lookout point. Rather unique for a Japanese garden, however, are Korakuen's spacious lawns. Also found in the garden are groves of plum, cherry and maple trees, tea and rice fields, an archery range and a crane aviary.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Korakuen is about 1.5 kilometers or a 25-30 minute walk east of Okayama Station. Trams on the Higashiyama Line can be taken to Shiroshita stop (5 minutes, 100 yen, frequent departures) from where the garden's south gate can be reached in a 10-15 minute walk. Alternatively, a bus runs between Okayama Station and Korakuen-mae bus stop (20 minutes, 140 yen, every 15-25 minutes), which is located just beside the garden's main gate.

Note that there are two entrances to Korakuen: a main gate beside the Prefectural Museum and a south gate near the bridge that crosses to Okayama Castle.

  Hours: 7:30 to 18:00 (March 20 to September)
             8:00 to 17:00 (October to March 19)
Admission ends 15 minutes before closing time.
Closed: No closing days
Admission: 400 yen (Korakuen only)
                 560 yen (Korakuen and Okayama Castle; not available during special exhibitions at the castle)
Various other combination tickets are available

Kibitsuhiko Shrine, located in the Kibi Plain, is well-known due to the Legend of Prince Kibitsuhiko.  Kibi Plain was the center of Kibi Kingdom, a powerful clan.  However, in the 4th century, Prince Kibitsuhiko from the rivaling Yamato Clan came to the Kibi Plains to defeat a terrorizing ogre. 

Kibitsuhiko Shrine was built in 1697 on the spot Prince Kibitsuhiko is said to have stopped to pray before launching his assault on the ogre. This shrine is said to be the most important shrine in this region.  Prince Kibitsuhiko is said to have battled the ogre here, piercing one of the ogre's eyes with an arrow and prompting the ogre to transform into a bird and fly away.

Kibitsuhiko Shrine
Hours: 8:30 to 17:00 
Closed: Opened all year round 
Admission: Free

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