【Okayama City: From Okayama Castle to Omotecho Shopping Street】Walking from around Korakuen's Shiromi Chaya to around the South Clock Tower of Omotecho Shopping Street

The view of Okayama Castle's keep from Tsukimi Bridge is picturesque

I really like the beautiful shape of Okayama Castle's keep.
I remember being fond of Okayama Castle as a child and treasuring a postcard my mother bought me.
It has quite a lot of charm, so I thought it might be an original keep, but unfortunately, it's a reconstructed keep. So it's reinforced concrete.
If it were original, I think it wouldn't be strange for it to be a National Treasure.
As for which view of the keep is recommended, it's from Tsukimi Bridge spanning between it and Korakuen, one of Japan's three great gardens. It's nice to view it together with the inverted keep reflected in the Asahi River.

From that Tsukimi Bridge, I head toward the area with Okayama Prefectural Library and Hayashibara Museum of Art. Going almost straight, you hit the inner moat.
Enjoying the stone walls of the main enclosure is what castle lovers do. The stone walls are beautiful because the Seto Inland Sea is a source of stone.
And the view when you look back after crossing Meyasubashi Bridge over the inner moat is also good.
Meyasubashi is the bridge from the main gate side (this is the front entrance) to the main enclosure, and it's named after the suggestion box (meyasubako) that was placed at the bridge's base.

From Meyasubashi, I go through "Crow Castle Road" to the castle town area and head toward Omotecho Shopping Street.
Like Hokkancho Shopping Street introduced in a previous article, this shopping street is also an arcade shopping street along the Saigoku Kaido (old Sanyo Road).

When I lived in Okayama about 15 years ago, the center of the city was Omotecho Shopping Street, but now maybe the Aeon Mall in front of the station feels more central?
There's an arcade shopping street, a department store called Tenmaya, a large bus terminal, and many restaurants—I came to this area multiple times a week. It's nostalgic.
Walking through the arcade shopping street from the Momotaro-dori side, you immediately come to the North Clock Tower.

When you reach around Circus Dome (South Clock Tower), closed shops increase and it becomes desolate

This area has many shops, and it's fun just looking at the shop exteriors.
Right in the middle is Tenmaya's Okayama main store. There are large panels of high brands, giving you the feeling of being at a department store.

Continuing straight toward Higashiyama-dori, the number of open shops gradually decreases. Shops with shutters closed increase.
At a place called Circus Dome on the opposite side from where I entered, there's the South Clock Tower. When you reach this area, it's quite desolate.
I remember occasionally coming to this area to eat ramen.

Video of walking from Okayama Castle to Omotecho Shopping Street

This is a video filmed in the spring of 2021. It was the season when cherry blossoms were beautifully blooming at Crow Castle Park (Okayama Castle).
Also, the shopping street wasn't open yet, so you can't tell how busy it is. This happened due to the travel schedule.

Okayama articles are viewed quite a bit, so this is a reintroduction of Okayama Castle and the shopping street in the city center.