I get on the first shinkansen in the morning, "Nozomi 1." It takes a little less than three hours and a half to Okayama. So I have plenty of time to fully enjoy the real pleasure of a trip by train such as getting some work done, reading a book, and falling into a daze.

I go to Okayama quite often on business, but every time when I arrive at Okayama station, I always feel that it's a nice and peaceful town. The east entrance to the station where a bus terminal is located is spacious, and there are many people gathering around a fountain, which is commonly used as a meeting spot. With a statue of "Momotaro" standing at a noticeable location, I deeply realize that I am in Okayama. Okayama is famous for the story of "Momotaro." As long as you are walking around the station, you cannot get away from this super hero. Some of the streetcars running from the station have pictures of Momotaro drawn on their bodies. And, there are peaches made of iron at the tip of the poles standing on the streetcars. A fence serving as a guardrail is in the shape of iron cudgel, which a demon in the story carries. If you go to a tourist information center and take a brochure in your hand, of course, there'd be Momotaro to assist you. I'm sorry if I offend people in Okayama by saying this, but I also feel "Is Momotaro the only thing in Okayama?" Well, it might be one of the elements creating the peaceful atmosphere.

At the tourist information center, I inquired how to get to Shizutani School where I've been wishing to visit since quite a while ago. I was told that, as is often the case in the provinces, the school was located at an inconvenient spot to go without a car. Since I knew that there was a sightseeing bus having Shizutani School included in its itinerary, I thought over whether it'd be better taking the bus or going to the closest station by train and taking a taxi from there. Considering that I'd have to be stopping at some inconvenient areas with a train and that the bus would be better in terms of fare, I ended up giving a decision in favor of the bus. As a matter of fact, even before arriving in Okayama, I was already somewhat inclined to take the sightseeing bus. It's because that I wanted to experience a kind of sightseeing trip that I'd be taken to my destinations without thinking about anything myself.

The sky is blue and clear. It's nice and warm by the window in the bus. I'm already in a picnic mood as looking at a guidebook and reading a brochure before the bus leaves.

A beautiful guide begins to explain a route of the trip. Here, I happen to be a bit disappointed. She keeps talking nonstop about trivial matters all the way after the bus started moving. That's how a bus tour conductor is supposed to be. Yet, she talks so clumsily as making full use of her queer Japanese. She is trying to use polite language but is actually talking in such a strange way as a result. Doesn't she realize that? Because I can't help correcting her language coming to my ears each time in my head, I get exhausted at once. I am very conservative in regard to language.

Still, since she's been giving a tour of the same course over and over, she gives guidance just at the perfect moment as mentioning every sight and its history right before the target appears. Paying only half attention to her guidance, I pick out only the information that attracts my interest while looking out of the window. Now that we came about twenty minutes away from the station, there is a pretty scene of a rural district of Japan extending outside. There are also houses with fine-looking structure.

While I was looking out of the window, a middle-aged woman sitting behind asked me "Would you like to have a sweet bun?" I'd say that one of the special interesting features of a group tour is to enjoy communications with other participants. A conversation often expands on such subject as "Where are you from?" and snacks are passed on to everybody. Though we are strangers, just because we happened to be on the same bus, we can enjoy talking with each other just as if we were friends from old times. It's amazing. It seemed that all the participants except me were more than forty years old. Among them, there even was a fashionable old lady participating alone, and she seemed to be well over seventy. Since we were a group of about fifteen people in all, we had no such trouble as losing someone or filling up a small pottery museum only with our party. I guess we had a reasonable number of people.

Yet, as an unsatisfactory fact, we were provided only with twenty minutes or so per each museum, and I could neither give myself sufficient time to look at potteries special to Bizen nor admire the Osafune swords. Trying to remember that this is a kind of trip aiming nothing but to create a fact that I've actually been here, I go along with the pace of group jumping out and in the bus quickly at each sight. Usually, I'm the one looking at this kind of group and quizzically saying "I thought that group has just arrived. Are they already leaving?" so this time, it was good enough that I at least experienced how it's like to be on the other side. It's a trip planning to experience everything of Bizen - making a trip to see fine articles, visiting historical sites, enjoying the beautiful Inland Sea as well as the hills with autumn tints- only in one day. Though with a tight schedule, you should have nothing to complain of.

The trees in the neighborhood of Shizutani School are now at their best putting on autumnal colors. They are tinged with bright yellow and red. There are two famous kai-trees standing as having medication injected into their trunks, and with leaves rustling in the wind. It's inevitable that if I've come here by myself, I'd have been spending the whole day taking a walk around without becoming weary of it. But now, my time is limited only to thirty minutes. Feeling as if I had left my heart behind, I went out through the gate. It was such a fantastic place that I definitely cannot say I've been there only by passing through. I'm anxious to visit again.

With this bus trip, I happened to make a sufficient preliminary inspection of Bizen. I'll charter a bus, act as a guide, and give you a tour named "Leisurely tour around Bizen." Of course, it'll include Shizutani School as the main point.

Course:
Okayama station---Bizen Osafune (Swords) Museum---Kei Fujiwara Memorial Museum---Hinase Port/ Morishita Art Museum---Shizutani School---Bizenyaki Pottery---Bizen China Museum Ð

Translated by Maiko Noda