Ushimado in Okayama: Honren-ji, the Olive Garden and the Maejima Ferry

Shiomachi Karakoto Street in Ushimado keeps a townscape that runs from the Edo period through the Showa period. At Honren-ji, the main hall, the Banshin-do and the middle gate are national Important Cultural Properties, while the three-storey pagoda and the Soshi-do carry the prefectural designation. Ushimado Yacht Harbor accommodates four hundred and sixty yachts, large and small.

Getting to Ushimado from Okayama

Leg	How	Time or fare
Okayama Station to Oku Station	JR Ako Line, inbound	About thirty minutes
Oku Station to the Konoura bus stop at the Ushimado branch office	Setouchi city bus, Ushimado Chuo Line	About twenty minutes
Any ride on the Setouchi city bus	Flat fare	One hundred yen per ride
Okayama Station to Saidaiji Station	JR Ako Line, inbound	About twenty minutes
Saidaiji Station to the Konoura bus stop at the Ushimado branch office	Tobi bus bound for Ushimado	About twenty-five minutes
Hata bus stop to Ushimado Shrine	On foot	About three minutes
Ushimado Port to Machikado Muse	On foot	About ten minutes
Konoura-guchi bus stop to Ushimado Yacht Harbor	On foot	About fifteen minutes

If you come on a weekday, the Ushimado Chuo Line runs thirteen round trips a day. The terminus stop, Ushimado, is right in front of Setouchi Kirari-kan. Kirari-kan itself is open from half past eight in the morning until five in the afternoon.

New to rural buses and one-man trains? See how to ride them, step by step.

Walking Around the Port and Karakoto Street

If you would like the streets explained as you go, a guide leads the one-hour basic course through Kaiyu Bunkakan and Karakoto Street for two thousand yen per guide, and one guide covers up to twenty people. Guiding is available between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon.

The guide service does not run from the twenty-eighth of December to the third of January, so plan a winter visit around that break. If the hour is not enough, extending the walk costs one thousand yen per thirty minutes.

To cover more ground, rent a city cycle at Setouchi Kirari-kan for five hundred yen for four hours. An electric-assist bicycle from the same counter is eight hundred yen for four hours.

Machikado Muse, the town's culture hall, was built in the fourth year of Taisho as the head office of Ushimado Bank and served as the Ushimado branch of Chugoku Bank until the fifty-fifth year of Showa. The building has no parking lot, so visitors are asked to park near Ushimado Port and come on foot.

Kaiyu Bunkakan and Honren-ji

Allow time for Ushimado Kaiyu Bunkakan, which is open from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, with last entry at half past four in the afternoon. Admission is three hundred yen for adults and one hundred and fifty yen for students, from elementary through high school.

Children below elementary school age enter free. From Oku Station, take a bus bound for Ushimado for about twenty minutes and get off at the Honren-ji-shita stop.

Inside, the Korean Envoys room sets out a diorama of the envoys' procession beside panels on the history and route of the missions. The danjiri room holds two actual floats used in the Ushimado autumn festival.

Back at the Honren-ji-shita stop, Honren-ji stands right beside where the bus sets you down.

Ushimado Shrine stands in a wooded area, reached by a long stone stairway cut between dense trees.

Olive Garden and the Yacht Harbor

Head up to Ushimado Olive Garden, whose business hours are nine in the morning to five in the afternoon and may change with the season, so check official information before visiting. The Olive Shop is open from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon with no closed days.

Try the mini olive herbarium workshop, which costs five hundred yen per participant and takes fifteen minutes. The herb oil workshop is one thousand yen per participant and also takes fifteen minutes.

The Olive Shop has a cafe on the second floor and observation decks on the third and fifth floors. From the fifth floor, the Seto Ohashi Bridge is visible when the weather is good. By bus, the Ushimado Chuo Line from Oku Station takes about twenty minutes to the Olive Garden entrance stop, and the garden is about thirty minutes on foot from there.

Ushimado Yacht Harbor is open from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. It is closed on Tuesdays, or the following day when the Tuesday is a public holiday, and from the twenty-ninth of December to the third of January.

Crossing to Maejima

Take the Ushimado Chuo Line bus from Oku Station to Ushimado Port, a ride of about twenty minutes. The crossing itself takes five minutes.

A round trip on the ferry to Maejima is four hundred yen for an adult and two hundred yen for a child. The ferry makes twenty round trips a day. Taking your own bicycle across costs six hundred yen round trip for an adult.

On the island, a rental electric-assist cycle is eight hundred yen per vehicle for four hours. From the trailhead of the Maejima observation tower, the mountain path reaches the three-storey wooden tower in about five minutes.

Maejima has four confirmed areas, A to D, of quarry sites tied to the building of Osaka Castle, known for their leftover stones. Venus Road, a sand path linking Kuroshima, Nakanokojima and Hashinokojima, appears only at low tide.

Staying in Ushimado for the Evening Cruise

End the day on the water: the sunset cruise by chartered motor boat takes about sixty minutes. The ferry to Maejima runs once or twice an hour from six in the morning until nine in the evening, so an overnight stay lets you take one of the early boats across. If that fits your plans, look at places to stay in Ushimado before you travel.