Japan 12 - Kurashiki

Friday, 22 May 2026

Kurashiki is home to the Ohara Art Museum - the first museum in Japan to feature Western art. It’s a small museum with a wide-ranging selection. It doesn’t have a specialty, but has a piece or two by many different important artists – a “survey” of significant Western art. To a tourist from the West, the museum is mostly interesting for its history and meaning for Japan. Nonetheless, it was worth a visit. [No photos worth sharing.]

More interesting is the museum's neighborhood: the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Area.

Attention to detail is a defining characteristic  of Japan. We watched as large trees were trimmed by hand.

Branches were individually pruned with hand clippers.

Originally, this canal served warehouses. Now those warehouses have been converted into shops, cafés, galleries, and museums.

Former warehouses.

Another street in the historic district.

Display outside a ceramics shop.

Now tourist boats ply the canal.

Swan on the canal.