Omote-cho Shopping Street

Omotecho Shopping Street is a shopping arcade area stretching over 1 km in Omotecho, Kita Ward, Okayama City—several districts together are collectively called “Omotecho Shopping Street.” From Okayama Station, you can reach it by route bus, but it’s also about a 20-minute walk, so it could be fun to stroll while exploring the area around the station. While many shopping streets in Japan have struggled in recent years with increasing vacancies and shuttered storefronts, Omotecho remains one of Okayama’s popular sightseeing spots where people of all ages—locals and tourists alike—can enjoy themselves. You can shop for fashion, beauty, and daily necessities, or simply walk through and enjoy the atmosphere. Recently, adapting to changing times, they launched an online shopping site exclusively for the shopping street; the special site is described as pop and cute, breaking the traditional “shopping street” image in a good way—worth checking out.