I took the train from Tokyo station to Okayama on the super express to meet up with my friend. After getting picked up from the station, he took me around to see the sights briefly before we went to his grandmother`s restaurant for dinner. It`s a small restaurant with many regulars so it was pretty neat to see. We slept over so I had my first glimpse of the typical Japanese house (small, with low Everything! Countertops and doorways, etc).
The shower was an interesting experience too. Japanese shower sitting down. And the bathrooms are not for changing in. You shower and change in and out of your clothes behind a screen just outside the door. (I didn:t do that though, not private nough for me).
Grandma gave me her bed because she was concerned that a canadian foreigner would be able to sleep on a tatami floor mat.
For breakfast, I got a traditional style Japanese food. Rice with an egg thing sort of like an omlette as well as a salad with tangy dressing and some sashimi and miso soup.
After breakfast we went to see the rebuilt black castle in Okayama and ran into a wedding being held there. It was a very special occassion, the first wedding ever held at the castle and he was a prominent professor or something from a famous/rich family from what we could gather. A large parade of armoured samurai lead the wedding party to the lawn where a group of costumed people performed on traditional drums.
After the castle we walked around the famous garden. It:s supposed to be one of the top three biggest gardens in all of Japan.
Lastly, we drove out to Kurashiki to see the old, traditional looking town there. All the building facades were preserved. It was very touristy but I liked the beautiful buildings, the canal with the largest koi I:ve ever seen and some beautiful weeping trees lining the streets.
Next up, Kyoto for a couple of days.
Bertha