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| Butterflies and Flowers along the Asahi River |
Our little hobbit room has room darkening shades,
and I slept in until 8:30. That is remarkable for me, since 5:30 or 6:00 is my wakeup norm. Russ had awakened earlier but let me sleep and scrunched himself under the tiny desk on the tiny stool with no place for his knees.
After our continental breakfast looking out large picture windows of the street below,
we took off by foot to visit Okayama castle first built in 1597 and the Korakuen Garden. Our walk to the castle took us by the Okayama Symphony Hall.
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| This Mom waits for light. She has either dropped off the other kids or is planning a bigger family. |
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| Intrigued by the stair case we went up to look around, but a conference was in session, so stayed outside the Halls. |
We had a great lunch in a little cafe overlooking the river and castle,
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| Called the Crow (Blackbird) Castle because of the black (somewhat faded now) color |
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| Magnificent views of Okayama. |
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The Japanese feudal lord, Ikeda Tsunamasa, daimyo ordered the construction of the garden in 1687. It was completed in 1700. In 1884 the garden was opened to the public. The gardens are impressive and serve as a beautiful backdrop for wedding photos.
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| Bamboo Forest |
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| KOI feeding frenzy |
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| Frogs' eye view from pond looking up at lotus leaf. |
Geocaching & Shopping
After a refreshing rest at our hotel, we set off again toward the train station to find a geocache. Success! We looked for three of them the day before in Kurashiki and didn't find any of them. We continued our walk just taking in everyday sights and sounds of Okayama.
We had an Italian dinner at an underground mall, and then for evening entertainment, we went into the four story Bic Camera store.
We have never seen anything like this, maybe a Frys on steroids. It was a cacophony of sounds being emitted from thousands of electronic devices, stereos, arcade machines, music boxes, player pianos. The store has everything electronic and kids stuff too. We got an especially big kick out of the men and women who were trying out the massage chairs. This may be a Friday night ritual. One guy had kicked of his shoes and was fast asleep. All the chairs were full.
The chairs about 5,400 dollars, so if it is too expensive, the next best thing is to stake one out in the store for a nap. Here are few other shots of the myriad of products.
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| Hair Dryers |
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| Rice Cookers |
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| Multi-door and multi-drawer refrigerators. |
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| Remote controlled light fixtures. |
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| Toilets that wash, dry, and play babbling brook sounds to disguise toilet noise. |
Friday Night Fun with the Video Arcade machines.
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| Need a new suitcase? |
All fascinating and examples of rampant, crazy consumerism. We preferred the gardens but wouldn't have missed this!
All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Okayama leaving for Himeji tomorrow.
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