Today was our only full day in Okayama, and it was a doozy. My sister’s friend Yumi drove us around all day. First it was to see some of my sister’s old co-workers. Then it was to Shikoku to have incredibly tasty udon and see Ritsurin Garden. Then it was around Okayama to go shopping and to a massage and dinner. Quite a full day.

The Sanuki udon was tasty and quite cheap if you don’t count the highway costs. I think it was probably ¥8000 to get there and back across the Seto Ohashi, but it was less than ¥2000 for our lunch. Even cheaper than our sushi yesterday!

I should have pictures of Ritsurin Garden which is the largest “cultural heritage garden” in Japan, but I didn’t even crop the udon picture because it’s getting close to midnight. It was quite nice, actually, and I’ll eventually have pictures.

After all that, we went to have some traditional Japanese sweets.

We were joking that my sister was going to die if we didn’t get to some shopping, so we did go to several places. Counterintuitively, she didn’t get anything and the one who was complaining (me) bought a Nike toque and a North Face jacket, both in colors I don’t expect to find in the US. We also had Japanese massages which were inexpensive but involved putting on sweats and being massaged through a towel. Whatever. It was still relaxing.

I keep saying I need to get to sleep because we’re off to Tokyo tomorrow!