I hope no one is expecting these to come out on a schedule because I keep forgetting to do them before I go to bed like I did on my past trips.

Thank goodness I slept much better. Today I traveled to Okayama to meet my sister. Got tickets for the Shinkansen from Osaka to Okayama online and had it all planned out, starting with breakfast at Tully’s. On my last trip I had a salmon cheese toast somewhere (Doutor?) but Tully’s had chicken cheese toast. It was pretty good.

Now that I know I can buy online and get the tickets at the machine, that’s what I did. And the trip to Shin-Osaka was not nearly as crowded as I remember. Shin-Osaka itself was a zoo. And the trip to Okayama is only about an hour or an hour and a half so it was pretty easy.

I had all afternoon to myself so I just wandered around the station area. The construction in the basement was finished but not all of the stores had returned. I thought about trying to find some hole-in-the-wall like the JapanEats guy does but I didn’t find anything. I went back to the Aeon Mall and took my time deciding what to eat but I saw a bonito restaurant at the Kitte building and so I had that on my mind. I think I overdid it on the bonito but it was tasty.

I had a “second cup discount” from my morning Tully’s so I went back and got some dessert (like I needed to eat any more).

I wandered around until my hotel room was available at 3pm. And I love being in the slightly-less-busy places like Okayama because I was able to go to Bic Camera and play with the new iPhone Duo! It’s cool, but not really for me.

Oh, and no one would give me a bus schedule. The one online was down (PHP issues I’m sure), and no one would give me a paper copy. They told me I could take a picture of it. Sheesh.

I hung out in the room for a while before I decided to get tickets for Monday when we’re supposed to visit my cousin in Yamaguchi Prefecture. I say “supposed to” because a typhoon is hitting that day and there’s a chance that trains will be stopped. The ticketing area was a shitshow as it often is and when I got a number from the machine it told me there were 88 people ahead of me.

Then it was time to head for the bus to the airport. Okayama has a small airport but it was busy. Unlike the places I’ve flown into lately, like Kagoshima and Nagasaki, the planes looked full and the one coffee shop was packed! I ended up getting a half-price rice ball and a beef croquette from Family Mart. I was still hungry so I also got a melon pan. No pictures.

The bus to the airport was so full that they had to add a second bus. The bus from the airport was so full that we had to sit towards the back and it was bumpy back there. When we got back to Okayama Station I had to get more food at 7Eleven. It wasn’t that bad.

And that’s it for the day.