Kurashiki

No traditional breakfast today, just a regular one. Western actually, so nothing really worth mentioning. Even though I just did. 

It was a rainy day.. First thing we did when we got off a subway was buy an umbrella.
I didn't bring one with me, though I almost bought one at the Dazaihu shrine. There was this really cool one, shaped like a katana. And another one, shaped like a katana, but where symbols turned up whenever it got wet!
Anyway.. now I had to settle for an umbrella.. shaped like a kokatana. Meaning, small katana. Cause my katanumbrella was a small one. Which fits me, right?

Anyway, happy with my new souvenir we walked to this japanese museum home where we could wear a kimono. It was actually only meant for girls, as they couldn't find any kimono for men. So I settled for a girl kimono. Don't judge me. I'm in touch with my feminine side. After that we went to a Japanse toy museum, which I actually did not like that much..
Moving on!

This was my first time really alone. I just wandered around for a bit and eventually ended up in a mall near the station. This is actually kinda a thing here. Malls at stations. If you gotta do some shopping, you go to a trainstation. 

In the afternoon, we went to Okayama castle and we went inside as well. There were a few swords on display, but I really felt good when I held a sword in here. Event though it was a plastic one. It was awesome. Someone else in the group took some pictures, but I'm not sure who it was. So if you are reading this.. please send me the pictures of the sword fight! :D

A little while later, I went to the Korakuen garden. Supposedly, one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. And I can see why. It truly was amazing and it made me want to go visit the other two as well. Sadly though, I did not get to them.. But Korakuen was beautiful. Even though it was raining, none of the flowers were actually blooming, and there were no cherry blossoms at all. Still I loved it. Such a shame that there wasn't that much time left here, because I could've wandered here for quite a while longer. I am so sorry for the truly awful pictures I took here. If you see some black thingy at the top of a photo.. that's probably the umbrella. I was holding my katanumbrella the whole time and it's a bit more difficult to take pictures. Also, as time was not on my side, I took some pictures rather hastily. But believe me, the place was beautiful! 

Sushi time!
You cannot go to Japan and not eat sushi. So this was a rather strange sushi restaurant. Probably not strange for Japanese people at all, though. There was a kind of conveyor belt, running through the whole of the restaurant. On these conveyors there were plates with sushi. The color of the plate indicates the price for the dish. And you just pick up a dish and keep the plate. That's it. And if you want to order something that's not on these plates, including beer, there's a tablet on your table. Needless to say, I ate a lot. Tried a couple of fish, and even tried octopus. At first I didn't really taste anything weird, then I got to this suction cup thingy and was like.. this is.. tough.. is that the correct English word? Tough? Maybe chewy.. anyway.. not that bad. yet. I'll spare you the details of what happened next, but let me just say, the octopus did not end up in my stomach.
The best thing I had in this restaurant, was the sweet omelet. Wow, that was truly amazing! I took a bite and I couldn't do anything else than close my eyes, sit back, relax, and enjoy. I think this was the best food ever. Period.

This evening, we went for karaoke. My first real karaoke. The first of many. So this evening would only be 1 hour of karaoke. Keep that in mind, 1 hour of karaoke. Originally I had thought we'd go to a bar with a lot of random people and see Japanese people sing. It would be hiliarious. And I'd go to the stage at one point and sing a song, get over my stage fright, get out of the comfort zone and boost my self-esteem.
But no, we got into a private room. Just a few of us, from our tour group. And we sang. Some nice songs, some bad songs. I sang a song by 30 seconds to mars at one point. And people like it! Ayako even said I have a real nice voice. And compliments from girls are the best! Anyway, the song worth mentioning most would have to be: mr Bombastic. I never actually knew about these lyrics. They are horrible! But it was really fun, this one guy from our group could sing it amazingly. And he kept singing it the rest of this trip.