july 3

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July 3

Today I’m okayama. Tomorrow, I’m traveling to Takahashi before Kurashika. Beyond that, there is not change in my schedule.

So I opted out of taking the bullet train this morning because of how expensive it was. About twice as expensive as taking the local express train, which takes about 3-4 times as long. So I was on the train this morning for about 3+ hours when it really shouldn’t have taken nearly that long. O well. Also, the express train was running about an hour late. This is the first time I’ve seen any train in japan be more than 1 min late.

According to my guide book, in Okayama, there is a third best public garden in all of japan. The Korakuen. After exploring the gardens, I decided to buy a ice cream cone and take a load off for a few min. When I sat down, this older Japanese man sat down beside me and asked me to teach him enligsh. I’m serious. Well, he seemed harmless enough so I tried talking to him for a while. I quickly realized that this guy was probably a little off the beaten path if you get what I’m saying. After talking about some really random stuff, we took a couple of pictures together and went out separate ways.

After the park, I headed next door to a famous castle. As I was walking of the steps, an American started walking down and immediately started speaking Japanese to me. Oddly enough, he was telling me the story of Momochan, the peach boy. After talking a minute in japenese, I convinced him to swap to English. His name is Max, and he is trying to get a job here in japan as an English teacher. He is doing some sightseeing as well. It also turned out that he was staying in the same youth hostel as I was. After the castle, we returned to the YH, and talked for a while. He is also interested in seeing japan, and he decided he wanted to come see Yakahashi with me tomorrow. Incidentally, that’s why I’m going to takahashi first instead of kurashika. Also, we met another traveler, Don, from Taiwan. He is a really cool guy, and knows English really well although Japanese not so well. He’s been backpacking through japan, all the way from Hokaido, the north island, until now. 6 weeks long. Max also spent the last 4 days staying in a Zen Buddhist temple working. Pretty cool. I need to finish laundry before bed so I’ll have to post pics later.

Hope everything is going well wherever you are right now.

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Comments

[Ramie]

Sounds like fun. I'm glad you're having a good time. Take lots of pictures of the gardens for me. Love you! Rachel.