Squid on a stick

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Day 14...

Waking to a cold shower, that's what you get for true budget accomodation, we left to see the castle in daylight.　Stepping out of the front door we were confronted by about 10 (maybe more) huge birds (never been very good with birds (C - I'll vouch for that!) but they may have been kestrels or kites) diving and skimming the estuary to the river for fish. Pretty exciting to see - but not from the point of view of the fish i'm sure).

On to the castle which was much more relaxed than Himeji and well worth making the trip to see. We're not ones for museums normally but this was realy good inside with lots of armour and helmets - apparently the warriors' helmets were designed to reflect their characters. I want one!　From the castle we made our way down for a relaxing boat trip around the moat and water ways of Matsue. This was more relaxing than informative with the guide speaking Japanese and pigeon english - however he did serenade the group with some great accapella songs.

After a brief trip to the Buke Yushiko samurai house (for all of 75p each through a special tourist discount we got on all of the attractions during the day) we headed for some of the street stalls set up for the blossom festival weekend and got a BBQd squid on a stick - Mmmmmmm,　delicious. They know how to do their food on sticks here!

Back to the Hotel to pick up the bags and we were off to Hiroshima ...

Hopping around a bit at the mo to get the best out of the rail passes.

More to come from Hiroshima soon - catch the next exciting episode on Travelblog.org!

Love M and C x

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