Welcome dear readers. This is the first article, that I write on the day it all happened. Right now we’re watching the Japanese Academy Awards and that’s little bit difficult to follow. So I’ll tell you what I did today now.

Nozomi had to work today again, so I was on my own. My plan for the day was to walk to the mountains east of Okayama, to have a view over the city. Unfortunately, all of the tourist maps don’t cover that area anymore, so I had to navigate a little bit blind. At least mountains tend to be high, so one can see them from most places

Like yesterday, I took a way beside the main roads to see more from Okayama. I could start a photo album here, but you’ll have to be ok with two pictures. The first one is a shrine, surrounded from higher modern buildings on a narrow road, which might be considered typical for the japanese co-existence of traditional and modern ways. The second one is a parking tower and caught my eye because of the form, size and name. You might also try the katakana-table from the 4th of March here

This is where I wanted to go:

While searching for a way to get up there, I actually ended up in front of the Shorinji-temple, after passing a japanese graveyard and wandering between on lot of narrow and winding roads. An elderly japanese women asked me if I wanted to enter the temple and I said that I’d like to do so really much. So she showed me around and when we reached the garden of the temple she brought me a cushion, tea and some sweets. A monk appeared too, who was her sun and we sat there for a while and chatted on Japanese. Where I’m from, what I’m doing in Japan and more. It was really nice

I was also offered a ride and tour to the not so far away Sogenji-temple. Of course I agreed to this nice gesture and Gen (the monk) and I went there. He explained me everything in full detail and I learned details, that I would have never learned if I had gone there on my own. This temple watches over te graves of the daimyo of Okayama and a worldwide reknown zen-master resides here. Therefor I saw a lot of international monks at this place. Just some pictures from the temple now:

Afterwards, Gen even droven me back to the city, to eat some cake and drink coffee with me. I was invited to visit them again before I fly back to Germany and I’ll definitely try to do so. Maybe next week’s weekend will be a good time to do this. In the end, I never reached the mountain that I wanted to climb. But I think, that this was a more than good alternative. It also was the first time for me, to talk a lot in Japanese. I might not have spoken professional Japanese at all, but I was able to understand and I was understood, which feels great

Let’s see what the weekend will bring!

Nozomi had to work yesterday, so I went into the city on my own – on my oooooowwwwwwnnnnnn!

That day, the weather was a bit like it often is in Hamburg: cloudy and a little bit of rain the whole day. Not the best day, to visit some outdoor sites, so I decided to go to the Hayashibara museum of arts. But at first, I needed to find my way to the train station on my own. Which wasn’t that difficult as you might guess with the next picture. You just need to find the train line and it can hardly be overlooked.

My station is the Omoto-station and I have to drive only one station to get to the Okayama central station, which is ok and definitely better than walking 30 minutes (wrote the word station to often in this sentence xD). The ticket for this distance is 140 Yen. That should be roughly 1,30€ in Hamburg. unfortunately, the train comes only once an hour most of the day. Only in the rush hours does it drive more often. The most is six times per hour between 7 and 8 in the morning. By the way, that’s my train:

Anyway, I reached the city soon without any spectacular events. Maybe I should take a photo with japanese schoolgirls next time I ride the train? At the central station I quickly checked my way to the Hayashibara museum – and changed my plans even faster when I saw a shopping lane with a roof over it (the rain, you remember? ). The museum would have to wait. Sky Mall 21 for the win!

I just noticed, that I haven’t made any photos inside… but luckily there was  a second shopping lane soon after that one (and much longer!). Of course I went in there too. Sadly it didn’t have a catchy name :/ But they had great shops there. Some 100Yen-shops (but I made no pictures there – that’s a whole different topic on itself and I’m saving that for later), a lot of shops for everything you can imagine and I had to make pictures of the following ones:

At first the tomato bank. I’m not so sure why anyone would choose that name for a bank. At least I wouldn’t feel that my money is safe, guerded by a bunch of… tomatoes oO Then we had a petshop, where all the little puppies were playing with each other behind the front window. So cute If I would really like dogs… I’m more the cat person

Then we had the expected store for manga and anime. I spent about ten minutes to look through the machines in front of it and check what I could win there. Maybe I’ll come back another day and spend some money there – it had limited Bleach-posters for only 400 Yen.

Inside, there were tons of manga, anime and merchandise. I think I spent about 1 hour with just looking at this stuff. And I noticed, that I didn’t even know most of the series that are sold there – shame on me! Maybe I need to watch more japanese TV at the right times (I asked Nozomi about Anime in japanese TV, but she said that they aren’t broadcasted all day long).

And of course, we had a Mc Donalds:

I’m giving you a katakana table here, so maybe someone wants to try and translate what the sign says (and I’d prefer if te people with knowledge in Japanese would keep quiet – I know you can do it anyways ). You might also use it on the other pictures if you find katakana signs there.

So yeah, that was my trip through the shopping streets. At the end of it, I found out that I had left the part of Okayama which my map showed. As I didn’t want to go back the same way, I tried to find a way to the museum on my own. I soon found the riverside, which is a good orientation spot if you know how it routes through the city. So I followed it and made my way to the museum in the stronger growing rain.

I wasn’t allowed to do pictures in the museum, but I was able to buy my ticket in Japanese and the guy even said that my Japanese was good. Yay xD Maybe good for a foreigner, and even there I’m not too sure. Anyway, I walked back home after the museum and visited a supermarket to buy some stuff for dinner, because I had decided to cook some milkrice. Ruth told me, that noone in Japan knows about it and so far she seems to be right. Nozomi had never heard of it before xD

That’s it for that day. I tried to make a photo of Nozomi, but she says she doesn’t like to be on photos. It might take some more time until you see her ^^