Castles, Kimonos and Korakuen.

Nearby canal - Kooraku Hotel is about 15 metres to the left.

We were expecting another dreary day, but were pleasantly surprised by the sun making an appearance this morning. After a bit of a lay-in and a buffet breakfast (I managed to take the only pastry with a bean-paste centre) we made our way along Momotaro-Odori to Okayama-jo (known to locals as Crow Castle - due to its colouring).

Okayama Castle

There was an over-sized stick-sculpture in the outer courtyard of the Castle, which the kids made a bee-line for. Some local children took their exploration a few steps further and scaled several metres into the air - their parents either supremely confident in their abilities or over-burdened with progeny.

The largely ground-based Martin children.

While the external view of the Castle is delightful, the place is - frankly - a concrete re-build. It was largely dismantled during the Meiji Restoration with the remnants catching fire during the WWII bombings. Even though he is not so much a purist himself, Joshie fell off his chair (a park bench actually) anyway. Despite landing on his face, a muffled, "I'm alright" alleviated our initial concerns.

Had we not have already known about the non-authentic construction of Okayama Castle, there was one additional give-away. It had a whopping great elevator in it.

The view from the top was amazing, and gave a close up view of the gilt shachi (the tiger-headed fish protecting the structure) as well as the Tsukimi Bridge.

Shachi - busy protecting the Castle.

We were making our way down through the Castle's many levels when the staff convinced Lily to dress up in a Kimono. Josh's bottom lip started to protrude in an ominous fashion before they dressed him up too (Hamish back-pedalled out of there before he could be roped in).

We made our way across the Tsukimi Bridge to Korakuen Garden - another of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. 

View from Tsukimi Bridge

Korakuen again features some mossy areas, but also some fairly expansive lawns (largely unheard of in Japan from what I've seen). There were stepping stones across winding waterways everywhere - making for some very pretty vistas, but nightmarish for toddler-control. We all remained dry - although were once again swarmed by misty-eyed old folk attempting to convince us that our kids were Kawai (methinks it was the glaucoma talking). Jen and I sampled some peach soft-serve ice-cream (flavoured in honour of Momotaro no doubt).

The local tourists love this purple-berried shrub for reasons unknown.

Josh: 'The precarious creek-crossing is this way!'

Railings? Pffft.

Just when you thought water-crossings couldn't
get any less child-friendly.

There were these teeny timber paddle-boats, anchored by rocks in streams all over the garden.
The paddle-wheels would drive tiny chimes in a plink-plonking fashion.

Koi-fish - boy are their faces red...

The Peach Boy is almost worshipped about town, with sculptures and branding frequently featuring either him or his chatty animal friends. As is the Japanese tendency, this trend continued with more manhole cover art.

While wandering through a stylish under-cover mall in search of lunch, we came across  a major police bust taking place. A solemn looking young man on a bike was being written a ticket by a pair of heavily-uniformed police (or parking attendants, I'm still at a loss).

Thoroughly embarrassing myself in front of the locals, I managed to take a few snaps of Tomato Bank, which is not some seed-saving laboratory, but a financial institution. To add a further twist to this kooky company - the spokeswoman appears to wear a gherkin on her head.

I've got to be missing something here...

We are off to Hiroshima tomorrow morning, before ending up on Miyajima Island for the evening. Okayama has a great feel to it, and we will be sorry to leave it behind.

Fast train to Okayama

Our decision to proceed with Nara yesterday turned out to be a fortunate one indeed - it was belting down this morning as we packed our things and made our way to the Gion Station. With Josh taking the occasional glide on the wet marble that Gion ingeniously uses for pavement, we made it to the Subway without any major spillages.

A group of gaijin (non-Japanese folk) boarded the carriage we were on - nearly bowling over a poor gent trying to exit the train in the process. Their conversation was audible to everyone. It was an odd experience, exchanging faintly raised eye-brows with fellow-passengers over the rowdy Westerners.

We stocked up on some snacks prior to boarding the Shinkansen, including some Koala-shaped biscuits and Byron Bay Cookies of all things. The rain didn't let up as we blasted along the track - I was half expecting some Pacific Rim exhibit to appear in my window at any moment.

Fast as it looks.

You may have heard of the fable about the boy born from a giant peach (known as Momotaro - or Peach Boy), who is accompanied by a talking dog, monkey and pheasant on various adventures. This fable originated in Okayama, and is closely tied to the place. While we didn't notice any over-sized peaches with muffled noises coming from them (or talking animals for that matter), we did manage to locate our accommodation for the next two nights.

Momotaro - his talking menagerie now including pigeons apparently.

The forecast is for the rain to ease up overnight - so there is a chance we may even get to see the famous Koraku Garden as well Okayama Castle. 

The Martins hit Okayama.

Torii, temples and tight places.

Today almost didn't happen as Mr Joshie took a bit of a nose-dive health-wise overnight. Jen was on the verge of staying at the apartment with him and sending me out into the dizzying confusion of train platforms and timetables that is Kyoto. Josh wouldn't hear of it. He declared himself fit to travel, and so we planned a day of carting him about the countryside.

On the way out, he tried on the traditional wooden shoes (called geta) that are left for use at the apartment. He doesn't call them geta however, not even slippers - he calls them awesome shoes!

Awesome Shoes!

Our first stop was Fushimi, home of the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Not a recent addition, the Inari Shrine predates the time when Kyoto was the capital (around 794 or so). Inari is the Shinto god of rice, so not surprisingly is quite the popular deity - both in Shintoism and Buddhism. Inari's messengers are pairs of kitsune (foxes) who for some reason sport red bibs - and are often located either side of the main gates.

The Main Gate - flanked by a pair of kitsune.

A secondary haiden (hall of worship) - where you can ring bells.
Clearly this appealed to the Martin children.
See what I did there? Peal - bell? Genius.

A fork in the path of the Thousand Torii.

While carrying Josh on the way back down the hill to Inari Station, he fell asleep (I was able to determine this by the lolling of his head, and the drool I could detect on my shoulder). He continued to do so until we reached Nara (about an hour away) - which saw him progressively improve in energy and demeanour for the rest of the day (huzzah!).

Nara is lovely. Despite the famous Todai-ji Temple (temple=buddhist, shrine=shinto... a tip for new players), being located a couple of kilometres away, it was a pleasant walk past speciality shops and into Nara Park - festooned with autumnal leaves and Sika deer alike. The deer are tame, but can get a little forward in their hunt for deer snacks (purchased from street vendors for the bargain price of 150 yen a bundle).

Able to withstand the attentions of all 3 Martin children - impressive.

While they were no Mickey Mouse, Josh was very taken by the deer.

Their interest in us picked up when they detected deer snacks.

An unfortunate gent getting swarmed by ravenous deer
- he was never seen again (notice the one on the right giving him a head-butt for good measure).

We started getting a sense of the scale of the Temple as we approached the Main Gate. This timber structure would dwarf most Temples proper.

If you look reeeeally closely,
there are some Novocastrians sitting on the steps to the right.

We eventually reached Daibutsuden (the Great Buddha Hall), which was the world's largest timber structure until 1998 - when some kid went crazy with paddle pop sticks for a school project. 

A previous incarnation of this thing used to be 30% bigger. True story.

Inside we came face-to-face (well, face-to-foot) with Daibutsu (the Great Buddha) some 14.9 metres tall and weighing around 500 tonnes (apparently, it used up nearly all of Japan's available bronze at the time and virtually bankrupted the place).  

If I backed up any further I'd fall down the front steps.

While taking piccies of various enormous statues and structural details, I managed to bowl over a small (teeny) Japanese kiddie. I was mortified - based on his size, both he and his mum should only just be checking out of the maternity ward - yet here he was, traipsing about a giant bronze Buddha. His Mother and I both commenced bowing profusely, stammering out a half dozen gomennasai's apiece. Once I was assured he was fine, I tip-toed my way out of the vicinity.

Rejoining the rest of the family, I spotted the column I'd read about in a couple of travel guides. The story goes that should you be able to squeeze through the hole at the bottom of this particular column, you guarantee yourself eventual enlightenment.

Lily sizing up her chances of success.

All three Martin children made it through without having to embarrassingly resort to power-tools to extricate them. The reason for the importance of fitting through this particular opening is that it is the exact size of one of the Great Buddha's nostrils (not that ferreting about in an over-sized nasal cavity would be all that enlightening).

You can almost see a couple of legs hanging out of its nose now - can't you?

For what was expected to be a miserable day (what with Josh looking sketchy at best) - it was one of the highlights of the trip. Tomorrow we must take leave of our fantastic apartment in Gion (I'd recommend it to anyone staying here more than a couple of days), and jump on the train to Okayama.

Kaiyukan and curry.

Jen negotiated with the local Post Office this morning, as we need to send some accumulated souvenirs home prior to moving on from Kyoto (space in our backpacks is as sought after as Tokyo real estate). The lovely lady at the Post Office initially wanted a complete financial breakdown of each and every item (there are dozens of things), but Jen managed to persuade her (she looked horrified, the poor thing) to accept an approximation of a few groups of objects.

This off-loading of loot meant we set off for the Osaka Aquarium (called the Kaiyukan) a little later in the day. Invariably, we encountered School kids in uniform out and about in groups. Perhaps the reason they go to school on weekends is that they are never in class during the week. They have been a constant presence in Kyoto during our stay here. I guess the place is made for class excursions. One particular group of enterprising youngsters approached us and asked some fairly hard-hitting questions (ie 'Where are you from?' and 'What is it like there?'). Hopefully we made the place sound sufficiently interesting and were at least partially understandable - they wore expressions combining polite-respect and confusion. Lily sprung them taking a sneaky photo of us from across the road after we made our farewells. I'm sure that we were just a chance for them to brush up on their English skills, but find the thought of us ending up as a class poster report somewhat hilarious/terrifying. 

We took the JR line to Osaka, and then on to Bentencho (sounding suspiciously like a kids cartoon), from there taking the Subway to the Aquarium. 

Kaiyukan is located near what was the worlds largest Ferris Wheel for a time, as well as Japan's lowest mountain (I don't even know what that means). I managed to control my anguish over not having enough time to go up in a over-sized tin can on a giant wheel - over 100 metres into the air. Besides, it was another windy Osakan day.

Martins (right) with obligatory school kids out of class.

Kaiyukan is one of Japan's largest aquariums, and is really well set out. It displays discrete sections of the Pacific Rim in their own tanks, and circles around the very large central display tank. How large? Large enough to fit a whale shark amongst other things. You start at the top of a five-storey building and gradually walk down a 600-700 metre ramp in the process. 

A Sea-otter (mutant-green
thanks to the lighting).

What seems to a a fairly contented
Sea Lion

Green Iguana
 - not looking particularly green
(perhaps he should borrow the otters lighting).

Whale Shark and friends

The second half of said Whale Shark

Moray Eel - always look a bit grumpy, don't they?

Part of the way through Kaiyukan, we called into an in-house cafe for a bite to eat. The two bigger kids opted for ice-cream, while the rest of us took on a pancake in the shape of a fish (cute right?). The thing labelled a 'pancake' was reminiscent of sodden bread-crust, covering a bean-paste centre. An acquired taste.

Go with the Ice-cream.
Trust me.

Kawai Clown Fish

Turtles were a hit with Joshie

Purdy-looking harbingers of fiery pain.

Obligatory gaping maw group shot.

A final photo of the star attraction.

The over-crammed bus on the way back to our apartment reminded me strongly of the sardines at Kaiyukan in Osaka. The apparently distressed bus driver kept beeping a buzzer to announce his frustration prior to closing the rear door (where you enter the bus) - narrowly avoiding bisecting a number of commuters on each occasion.

We picked up some Indian for dinner this evening (much to the delight of the owner and the dismay of our children). Their Rogan Josh had some serious heat.

Josh fared much better today - and is back to his boisterous self (hooray). Tomorrow sees us take a peek at the ancient capital of Nara - and perhaps a deer or two.