More Castles and Stuff

Because I have a full weekend planned, I've decided to update twice. Once for Saturday, once for Sunday. This is basically to keep post length under control as well as allow me to recall more while my memory is fresh.

The day began with surprisingly. Last night I purchased and viewed "The Godfather," which successfully passed both the test of living up to the hype (how had I not seen this before?), and confirming that all American DVDs in Japan are unchanged, save for the box art, and support of Japanese subbing and dubbing tracks. After going to sleep around 1 AM or so, I expected to wake up around 9 or 10 and beat Julian in some online backgammon. However, I somehow managed to wake up at 12 PM. I can't remember the last time I slept for 11 hours, but did it ever feel great.

At 1, I met up with Kai and Tiago (and theoretically Christian, but he was a no-show), and we headed to Okazaki Castle. Though substantially smaller than Nagoya Castle, I thought Okazaki Castle's design, especially it's landscaping, was far superior. The inside was a similar museum-style set-up as Nagoya, and there was much on display at Okazaki that was similar or the same as in Nagoya, so I took fewer pictures. After the castle, we went to a museum, which had very cheap admission and suitably an underwhelming display, but for some reason did not allow cameras. Sorry. Anyways, here's what I thought was worth preserving:


The Okazaki castle is substantially smaller than the Nagoya castle



The preceding 3 pictures are the view from the top of the Castle. As you can see, on one said of Okazaki, there are some beautiful hills, and on the other side is an unending sea of buildings exteding far out of the Okazaki city limits.

Some pretty awesome calligraphy on display at the Castle. I would love to hang one of these on my wall.


Alright, awesome Japanese moment of the day: The clock in the above picture opened up for some reason and this puppet started doing a weird dance to a super old-fashioned Japanese song, and everyone around me found this quite amusing. I managed to capture a small clip of this largely indescribable event:




The "moat" around the castle. The greenery here was very pretty and well kept. In other words, the normal for Nihon.

A cool monument-type dingle outside of the castle.


After the castle, we went across the river,


which was full of gigantic koi, and over to a stone fair, which was pretty cool. There were all sorts of artisans with their wares on display. This was by far the coolest thing I saw:

In the end, though, I took home a ¥4800 cat sculpture (duh). I like it very much, although its fate, as either my possession or someone else's christmas present, remains shrouded in mystery.

I found this whole outing quite enjoyable and worthy of my Saturday, especially since it (for the most part) exceeded my lowered-from-Nagoya expectations. Okazaki is an endearing little city, full of personality. It's definitely a great place to live. Finally, after a couple of hours off, we reconvened for dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, where I had my least healthy meal by far on this Adventure Time Party. The Nihonjin love all things Western, including buffets in malls with pizza, burgers, french fries, chicken tenders, and other such all-American fare. I did manage to sneak in some Sukiyaki and rice, which helped make up for my other unhealthy indulgences. I enjoyed my meal very much, but I will make it a rare treat, since I have been eating so healthily, and it has always been delicious. Just this week, I discovered a ramen restaurant next to Yamasa that has AMAZING Udon (soup with thick noodles) for ¥300, and you can mix in shrimp and/or veggie tempura. It's all healthy, all cheap, and all delicious. Oops, I've gotten sidetracked.

Okay, that's basically all for today. Tomorrow I am going with other Yamasa students to Okazaki University, where we will meet new people, have conversation, and eat free lunch. Sounds like a solid outing to me. Check in tomorrow for details.

Ja, mata (see you later, basically).