Wakayama, Shikoku, Okayama: Day 6

This morning wasn't as rushed as others have been, thankfully, because my destination was not too far--just the other side of the train tracks!

Painted shutters on a street in Okayama City

   
I stopped first at the Okayama City Orient Museum, which specializes in ancient artifacts from places like modern-day Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and so on. (Sorry...they didn't allow any photos.)

One of the best pieces of museum-visiting advice I've ever received has been to make sure that you go to galleries or exhibitions that are outside of your area of interest. You never know what will surprise you and you may see things differently after exploring them a little. This was certainly true today: this museum had not been at the top of my list for things I wanted to do here, but I left with a new appreciation for how advanced (and artistic!) the 4,000 year-old pieces had been, since I'd expected them to be much simpler or plainer.

And of course, I got a laugh out of the fact that the second floor contained a few display cases of Iranian statues and the rest of the floor was filled with...19th century Japanese prints.

Anyway, from there I moved on to one of the highlights of my trip: Kōraku-en. This garden is one of the Nihon sanmeien, or Three Great Gardens of Japan. I visited another this past January on my trip to the Hokuriku region, and the third...that's still coming up in December.  All three in a single year!

    
The weather was fair today, but as you can see in the pictures, whether or not the sky looks blue depends on the direction I was facing.  Still, it was nice enough that I could take off my sweater and enjoy the walk.

   
Today was also a national holiday, which is popular for weddings. So in addition to little girls dressed in kimono for their 7-5-3 (shichi-go-san), there were also plenty of couples taking advantage of such beautiful scenery for their wedding photos:

Shichi-go-san

A bride and groom, trailed by their photographer (over the groom's left shoulder)

Feeding the koi (these two were possibly my favorites)

Same girls as above, bending over to watch the koi swim by

I don't blame her for taking off her zōri (sandals)...those things hurt after a while!

   
And of course, I stopped to feed the fishies!

Little baggies of 'Fish food' in the bowl--and I'm not embarrassed to admit I bought two of these today...

     
Eventually I made my way over to the castle, which adjoins and overlooks the garden. I really liked the black woodwork, which is different from the other castles I've visited.

 
In fact, the castle is visible from a lot of angles in the garden:

   
Returning to the garden, I took one last loop around.

   
After the three-hour walk, I realized that I'd actually put more effort into feeding the fish than I had to feeding myself.  Luckily there were a few food stands just outside the gate, and I picked up a delicious an-nō imo croquette, a croquette made with an incredibly tasty golden sweet potato.

But that only made me hungrier. :)

So with that, I made my way back towards the station to find some dinner, and then on to my hotel. Tonight's plan involves working out an itinerary for my last day of vacation, but I'm a little still hungry, so I think I'll hop down to Mister Donut for some dessert...