Day 4 - Okayama

We started out the day at a cafe we found the other day and liked. Then we hit up the Tourist Info center to get info on Fukuoka as that was our destination plan. We reserved our seats on the train and then realized we wouldn't get in until 10pm... With not hotel we weren't sure about that. We grabbed some ramen at a little local place and wandered around a bit. We even saw an old guy with a grey ferrett wearing a pink hello kitty outfit, hat and all.

Had ramen at Ramen Santouka across from the Tokyo station. Jeff likes to find places down random alley ways and sofar our luck has been really good as the food was delicious!

We got on the train and headed South on the shinkensen. It was about 4.5 hours before we decided "let's get off at Okayama and find a room there", so we did. The train ride was nice and super fast. We took a ton of pictures of the little towns we saw.

Once in Okayama we went to a few places and finally by the 3rd one we found a place to stay, a Ryokan. The woman spoke no english but after a few minutes and help from my japanese language book we got a double room. The room wasn't bad at all, different from the Westin of course but nice. It actually had a toilet and bath along with shampoo, towels, razors, etc... We got situated and then went out to find some dinner.

As we walked around we noticed we were the only foreiners and there were alot of young folks hanging out in groups. Even a few street performers which we haven't seen yet... I don't mean homeless performers just kids tryiong to get their music heard is what it seemed.

We ended up picking a place that had skewers. The guy outside actually spoke english and so we decided to go in and give it a try. Noone else did though so he had to come up and take our order. We had to order off the pictures on the menu so I have a feeling they probably had alot more than what we saw... We ordered a chicken teriyaki skewer, a ham and asparagus skewer, salt and pepper beef on shoots and onions and then a ham and grated yam with cheese on top. i have to say it made me gag... the grated yam just is such a weird texture for me... Jeff had a whole bowl of it in Ginza but man, it makes me think of eating snot... I just can't handle it. He was thrilled there was something he liked and could eat that I couldn't.

After dinner we headed for this bar we had seen earlier that had a Seattle Rainier Beer sign. It was a tiny place with 2 workers and 4 customers. We sat down and ordered a beer. The 4 gys there asked us where we were from in broken english and once more Ichiro saved us. As soon as we say his name they all go "OHHHH the mighty Ichiro, Seatter Mariners". We ended up talking to them till closing time. They had limited english and I left my book in the room so we had a fun time figuring out what we were all saying. They thanked us profusely for talking with them and one guy kept saying "I want to know you" to us. He was a bit drunk but so friendly and smiley and seemed to love trying to speak english. This place doesn't seem to have alot of english speaking people come through as most folks didn't speak much at all. The owner of the place kept trying to get us to roder food and was so excited to have us try it. somehow we think we agreed to trying tofu with ginger... honestly I know we told him no we had just eaten but that got lost in translation... Jeff was so not hungry at all but i told him to eat it anyways, the guy was so thrilled and watched us eat. I said "Oishii" and they all squeeled with delight. They loved when we would say something in japanese, it would end in applause and loud laughter. It was by far one of my favorite moments as I have been hoping to meet some people and just sit and chat with them... or try to that is. :) We had a picture taken with them and then we exchaged info - I promised to send them the picture. It was awesome!!

At midnight we heaqded back to the ryokan to get our futons ready and relax. We fell asleep to japanese TV. It turned out to be a great side trip!

Check out the pictures!