Day 122 in Japan - Thanks giving for LABOR (Public Holiday, not Political Statement)

Today was a PUBLIC HOLIDAY! I had completely forgotten until just before bed last night, and I was thrilled to realise that it meant a sleep in! I have been a little lacking in the sleeping stakes at the moment, and combining that with the cold that I have managed to pick up, it was nice to close my eyes again after 7! We eased ourselves int the day with leftover spaghetti sauce on toast for breakfast, and a spot of watching Japanese kids TV shows.

When we finally convinced ourselves it was time to do something productive, we headed out towards Himeji to show Anna the castle and the great city itself. Well, the decent city itself.

After a pretty spectacular bakery lunch, we walked towards the castle, only to realise that there were markets on today, and got ourselves lost there for a little while. I picked up some 1000 yen blue cons, Sam almost got talked into buying some old Japanese weaponry, and we got given pretty fox face flowers by a lovely lady who was keen to explain them to us (I thought that they were fruit, but apparently is we bury them they will regrow sometime?)

Then we walked through the little park to the south-west of the main keep, and then into the castle grounds themselves. We were a little hesitant to pay the entry price, as all of the castle is covered with scaffolding, and the keep is closed to the public, but boy were we glad we did! After I used my terrible Japanese to try to ask an innocent passerby what the signs nearby meant (there was a little mini-even on there today), a volunteer guide took pity on us (or the innocent passerbys) and gave us a guided tour around the complex. His name was Inoue-sama (the sama was my addition - it means that I greatly respect and humble myself to him), I am pretty sure he's going to be the next big Kansai comedian! He had his little bits of patter for all around the castle, and made some fantastic wife and samurai jokes. He absolutely made our day for us. But even if we hadn't had him, we chose a good day to come to the castle - there were people running around in lots of ninja, samurai and princess costumes that were happy to take photos with us all around the place. We really felt lucky to have gotten such a nice day (with so few other people) at Himeji Castle.

On the slow trip back to the station, we detoured to play with some autumn leaves in the street, eat donuts and wander down the shopping strips that run parallel to the main street between Himeji staiton and Himeji Castle.

Autumn rules!

Mario and Luigi?

Wonder Twin Power... activate!

The shopping mall in Himeji all decorated for Christmas.

When we got home, we had another onigiri night with our leftover ingredients, and spent a whole night playing "Who is Hot" - rating various famous people on their attractiveness. A very, very fruitful public holiday :)

Food highlight of day: The crazy strawberry spiral thing I had for lunch - it was filled with strawberry yoghurt flavoured goo that it was so pink (modelled by Sam, below)