This morning we had breakfast at the hotel and, like last night, breakfast was interesting.  We were given a special cooker where you can put your food in a small pan and under the pan there is a candle that cooks the food.  On that pan there were two small pieces of bacon and we were given an egg.  I think you are supposed to fry the egg, but I only eat mine scrambled.  Unfortunately, my candle burnt out before I could finish cooking mine!  I just put it in my rice and it was okay.  We also got some kind of soup, dried seaweed, tofu that was soaked in something cold, and an orange slice.

We left the hotel at 8:00AM so we could catch the ferry.  Dr. H had the girls take taxis and he and the boys took a bus to get there.  Prof. B, Ellen, Becky and I went in the first taxi.  It was weird driving on the wrong side of the road, but the roads were so narrow, you almost couldn't tell.  It was funny because when we were getting in the taxi, Prof B started to go into the wrong side of the car to sit in the front seat!  As Americans, when we sit in the front passenger seat, we sit on the right side.  Not in Japan!  We all made it to the ferry on time.

After getting off the ferry, we went to the train station.  At the stores, there were signs for White Day.  I had forgotten that was today.  White Day is kind of like Valentine's Day.  In Japan, on Valentine's Day, girls will give a gift to the guy they like.  White Day is the guy's chance to give something back to her.  I think that's a good idea.  I mean, it seems Valentine's Day in America is only for girls.  That's not necessarily true, but it really is the woman that gets the attention most of the time.  Why not have two days, one being for the girl and one being for the guy?  Sounds fair to me!

We ended up going back to Hiroshima so we could tour the Mazda factory.  I admit, it wasn't my favorite part of the trip.  It sounded like Dr. H always gets the group to tour a car factory.  Last time, they went to Toyota.  Anyway, we got a tour of the museum and then we got a peak at the production line.  What we saw was almost the end of the line, so at least we got to see the cars actually looking like cars.  At the end, we got to see some "futuristic" cars that are being developed.  The one I thought was the most interesting is kind of shaped like a raindrop, which is on purpose.  There are grooves on the top of the car, so when it rains, the water goes through the grooves and into a filter.  The filtered water can then go through the car and the people inside can drink it.

Next, we grabbed our luggage from the lockers we had left them in yesterday and went to our hotel in Kurashiki to drop it off again.  We then went to Okayama Castle.  While most of the places we have gone to have had any information in both English and Japanese, everything in this castle was in Japanese.  I was really bummed about this because there were displays with samurai armor, which I was very interested in finding out more about.  We also watched this short video so we could sit down and rest, but that was also in Japanese - no subtitles.  The castle itself was pretty cool, though.  Dr. H said it had belonged to a warlord.  At the time, warlords would have several castles, but then eventually it was decided by the emperor that they would only be allowed one.  I think this one had been abandoned by the warlord, but it was fixed up and is now a famous castle.

Behind Okayama Castle is this huge garden.  It's supposed to be one of the most famous gardens in Japan.  I'm sorry to say, we were there at a bad time of the year.  It wasn't really much to look at.  I could see the beauty potential, but a lot of the plants were still so brown.  You did get a beautiful view of the castle, though.  And there was a pond full of coy fish!  There were two girls feeding the fish and they were all gathered there trying to get the food.  The landscaping of the garden was nice, but again, we were really there at the wrong time of year.

We went back to the hotel and had the rest of the night to ourselves.  Our hotel was kinda sketchy.  When Becky and I got into our room, we noticed there was a bin that was full of menus and had a picture of a big boobed Japanese girl, which we found strange, so we just put a menu over her.  When we went to the other girls' room, they showed us that there was porn on tv!  Didn't expect that!  We all thought it was pretty funny.  When they looked for it again later, though, it was gone.  The girls were joking Dr. H must've found out and did something about it!

The mall we went to

The seven other students and I ended up going to a nearby mall for dinner.  We were looking for something cheap, so we figured the food court was the way to go!  I ended up getting tempora udon for only 350 yen!  It was funny because when I went to that food counter, it only showed pictures of what they had, but it wasn't tempora udon that was being showed.  It showed the udon and then it showed the udon in soup and then you could add the tempora shrimp or anything else after.  So when I tried telling them what I wanted, I said udon, but I didn't know how to say soup!  Luckily, they figured out what I wanted.  We just kinda laughed about it, so they were really nice.  After we all ate, we went to check out some of the stores.  Kristen and I found an accessory store that we loved.  I ended up buying a pink scrunchie (scrunchies seem to be very popular over here) and a hair ornament (a silver flower).  We also went to a Shonen store that was full of anime stuff, so I bought a gift for one of my friends there.

When we got back to the hotel, Tim, Eric, Kristen and I went for a walk down the street to check out Kurashiki.  We didn't go anywhere, but it was nice to at least explore the street a little.

I'm exhausted, but I'm going to Skype with my parents now.