I forgot to past a picture of me with the car I got to drive while staying at the shack in the mountains. So here it is. Look at this car. It was tiny, but it sat the 4 of us with little trouble. It was a very simple car. No frills at all. I liked how it could tell what the speed limit was in the area and it would show me on the dashboard. I thought that was a cool feature.
The first day we did a “joy train”. This is a single railcar that is all fancy looking and has special attendants and information as you travel northward. We scheduled it last minute so we were unable to get the “fancy meal” that you could buy, and I was fine with that. It was a cheap and fun day. We ended in the city of Tsuyama. Here we had some GREAT udon at a small local place (curry, plain, meat and tempura). Then we walked over to the castle there. It was more of just a small side keep since the main keep was destroyed sometime in the past. The ground we nice, and the walk was pleasant. Then we caught a train back to Okayama, and then headed to dinner. “B” wanted to do conveyer belt sushi sometime in Japan and so we did that this evening. This is where there are people making food in the center of an oval and they place food on a conveyer belt and you grab what you want. You can also order directly from them. You pay based on the number of plates you get and what color those plates were. We ended up with 23 plates between the 4 of us. But it only cost about $50 (with the conversion). It was a fun dinner. Then we found a nice walk along a canal back to our closet to sleep the night.
The next day we headed to Okayama Castle and the connecting garden area. We first walked the garden and that was very pretty. Throughout the trip I had been using my Garmin watch to track my walks, and it tells me my altitude. Well, on this day I was getting negative numbers in the garden. I looked it up and the elevation is 43ft, so the odd pressure that day was certainly throwing things off. Then we headed over to the castle. 
This castle is known for being black. I believe it is they only black castle in Japan. What I didn’t know until we entered it was that it was completely destroyed in WW2 and they rebuilt it as a museum. So, it was very modern inside. This allowed for us to learn history of the area, but there was no “life” to the castle. I was again underwhelmed here, it wasn’t as nice as the day before. But the girls all seemed to enjoy their time there. We then decided to head over to Ristuan Garden on the island of Takamatsu. This was a long 1.5 hour train ride, but we got to see lots of little islands while were crossed from the main island to the other island. This garden was small, but we spent a while there. We did lots of walking and it was picturesque at points. I was getting a bit gardened out by this point, but the girls all had a good time, so that made the day worth it. We had to hustle back to the train station because right as we were heading out we had a very nice elderly gentleman wanting to show us the turtles in a certain pond, and then we asked him to take a picture for us. It took longer than I was hoping and so I felt a bit rushed to get to the train station, but we made it with a couple minutes to spare. It was a light lunch day and that made some of our emotions a little more prickly. And when we got back to Okayama we needed dinner. Another thing “B” really wanted to do was Shabu Shabu, and so we did it. She found a place on the map and we walked over. When we first got there they told us they were full for the night and we would have to leave. So, then we were at a loss as to what to do, but then a group left as we were trying to figure things out, and some one came out and found us, and told us we could come back. So, we did. This is where you order very nice food and “boil” it at you table. It was a fun time. We all enjoyed it. It was another late night and another long day walking. And another night in the closet. By far the worse place I think I have stayed in in a long while. I knew it was small, but I didn’t realize it would be that small. There was nowhere to eat. There was a kitchen to cook with plates and pots, but nowhere to eat the food easily. It was very weird.
The next day we needed to head to Kyoto and we stopped at Himeji castle and Garden (30th anniversary of it being a UNESCO world heritage site) along the way. I remember going to Himeji castle when I was 15 and went there with some of my high school Japanese classmates. I don’t remember much from that trip but I knew we went there so I suggested that we go there as a family. It worked out well to do on this day. The day was a bit rainy, and we got a little wet (and warm since it was also humid and not really cool). We walked from the train up to the castle (not too far), and headed in. We got there pretty early and it wasn’t that busy thankfully. We went through the main keep first since I knew that would be the popular point and would get busy as the day went on. We got in right away and went through that. It was much more like an old castle. It hadn’t been destroyed in WW2 so there was a lot of original stuff in it. There are 2 main support columns that are made out of 3 trees. One is a single tree 24.8m tall and the other is two trees that were worked together. They are also over 2m in circumference at their bases. These were BIG trees. It had great views, and great information. I really enjoyed it. Then we wandered the grounds and the adjacent garden. It was a nice day.
Then it was back on a train to get us the rest of the way to Kyoto. Kyoto was the place “B” was really looking forward to staying at since we rents a 80+ year old (or so) traditional Japanese house. We found it without any trouble (great AirBnB host with great directions), and it met all of her expectations. You had to take your shoes off (not too surprising in Japan, all the places were that way). To go onto the tatami mats that were throughout the place. It had two stories and the rooms upstairs were lovely. Downstairs we had a dining room (table at floor level), a kitchen, and the bathrooms. There was a toilet that was all automatic. It even sensed when you approached the toilet and lifted the seat, started warming it, and sprayed a little water, and then it would flush on its own as well. The other toilet was just a regular Japanese toilet. Then there was the soaking tub. It was big, had jets and lights. And it looked out to rock garden. “B” and the girls were super excited by it. “B” even used it that night after everyone had gone to bed at like 11:30 to relax.