Our second day trip from Yakage was to Okatama to see the gardens.  It was super overcast, but gorgeous!

En route 
  
  

Lauren tells me the above is an ad for a  lawyer. Yes! I now recognize the ‘scales of justice’ on his Seed Pod Hat!
Okayama bus ride

  
We didn’t know what this said– but it made me vaguely uncomfortable:

 I told Paul I was pretty sure those were the Universal Symbol for Plutonium, but he disagreed.

I wish I’d photographed our humor-iliating lunch attempt at a gift shop prior to starting, but I did not.  Suffice to say it resulted in Paul receiving an enormous amount of food we couldn’t identify, and me receiving one comical tiny ball of mochi.  Again, we got to see the look of Polite Japanese Customer Service Person Trying Not To Laugh.

Just outside the park wAs this beautiful bridge

  

  

  

This is an Artificial Hill:

I know cause this sign says it:

  

  

  

I was perplexed by the Sweeping of The Water

We took a cab back to the station because we were running late for our train connection, and we needed to meet Lauren for our dinner reservation.

On the train back, a miniature human was traveling alone.  We decided she was 6 or 7 years old? She was super sweet and self sufficient, and you could tell even *she* thought we were doing it wrong.

 
That photo is kind of blurry because I was trying to be subtle and not as creepy as I’m sure this is.