New Friends

Himeji Castle with its wrapping on

Another poo in the toilet this morning :0)

Today we had arranged to meet up with Arline, one of Matt's translator friends in Himeji - she's over for the conference as well and was visiting one of her clients/friends in Himeji. Both Tom and I have met Arline before - in Spain in 2010 - when Tom was 18 months old. We kept telling Tom this and although I don't think he can remember he gave Arline a huge running hug when she found us in the station. (Took her and us quite by surprise).

Her friends, The Matsumotos had a big car and a booster seat which was good because it was raining today. It wasn't much - just spitting rain but the walk up to Himeji castle is long enough that we would have got wet and hot (although it was raining, it was still quite warm, meaning we become boil in the bag sweaty numbers if we wear anoraks).

Tom and a fish

The Matsumotos seemed really nice (although they don't speak much English but you can get a good sense of a person without being able to speak their language). They drove us up to the castle. We walked through the grounds and explored the buildings at the bottom of the complex. Tom had a moment when we arrived (too hot in his waterproof suit maybe?) but after a kind lady gave him a sweetie he cheered up and in fact led us around the buildings. Now every Japanese castle I've been to has a collection of empty rooms and this was no exception - Tom picked up on it "No beds in the rooms" I'm assuming this is because everyone slept on futons which were kept in cupboards so there was no furniture in the rooms.

The main castle is currently undergoing a massive restoration - they are taking off and restoring all the roofing tiles and redoing all the plasterwork - a huge task that will take 3 years. They have built another building over the castle - keeping it dry for the work. However, rather than close the castle, they have created a couple of viewing platforms within this building meaning that visitors can watch the workmen - this was really good and in fact I found it more interesting than just seeing the castle anyway.

Work in progress

Once we were done in the castle, we got Tom his stamp (most places of interest in Japan have a commemorative ink stamp which you can collect. This being Japan they aren't vandalised meaning they can be set up pretty much anywhere. We thought it would be good to collect them for Tom as a memory jog / memento of his visit) we then all got back in the car and headed to a restaurant for lunch. It was an Italian restaurant so Matt had pasta and I had pizza so Tom had a choice - guess what he decided pizza was best! The food was good, Tom ate well. He began to get bored so I got a couple of things out for him to play with - his most favourite being the 50p magnetic drawing pad I got him before we left ( these have been a godsend - his main play thing on the plane and since we got here - I wish we had bought his big one with us now but I thought it too big and cumbersome).

Tom and his new best friend

Suddenly Tom decided that he was going to get to know his new friend and went to see Mr Matsumoto. Mr Matsumoto is the head of an Elementary school and you could tell - he was completely at ease with him and they were both giggling and being silly for a good hour and a half! So much so that Tom got all sweaty from playing so hard. It was lovely to see him so at ease. I hope that he is like that with Hiromi as well when he sees her.

Mr Matsumoto has been to the UK a number of times as he set up a school exchange with a school in Gateshead - I was impressed the kids that exchange are only 11/12 - Japan is very different from Europe. He said the hardest thing for both sets of kids is the change in food - MacDonalds is all they have in common.

The Matsumotos and Arlene - a fab lunch

Before we knew it it was 4.30 - we had been there for 3 hours. The Matsumotos drove us back to Himeji station where we got ourselves some Japanese ready meals for dinner and some fab looking buns for breakfast tomorrow. We then boarded the train back to Aioi, had dinner, bath & bed. Another happy day.





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Location:Himeji