I'm getting a little behind here in my blogging, so I'm going to fire off a few in the next couple of days to catch up.For Dad's last weekend in Japan we made my first trip to the Japan Sea, which is about 2 to 3 hours north of Okayama.
We first went to Matsue, which is famous for its castle. The castle itself was nice enough, but by now I've seen several Japanese castles, and most of them can't compare with the first one I saw, Himeji.
However, there was a very interesting display of samurai armour inside. There were probably seven or eight full suits of different styles of armour, as well as about 10 very intricate helmets.
Note to Westerners: that is not a Nazi swastika on the helmet in the middle picture. It has been used for thousands of years in Asia by Hindus and Buddhists. On maps in Japan it is used to represent a temple.
