Friday with Akiyo and family in Himeji

On the last day of our trip to Himeji our friend Akiyo took us around for the day and we had a really great time. First she took us to her pottery teacher's place and we made some plates:

I made one big plate and Ena made a bunch of small ones. Unfortunately it takes about a month to color, fire, dry, etc the plates so we'll have to wait to actually get the finished products. It was a lot of fun.

Then Akiyo took us to Ume no Sekai Koen in Tatsuno, which is a mountain park with loads of plum trees that were in blossom:
The views of the inland sea from the park were fantastic, I couldn't believe that we had lived in Himeji for 4 years but never come by this place:

Akiyo also took us to the Himeji History Museum, which is only about a block or two from our old apartment. We had been there a couple of times before but we had a good time there, we met our friend Kato-san who worked there and she explained a lot of the exhibits to me, which was cool. Akiyo and Ena meanwhile spent there time playing with some toys:
I also got to ride on Reki, the stuffed horse. The museum actually has a special section where they dress visitors up in either samurai armour or kimono. We planned to do that but unfortunately we got there a bit too late so I had to settle for a picture of me on Reki:

In the evening Akiyo and her family and a few old friends from Himeji got together for a kind of "welcome back" party, we had a great time: