The next stop after Hiroshima was the small town of Kurashiki, centred mainly around the old canal system where it seemed to be raining most of the time and before anyone asks...
...no, I'm not, it's the Nikon under my waterproof!
We spent a very pleasant, if slightly damp, afternoon wandering round the various museums and exhibits, one of which was the...
...Museum of Folkcraft, containing all sorts of costume, ceramics and furniture, many of which were clearly several hundred years old. I was particularly taken by many of the tansu on display and opened...
...a drawer on one of them. I was surprised to see that the grain for the drawer bottom ran back to front, contrary to best practice in the West and appeared to be simply nailed in place.
The fit left something to be desired as well...I know it's an old piece, but you could drive a London bus (and if this doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you need to get out more!) through the gap!
We like tea shop treats and generally try and find somewhere to have a coffee and a slab of cake, but in every cafe we went into...somehow the seats were always about six inches too small.
One of the oddest places we went into was the Momotaro Karakuri Hakubutsukan Museum in one of the side streets, which was one of the weirdest places I've ever been in. The whole exhibition was full of strange (and sometimes clever) visual effects and tricks, which obviously appealed to the Japanese sense of humour...
...but which left me and Alyson slightly perplexed. The musician in the last pic is playing something on what appears to be a flute of some sort, which indeed it was.
Except that it was made out of fish paste and after finishing his tune, he promptly ate it!
Weird or what?
Kyoto next.
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