Day 19 (Aug 17) - Kibi Plains and Reunion

We didn't have much planned for Saturday, meaning that we could wake up later than usual. We left the hotel at around 10 and headed off to Kibi Plains, which is only about 20 minutes away from Okayama station. The plains were famous for housing the Kibi Kingdom back in the 4th century, which apparently had similar strength to the Yamato Clan (modern day Japanese I believe?). There's also a famous story about how Momotaro (Peach Boy) defeated ogre(s) on these plains.

It was extremely quiet on the plains, considering it was late Saturday morning. We pretty much the sights to ourselves as we walked for about under an hour.

The greenery, the calm river, and the clear skies made it such a serene place to visit.

After some time spent here, we traveled back to Okayama to shop for lunch. It was off to Aeon Mall's supermarket and food vendors. We walked back to the hotel to eat, but we arrived a bit too early. After about 15 minutes, we were allowed back into our room.

We spent a few hours in here before heading back down to the lobby to meet up with a cousin that we haven't seen in 18 years. He brought along his family, which included his wife and two children (age 6 and 2). We walked to a Teppanyaki restaurant not too far from the hotel. It was quiet, though the food was quite good. Despite the lack of conversation, it was nice to reunite with our cousin and to see new additions to his family. Like I mentioned before, I always look like seeing family. It's always hard to find time to see this particular cousin due to his job. Fortunately, we were able to meet up!

Once dinner was over, we walked back to the hotel before parting ways. A relatively simple, but fulfilling day.