This weekend, in pictures!

Thursday: I buy cheese. It proves to be the grossest display of overpackaging yet; a normal-sized bag of shredded cheese containing 5 packets of supposedly single serves of cheese. Now, why Japan would sell tiny portions of cheese to spread over its enormous slices of bread is beyond me.
Also on Thursday: karaoke! hooray!
Friday: Takebe culture festival. Basically, a bunch of local arts and crafts on display at the town culture centre. Great stuff, especially the ikebana, and the pictures made of pieces of shredded coloured paper (whatever that's called). Also, I had 10 photos displayed, meaning I supplied two-thirds of the photography display. There was a mix-up about labels, so there was just a big sign in katakana saying "Robato Paueru: Osutoraria."
Saturday: afternoon in the city with Dave, coffee, shopping, library, and an arty photo of a snazzy orange building and the purple Symphony Hall.

Sunday: some errands in the city. Exploration of the new Okayama station, which is horribly inconvenient for my train line, but has one saving grace - Vie de France, a wonderful bakery, that's worth the effort it takes to get from my platform to the new station parts. In the above photo, see the new structure, with a bit of sloping roof? See how it stops before reaching the platform on which I'm standing? Yeah, apparently the Tsuyama and Kibi Lines weren't worthy of access to the fancy new station. Instead, we have three ways of accessing the fancy new shops and restaurants; go downstairs, then upstairs onto another, worthier platform, then take the stairs up to the new stuff; exit through the west side, go up the outside staircase down the road a bit onto the new east-west overpass (new station signage actually directs you to do this); use the stairs at the end of the platform to make a near-complete circle of every other platform, around the back. So, new station - boo. Vie de France - yay.