Tsuyama

Friday we finally relaxed a little. We were in Tsuyama (Jane's town) and had a relaxed day. In the morning Jane took us to the shopping district and we had a nice lunch of Ramen.
Every city has its own sewer cover, and this is Tsuyama's. The little guy's a Gongo, a fictional character that's said to live in the river. They have a Gongo festival at the end of the summer.
After lunch we walked Jane to work. Here she is in her classroom. I didn't know that she was the only native speaker at her workplace and therefore, she's in high demand. Every mom wants Jane to teach their kids. She teaches 3-13 year olds and her class sizes range from 2-8 kids. Her classroom had all sorts of Iowa memorabilia all over the walls--it made me laugh.
Then we were on our own. Rick and I walked back to the shopping center to get more money. It was strange; we could only get money from certain ATMs at post offices and every time I withdrew money it was 10,000 yen. I had no idea how much money that was. Turns out it was about $82.

We then headed up to the castle ruins. The picture above was taken so we could find our way back to Jane's house. See the shiny roof near the middle of the picture? That's the shrine a block away from Jane's apartment. Yeah, we were lost...
The castle ruins had some nice gardens around the perimeter--more photos of the castle later.