Flat Stanley In Fukuyama, April 24 2010

Hello, and thanks for coming to my website. My name is Flat Stanley, and I was sent to Japan by my friend Cora Sjogren. She's in the first grade at school in California.

This is in front of a temple near the Fukuyama castle. As you can see, some little kids are playing soccer with their parents on Sunday afternoon. Today the weather is really nice. It's sunny and clear, and about seventy degrees.

This thing is a big gate that is in front of most temples. It's called a "Torii," and all temples have them. A Temple is kind of like a church. Most of them are outside, usually in nature.

Here I am trying to figure out the train system. Very confusing!

Here I am outside of Fukuyama station.

Here is looking away from Fukuyama station towards downtown. There's lots of taxis waiting for people who get off the trains.

Here's another shot of downtown. If you keep going straight back behind me, you'll end up at the Seto Inland Sea.

Here I am inside the station. "Shinkansen" is the famous Japanese bullet train. It can go up to 200 miles an hour.

Here are a bunch of people getting off the train. I'd better get out of their way, they may flatten me like a ... wait, never mind.

Here is the train schedule where it says what times the trains are coming and going. You can either the "Shinkansen," or bullet train, if you want to very far, very fast, or you can take a local train to get somewhere closer, like the next town over.

Here is where you can bet on horse races.

Here is another picture of me inside the racetrack betting place. It's next door to the station.

Here is me next to a Japanese samurai costume. Looks like they made it for my size! It is only for decoration, and it's really expensive!

Here is another samurai costume. (It's actually inside of a department store).

This is called a police box. You can go inside here and ask for directions if you get lost. They have lots of these. Inside is pretty small.

Another picture of the police box, or "koban."

Whew! I'm tired. I'm sitting on bench in a park. There are some people behind me playing Frisbee football.

This is a traditional Japanese style garden. Even the rocks are put in specific places.

Here is another shot of the garden. It's behind an art museum.

Here is a map of Fukuyama. It's in Japanese, so I'm not sure what it says. If you look closely, that big green part to my left is where I was sitting on the bench, and where those people were playing Frisbee. It's called "Castle Park," because that is where Fukuyama Castle is.

Here is a samurai helmet. To my left is a sign that says "Do Not Touch!" Whoops. Flat Stanley is gonna get himself killed by a samurai ghost. To my right is a price tag. This costs about $900.

I feel like I'm getting sunburned.

Another picture of a Japanese garden, it's also in the park with the bench, where I showed you on the map.

Here is the Fukuyama Castle. Samurai kings used to live in here hundreds of years ago. It's up high so they could see enemies coming from far away.

Here is me again in front of the castle. Sure is a nice day today!

Here I am sitting next to a famous Japanese squat toilet. They sure are hard on the knees! Most places have these kinds of toilets, or regular toilets. I like regular toilets because you can read the newspaper.

And now, here are some very important safety tips from my cousin: