Hotel Sunshine Aoyama Himeji

... we caught the train back to Sannomiya and bid farewell to our comrades Saffiya and Nichelle.<br><br>Since we only had one more night in Kobe, Jess and I decided to retrace familiar territory. So we headed back down to the harbour and had a fantastic night.<br><br>It started out with the Maritime museum, which to be honest, wasn't the most amazing place I've ever been. It was interesting, but not great. I was mostly drawn in by the amazing building it's in!<br><br ...

... joined up with us again later and we went to a nearby mall with an enormous Ferris wheel. Joe originally declined to go saying that he HATED Ferris wheels but changed his mind when he got there. He evidently enjoyed his ride because he couldn't stop saying WOW! (really, he just couldn't stop). After our ride we got some icy treats. Afterward, we said goodnight for the evening and set the time to meet the next day for Gion Fest.<br>

Am Mittag sind wir oder besser gesagt bin ich mit einem Zwischhalt in Himeji zurück nach Kyoto. Da wir uns am Bahnhof nicht getroffen bzw. gefunden hatten fuhr ich also alleine mit dem Shinkansen. Dies war ein glücklicher Zufall für mich, da der Zug von Aed und Stoney gar nicht in Himeji ...

... from the windows. Next we entered the castle itself. From the outside it looked like it had 5 stories, but actually it was 6, connected by very steep wooden staircases. Each floor had windows with wooden bars, thick wooden doors with massive wooden bolts, thousands of hooks to hang weapons and gunpowder, and great views of the grounds and the city. There were holes in the walls to shoot arrows from, throw stones and boiling water from and ...

... does not struggle or spasm; this is believed to increase the quality and texture of the meat.<br><br>The highly prized meat is valued at about US100 for a portion of 180g and comes with a serving of greens plus rice. The quantity is sufficiently adequate for a taster course, although I wouldn&#8217;t mind having more. The style of cooking? Tepanyaki or hot plate. We made sure the beef is cooked rare to medium as overcooking the meat causes it to lose texture and taste ...

It was an early wake up the next morning, and I was psyched to find out that breakfast was included! I had a little bit of everything, fish, sweet potato, egg over easy,scrambled eggs, soy sauce egg, buns, seaweed,green beans, pasta salad, sausages and even french fries! Thank goodness it was filling ^_^ and yes I know the breakfast was rather out of the ordinary. Anyways after breakfast we ...

Took our time to get ready in the morning, as Himeji castle was the only thing on the agenda for today. According to everything I've read, tourist wise the city of Himeji is quite an unremarkable city, with the exception of Himeji castle. From what I've seen so far I would have to agree. The town itself seems fairly small, well laid out and relatively uncrowded. Veronica and Charlotte went downstairs for ...

... near as lavish as the one we had. Also while waiting the girls gave a small gift to their favourite receptionist at the hotel. This girl, who would be no more than 21 at my guess, made a fuss of the girls every time they came into the hotel, and could not do enough for us. Charlotte and Angela were very sad to leave her, and I think she was a little sad to see them go too. When Tagawa Sensei arrived, we decided that we ...

... bell towers in Japan dating from 1332. Just amazing that everything is so old. It took a good 2-3 hours to explore this mountain area and we made our way back down, jumped on the bus and back into town where we would get lunch before embarking on part 2 of Himeji - The Castle. Found a chemist as Pete was coming down with a cold and then had lunch at a pasta restaurant - jr tomato or something. The pasta was divine washed down with divine Mochas. Great shopping ...

... the rest of my pamphlets and headed over to ask a few questions at the information desk. After devising the cheapest route to Kyoto I left for the train terminal. I was actually beginning to get quite a buzz on...I guess I hadn't realized how potent sake actually was. Approaching Osaka I was struck with some obvious differences between the city scapes of Japanese and Korean cities. Whereas in Korea it's usually difficult to find anything resembling a house, it seemed like the ...