Himeji Castle

Today we are off to Himeji Castle on the Shinkansen (bullet train) again.

More importantly Clare would like everyone to note how colourful and lovely her outfit is! And how she ate a piece of bread as big as her head for breakfast.

Rich is sad because his outfit isn't anywhere near as colourful.  To cheer him up Clare bought him a snack with a picture of herself on it.

This is Rich looking excited after I promised him food.

Once we arrived we went off and borrowed some bikes from a rental shop - unbeknownst to us our Japanese railway ticket included free bike rentals too. What a great idea! If Sadiq Kahn is reading this...

Off we went exploring - we looped around the castle and headed in to the Koyen Gardens, which were very nice.  Lots of bridges, ponds, posh looking trees and a nice restaurant. Our kind of garden.

Rich is a little bit bored of noddles and so had steak frites last night.  However at lunch while Clare chowed down on rice, eel and noodles, Rich got a fancy box of tempura vegetables with his eel and rice. We have decided we quite like eel, it is really just like a strong fish with no annoying little bones!

Rich was pleased and declared it "delicioozo" - the highest of Honour a Hakes can bestow on food.

After lunch, we had a potter around the pretty little garden. There were lots of well stocked ponds and waterfalls - by far the best park we've been to.

Then we went to explore the main event. Himeji castle was built a long long time ago over 6 floors.  

It was built to protect it occupants and had lots of solid defences that Clare told Rich about. Rich explained he could breach all of them and wasn't impressed. The one defence that may have stopped him were the doorways...

Inside the castle's keep it was nice and shady. Clare thought about moving in. Very spacious.

Views weren't bad either.

Then off home to Kyoto again on the bullet train.  Clare made fast car noises most of the way back.

In the evening we went out to find a Japanese restaurant near our hotel.

But first off a quick stop for a refreshing fish bowl of punch!

We found the restaurant but I don't know who was more surprised, us or the proprietors, as despite the hotel's publicity material telling us all about this place in English it was a very Japanese restaurant. The waitress spoke no English at all and you are often turned away from restaurants like this as they do not want to offend you with their inability to talk to you. There were not even any pictures on the menu for us to do our usual trick of pointing an smiling. The chef was summoned from the kitchen and he had the clever idea of pointing to which part of the body each but of meat came from!

As you can see we were sat right next to the kitchen and enjoyed an outrageously cheap and very delicious meal of meat skewers (mainly chicken) cooked right before our eyes using a myriad of special flavourings. I think we counted 9 flavourings and spices going onto one skewer alone!