After our shock in the cold yesterday we really layered up today in preparation for another cold day. This morning we went to Himeji castle, which unfortunately was undergoing restoration work so we couldn't explore it in its entirety. We were able to observe the restoration works going on on the roof and walls which was interesting. We were able to go inside the west bailey which had been the premises of a princess, back in the day. The buildings were all const...

Today we moved out of our Osaka home and made our way by three different trains to Himeji, which is about 40mins west of Osaka. We arrived at Himeji at around 12pm and promptly found our guest house only to discover check in wasn't until 4pm. Damn! We wheeled our bags back up to the train station and found some lockers to stow them in. We spent the afternoon wandering around Himeji zoo which was a very sad 50's style zoo where the animals had tiny cages with ce...