Had a great time in Kobe, we visited Himeji Castle which was amazing, a really good example of a Japanese Castle and you can really imagine what it would have been like when it was in use. We tried our first Udon noodles which were hand made and really tasty.

We then headed off to Osaka for 4 days and did a ton of sightseeing, saw Osaka Castle (not as good as Himeji, it had an elevator in the middle of it!!), Shintennoji Temple with its 5 story pagoda and its beautiful traditional Japanese garden. We had lunch at an Okonomiyaki restaurant with the locals, which was an experience, but very tasty. We also went up every tower in Osaka for a view of the city, and a cruise on the harbour on the Santa Maria (reconstructed old sailing ship). Jim also tried takoyaki (octopus balls....balls made from octopus and batter).

We then headed off to Nara which is a quiet little town and a big change from Osaka. Stayed in a traditional Japanese Ryokan which was excellent, it had tatami mat rooms and we slept on futons. We spent a day wandering around Nara Koen park looking at shrines and temples, including Todaiji, the biggest wooden structure in the world. It was pretty impressive. They also had 1200 deer wandering around the park hassling tourists for food. We wondered why everyone was up so early in Nara and it is apparently an age old tradition, they get up to see if there are any dead deer on their property and move it onto a neighbours property; because years ago if it was on their property they would have been accused of killing it and be sentenced to death, because deer are sacred. We also stumbled across another okonomiyaki restaurant so decided to give it another go.

We are now in Kyoto which has been brilliant so far. We did a bit of temple hopping yesterday and wandered around the old houses in Gion. We also went Geisha spotting and were really lucky to see some of them on the way to their appointments....it was pretty exciting. Today we wandered around Arashiyama, through a massive bamboo forest, which was ace. Going to give hot Sake a go this evening - should be interesting...