Japan, on our way to Bali (1)

One of the rare cherry trees that blossoms twice a year; spring and in autumn. It is located inside the castle.

The castle looks to be five (really 7) stories high and is surrounded by moats and was built with many defensive means in mind.

Himeji Castle is the oldest original castle that’s standing in Japan and is considered the most splendid castle among all. It was built in 1580 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and was home to 48 different lords.

We ordered Fuku fish cooked in all sorts of different ways; from sashimi, BBQ-ed, broth-ed in soup, tempura-ed. If you don’t show a sign of convulsion and die within 24 hours you have not been poisoned. Obviously, we’ve survived to tell the story.

When in Osaka, we read that we have to try Fuku (blow) fish. The best place to try it was at a restaurant called Zuboraya. It was in a district called Namba where most of good eateries are located.

In case you’re wondering why we stopped in Japan for a second time, the first one was mainly planned as a short respite in an onsen and ryokan after a torturous month of getting ready to leave on this trip. The second time around was to do a more extensive tour of Japan. After staying in Korea a lot longer than anticipated, we decided to forgo our trip to Hokkaido and just do the southern-central part of Japan. This trip would make it our fourth time visiting Japan.

Japan is a country that we really enjoy and if things were not as expensive, we could definitely see ourselves staying here longer without a problem. It is clean and the people are polite. There is good food everywhere and their trains and buses move like clock work. Despite initial confusion about their rail system (with different companies running different rail systems, and passes working only on certain rails, and a matter of knowing where and how to get around the subway and rail stations) it is quite easy to travel using their trains (all kinds of categories: regular, express, limited express, super express shinkansens, etc. using a variety of Japanese names) and subways. In fact, it was very interesting mingling with and watching Japanese people in the trains while they were on their way to work, school, or travel.