DAY 6: Osaka and Himeji Friday 31st March 2023

25,000 steps on Thursday should have led to a sleep-in, but the prospect of a great buffet breakfast helped us to rise early, regardless of my aching legs.

Breakfast did not disappoint, with a large selection of Continental and Asian foods on offer, including my choices of Miso soup, omelette, fruit and yoghurt. Dave reported his scrambled eggs as ‘excellent’ although not very hot. Once again, the plastic card was given to us to reserve our table. Interestingly, a large Perspex window sat on each table along with a paper bag to store your face mask while you ate. Pretty much everyone in Japan, apart from some tourists are wearing face masks, although at no point has anyone suggested we put one on.

One of the reasons (apart from food!) for stopping in Osaka, was to visit Himeji Castle, about 80km west of Osaka. Himeji has a population of around half a million, with the city’s main attraction being the stunning castle regarded as the finest surviving example of Japanese castle architecture. It was built in 1346 and comprises a network of 83 rooms with advanced defensive systems and a white exterior supposedly resembling a bird taking flight.

We used the Shinkansen to get there, since our seven-day pass meant that the 30-minute trip was at no extra cost.

“We’ll also need a company of first-rate men. Do you have any commandos here?” …”I have much, much better. Ninjas. Top secret Bond-San. This is my ninja training school”.

For the James Bond lovers among my readers, you may recognise the above lines and the below scene from ‘You Only Live Twice’, one of Dave’s favourite Bond flicks!

Sean Connery starred in the 1967 film, the fifth in the series, about a Spectre villain stealing Soviet and American spaceships. Early in the movie James helicoptered into a Ninja training camp – all filmed at Himeji Castle.

We really enjoyed looking around the highly manicured gardens, seeing the many cherry trees in full bloom and particularly loved meeting a young boy and his teacher who were there to practice English with any willing tourists (which we were).

It was a lovely sunny spring day, with a top temperature around 22c. The 20-minute walk back to the station included a stop for an ice-cream. I couldn’t decide between matcha flavoured, or green tea flavoured so went with a ‘swirl’ option of both. I definitely preferred the matcha taste, although Dave didn’t go much on either flavour.

Our final stop before the train was at a cafe directly opposite the station. Dave ordered pancakes filled with some sort of fruit jam and a whole lot of whipped cream, and I tried ham and cheese on toast. Neither were startling, but we were both tired, and decided it was time to go back to Osaka for a relaxing afternoon.

The return journey was easy enough and by mid-afternoon I was back in the ‘bath with a view’ with my book, while Dave busied himself with photoshopping the pics from the castle. Importantly we also got the laundry done. As you can see in the picture below, there’s a channel on the TV that monitors the four coin-operated washing machines. Keeping an eye on the real time updates meant we could relax while the machine washed, then dried our pile of dirty laundry. How good was it to have a suitcase full of clean clothes again 🙂

I was still not feeling terrific (I really should have taken more care to ensure I didn’t leave some medication behind in the car in Melbourne), so choosing dinner came down to finding something simple and reasonably close by. Ramen noodles in a chicken broth with pork and shallots seemed like the closest thing to a soothing chicken noodle soup, and so we settled for that and some plain rice at ‘Ramen War’ which was a few blocks away at the start of ‘shopping street’.

I decided I needed an early night and since we had worked out how to stream onto the TV via my Japanese e-Sim, Dave settled in for some Jimmy Bond on YouTube while I slept.