castles made of sand

Headed south to himeji on monday to check out what all the fuss is about - going to the castle there was the most important visit for my nephew and I'd also always wanted to go. We ambled down from osaka on a semi express and it gave us a chance to see the less industrial coast of hyogo which was looking great in the unseasonably warm weather. The castle jutts out amongst the usual barrage of roof top signs which are colourful enough even when the pluga are out. It was understandable why we couldn't initially see it but soon enough the immense scale becomes obvious.

As castles tend to be, the look of himejis' is almost all function but with typically beautiful details. Even the gutters were nice. Inside was a bit of a disapointment - to scamper about pretending to be a ninja is a good laugh but the lack of information gets a bit frustrating: "this is a letter written in 1542", "this is a kimono" . It leaves you gagging for a guided tour. If you're planning to go - check there is one on: they're meant to be great. We popped into a hole-in-the-wall for a quality bowl of noodles and tempura before jumping on the hikari to Okayama. Tempers got a little frayed when the map reader went too far coming out of the station. I used to dislike modern Japanese maps - quite crude, quite busy and I couldn't read the writing. Now I prefer them because they choose necessity over simplicity. Points of reference are what you need in a foreign land, not a map full of unknown hotels. The problem in Japan though is just the lack of street names.

We got to our cheap, central ryokan in no time and found our huge tatami room for the four of us. Being with my folks made me realise that my Japanese wasn't all that bad or I'm certainly getting better at blagging it. My mothers (bible) rough guide, usually full of great tips, suggested we choose from a list of Australian bars in Okayama which was a bit odd so we just wandered and found a cheeky izakaya with decent atmosphere. Back for a bath and bed and collapsed.