Blogs from Hyogo, Japan, Asia - page 3

Himeji Castle is often described as the prettiest castle in Japan and, although we haven't seen all the others, it's not difficult to believe. We are so lucky to have seen it. Nicknamed 'White Heron' or 'White Crane' because of its gleaming exterior and delicate architecture, it has been closed for restoration for several years and only reopened a couple of weeks ago, in time for cherry blossom season. So significant is this fact that the finale of the Miyako Odori dances we attended celebrated the blossoming of the 1000 cherry trees at Himeji. The survival of the castle is in itself quite miraculous. It was sold to a private buyer in the Meiji era (late 19-early 20 C) for the equivalent of $2500 in today's money and was slated for redevelopment but the project was ... read more

Kobe Spaziergang auf den Mt. Rokko und den Kräutergarten Maritime Museum und Kawasaki Good-Times Museum Kobe Port Tower Chinatown Kobe Beef :-) ... read more

Hallo Freunde! Nachdem Robert die letzten Blogs geschrieben hat (auch in Deutsch!) darf ich wieder mal ;-) Sonntag war für mich ein aufregender Tag. Denn Sonntag fuhren wir nach Osaka um Maeno Sensei zu treffen wie Robert euch schon erzählt hat. Während Robsi im Training war, habe ich mich nach ca. 1 Stunde davongestohlen und bin GANZ ALLEINE mit dem Zug ein Stückchen weiter nach Kobe gefahren und habe mir das "Harborland" angeschaut (FOTO!). Keine Sorge, ich habe wohl auf zu Roberts Training zurückgefunden. Als das Training dann um 14 Uhr vorbei war, sind wir dann gemeinsam mit Maeno Seinsei und Okamoto in das Onsen in Kobe gefahren. Anfangs war ich mit der Situation leicht überfordert, denn ich hatte ja keine Ahnung, dass wir das heute machen würden und ich hatte auch keinen blassen Schimmer wie ... read more

Travelling in Japan had made us a little bit soft…we decided to break an hour and a half journey and stay in an additional city before our last stop of Osaka. We were also a bit curious after what we had read about Kobe, mostly that it is a very European (it was one of the first places in Japan to be opened to foreign trade just before the Meiji Restoration) and is a ‘different’ city to others we experienced in Japan. Kobe is mostly famous for beef and the 1995 ‘Great Hanshin Earthquake’ which destroyed a huge part of the city. It’s easy to see why Kobe was devastated by the earthquake, just by looking at the pictures from our hotel room; Kobe is a long narrow city wedged between mountains and the sea but ... read more

Asago??? Takeda Castle??? Neither were mentioned in our guidebook. Not that we treat the guidebook as the holy grail of info, but if this castle was meant to be one of the must visit places, how come lonely planet haven't written about it yet? So how come we found out about Asago and its castle? We did a search through the Family Welcome group in Couch Surfing to see who was in Japan and where they were. We were finding it really hard to get a couch in any of the places we planned to visit – not only was it a busy season (cherry blossom) and we were looking in some popular places, but as a family of four with two young children, it seemed that people either didn't have the space to host us ... read more