Dear readers,

As I'm writing this, I'm already home for a week, so now will follow a description of the last few days in Japan. I hope to have time tonight to sort out all the foto's and put them up on the bolg.

On January 5th we went to Kyoto for a second time. Went to the imperial palace (which was closed) and to the Tofuku-ji temple and the Nijo-jo castle. The castle is famous for it's wooden floor which squeaks like a nightingale. It was very beautiful decorated, but sadly we weren't allowed to take any pictures on the inside.

Jan. 6th we went to Himeji, I already visited Himeji in '07 but I wanted to see something and to make a short trip to be back in Osaka on time to meet Giel Vos, who was visiting Kansai for his holiday trip. Himeji-jo was sadly under mayor reconstruction and was closed for the most part. The castle wall (which was closed in '07) was now open for public. It told the sad story of the princess who lived there in the 1600's which gave a nice insight on teh way of life back then. In the evening I went out with Giel to a sushi place and after that our favourite bar Wara Wara for some Sochu.

Jan. 7th was a Friday which means a "no-my-car-day" in Osaka. For 600 Yen (around 5 Euro)you can buy a card which allows a unlimited number of rides that day on the subway. Normally an average trip with the subway costs 230 yen. So on this day we decided to visit all the corners of Osaka to see what's going on these. We went from north east to south east, to central to west Osaka. We came to residential, commercial and shopping area's. In the west we went to the WTC to get some nice pictures of Osaka. In the evening we had dinner in Oude Kaas, a Dutch restaurant with Dutch speaking staff, for a nice Dutch style pannenkoek met oude kaas en spek and bitterballen and flammetjes as appetizers.

Jan. 8th we finally went to the Yamazaki distillery, we called ahead and was now open again. Very interesting to see the Whiskey making process. After the whiskey we went to an onsen place for a nice relaxing bath on our last day.

Jan. 9th was just getting up early to get to the plane in time. Long 12 hour flight home and unpacking afterwards.

I wish I could go back again, but I really want to visit some other parts of the world, China, Australia and New Zealand. Will come back once more in the future, probably with my mother since we want to show each other an exotic country. She wants to show me Bolivia and Paraguay and so I show her Japan.

Till next time readers!

Willem