Sunday, May 28, 2017

Himeji Castle


Today we took a day trip from Osaka to Himeji to visit the famous White Heron Castle. Immediately after stepping out of the train station you see the castle in the distance.
We took a tour of the castle and the castle grounds, climbing up the six story main keep from where you have an excellent view over the whole city.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Arashiyama

Today we visited Arashiyama in Kyoto. First we went to the famous bamboo forest. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to take a few good pictures 
 
Right after that we took a walk around the garden next to Tenryu-ji, a Zen temple.
Arashiyama has quite a few attractions and it was packed the day we visited! To escape the crowds on the main road we decided to visit Iwatayama monkey park. As we hiked up the main road we already met some of the residents.
After a brisk 20 minute walk we arrived at the hilltop where you can feed the monkeys from inside a hut. We sat down on a bench and enjoyed the sunny weather. There were plenty of monkeys wandering around, climbing up the feeding hut, lying in the sun grooming each other and climbing up trees. After watching them for a while we took the road back down the hill.