Today’s journey took us to the little town of Kotohira. Tonight, we are yet again staying in a Japanese Onsen Hotel. However, this one is considerably more up-market than last night’s one. Here I am, for example, sitting in the lounge, listening to jazz and drinking beer by the fire, whilst I write this blog.

Tonight’s blog post is about the sashami and udon that we consumed this evening. Our hotel booking included a “small dinner”, so we all went out to have udon beforehand. Udon is a type of thick wheat-flour noodle – thicker and chewier than normal noodles. Although it took a bit more effort to munch my way through, I actually found I preferred it to normal noodles. Just as Nagano is said to be the Soba capital of Japan, so Kotohira is the udon capital of Japan. Photograph 1 shows this evening’s udon dish – noodles with meat. Continue reading →

After leaving Osaka, we travelled through Himeji to an Onsen Hotel in Akaho. This was the first Onsen Hotel of two that we are staying at.

We had planned to go to the famous Himeji Castle during the day, yesterday, on our way to Akaho. But it was raining Japanese cats and dogs, so it wasn’t really a viable option. However, the weather cleared up later on to give a lovely sunset on the final part of our drive to the hotel. Continue reading →