Today though it's a bit of a two-for-one because on day 4 of our holiday last year we went to both emoji and to corbeil my first time visiting either city they forced us with fancy coffee there's one major reason to go to himeji and that's to visit the beautiful castle which dominates everything around it the city itself is a small but pretty one with a long history going back well over a thousand years but it's the castle that really defines the area must be nice for your daily shopping to have this view
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what better way to remember your trip to energy than an inflatable banana did we buy a commemorative inflatable banana to remember our trip - he made you forever and ever with did we for what do you think hmm no no we did not and then of course we come down the road made you're really a spectacular it's hard to capture the scale of this thing but we decided not to go straight into the castle we're gonna build up to it by going into the garden his first cocoa n is a relatively newly built but a very beautiful set of compartmentalised Gardens they were built in 1992 to commemorate the centenary of hamaji
Becoming recognized as a city this place is great I'm so relaxing the command place that it really is is a lovely tranquil feeling even with all the people there very unusual you daughter and River hybrid some of the lanterns in here a little Julius but this is a really nice routine daughter my stolen sand fixation aside this is a gorgeous restful space traditional even if not ancient and replete with the loveliest of lovely fishies big fish so nice one of the things I love about Japan is how foregrounded their traditional culture is and in these gardens they readily displayed things like these beautiful mature kimono in one of the side houses and a collection of bonsai though mum still protests that this is cruelty to trees and whet our appetites with the garden
Now it's time for the main event important cultural history here and then over here not sure what do you mean not sure past itself it's clearly a giant red inflatable rhinoceros clearly it's supposed to resemble a white bird like a heron taking flight not sure about that but it is beautiful lovely protein ok shoes off and in we go he made your is really beautiful it as a great work of architecture for my other channel so here are some shots of the view out of the city and my super deep and meaningful overall impressions that was great very enjoyable there's something really pleasant about walking around a place out there in your socks yes lunch was sitting in one of those restaurants where you place an order and it comes to you on a little train
yummy Betty Trina mum got this strange thank you and dad got this strange thing can't go wrong with sushi in Japan you really can't I guess there must be some bad sushi restaurants but they're not going to survive very long so I've yet to encounter what two kinds of ratatouille satisfied with our time in himeji we went back eastwards staying within Hubel Prefecture to visit its capital call me dave partin is in kobe Koby the port city has ancient roots tied to the purportedly third century ekata shrine but it was founded as a modern city fairly recently in 1889 it was opened to foreign trade in 1868 at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration we had a good look around the port area where there are lots of quirky little works of art and I felt a very similar atmosphere to that over your kama including statues of brave souls who emigrate to pastures new it's very Japanese to have a statue of people who leave Japan and then about people who come to Japan I wanted to see the centuries-old Hall of Pi Sanji but it's not conveniently located and we were a little unlucky with the weather we were in the fish cafe another similarity with Yokohama is that foreign influence is quite prominent in Kobe and the city also has a pretty famous Chinatown it's called Nanking mochi and yes that does mean Nanking town we went to to check it out now we're coming to Kobe's Chinatown Nanking much
it oh but most Chinese of symbols spider-man they've got all the Chinese zodiac animals let's find my where is mine not the dog oh this looks like it might be it I don't know it's a bear some sort monkey here we go a handsome boy not a pig yes I'm very firm on this point the year of the boar sounds much cooler than the year of the pig and the Japanese actually make quite a clear distinction my friends once asked me what year I was born in in the Chinese zodiac and I said the year of the pig and their response was something like you know sheshe dad or which means something like I think you mean the ball what's that the Chinese totally conflict them and lots of celebratory stuff for the year of the border pigs pigs my heritage is Chinese and the Japanese don't even use the system so what's the point of bringing that up just sure all right