pm and I quickly took a shuttle into town to find hair spray and a couple of other things I wanted. The shuttle let us off at China Town (As if I needed to go there after spending 6 days in the real China.) but next to China Town was a long mall of everyday type shops and I quickly found what I needed. This mall seemed to go on forever as it was just one long pedestrian street with shops on either side. Lots of duplication but I did find a 100 yen store and had to check this out. It was like our $1.00 stores and I found some very interesting cards which I purchased.

The next day I had a tour planned since I am trying to check out the predominant things in Japan. The last time I was in Kobe I went to Kyoto and saw many of the places mentioned in a Memoir of a Geisha which I was reading at that time. As I mentioned in my previous post I went to the Japanese Gardens when we were docked at Kagoshima so I wanted to see Osaka and the Osaka Castle and a Shinto Temple.

Osaka Castle grounds are huge with an inner and an outer moat. The grounds were not particularly interesting but the walls were incredible. They were made of rocks and some of those rocks were huge. This one photo shows how they split these huge rocks by pounding holes in strategic locations .

The tower is a museum which wasn’t particularly interesting to me but I was able to get a view of Osaka from the top of the tower,

We then went to lunch at this hotel and it was quite good. The gardens were gorgeous and you couldn’t take a bad shot. I did find this stone bridge interesting and caught Ellen, our fearless leader, crossing it. I took far too many photos of this garden but it was amazingly beautiful.

We then went to a Shinto Temple which is not really a religion but more a philosophy for life and is usually practiced by Buddhists along with the Buddha religion. About 95% of the people in Japan are Buddhists.

That night we had a Kimono formal night so I wore my new silk Kimono style Jacket with embroidered features including two carps. Not exactly a Kimono but in keeping with the theme. This is the jacket I bought at the Stanley Market in Hong Kong.

The night before this formal night HAL arranged for a dinner at a hotel with entertainment for the Sixth and Seventh Deck Suite world cruisers (which didn’t include me). The lunch we had at the same hotel was the same as their dinner with the exception of the main course. We had a tempura dish and they had a filet mignon. A far cry from the Cunard dinner for ALL world cruisers that we had in Honolulu. Oh, we had such a magnificent evening in Honolulu and I don’t think it will ever be duplicated certainly not this dinner given by HAL.