Today we moved out of our Osaka home and made our way by three different trains to Himeji, which is about 40mins west of Osaka.

We arrived at Himeji at around 12pm and promptly found our guest house only to discover check in wasn't until 4pm. Damn! We wheeled our bags back up to the train station and found some lockers to stow them in.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Himeji zoo which was a very sad 50's style zoo where the animals had tiny cages with cement grounds and no toys for stimulation. Quite sad.

After being freezing at the zoo we slowly made our way back to the station, perusing the shops along the way. Eventually we picked up our bags and made our way back to the guest house where Kyoke, the owner, checked us in.

The guest house is a small Japanese style house with two private rooms and a dorm style room upstairs with a kitchen and common area downstairs. It's very cosy and Kyoke is very friendly.

Later on in the evening we went out for some dinner and then a walk in the night time streets. We stopped at a tiny bar for a drink and the bartender prepared us a small snack of cheese, rare beef and octopus. Quite snazzy!

We spent the rest of the night back in the hostel drinking a bottle of Japanese wine and keeping warm.