Saturday, November 29, 2008

Girls get away...

Dacia and I went away for a few days....

ARIMA ONSEN:

This was the first destination for Dacia's and my little excursion.  I was told that Arima was a "must see" for its ancient hotsprings.  Little did we come to find out- we couldn't find a restaurant anywhere and ended up eating from the corner store!!  Next time we will plan our meals a lot better.  Regardless, the town was charming... the trees and their color spectacular.  To note:  we rode trains, busses, shuttles, gondolas, and cable cars in order to get to and fro our destination!!  Gotta love adventure!





Our hotel at Arima Onsen...

Kobe waterfront...

OSAKA:
We hit the jackpot by finding this absolutely awesome hostel online.  It was so cute and so creative.  It was an old print shop, completely renovated to give an artsy, natural and organic Japanese feel to this hostel.  We slept on tatamis (grass mats on the floor), met some other travelers from Australia who we played cards with, and enjoyed the books and quiet atmosphere. We LOVED it and I hope to get the chance to stay there again...

The garage front entrance with antique car...
The stepping stones leading from room to room...
OSAKA CASTLE:  This Osaka sight was a 10 minute walk from our hostel.  How incredible!  Check out the pics- the day was so picturesque!  This ancient castle was built in the 1600's to protect the empire from intruders (note: there were 3 separate motes around the castle!!).  Very cool attraction!





1 comment:

454235 said...

And I thought Italy was beautiful! I love that castle and by the way...is that purple hat the one you were knitting when we were on skype the other day? :) Did Ray make that grey-ish neat scarff your wearing? You girls look so happy! I can't wait to get there! :)