Out came the sun

Thursday 8th April
It's a bit difficult to read in this photograph, but the slogan on this business says "New days begin here asleep". Perhaps the point was lost in translation??




Today's ride was much more pleasant than we'd anticipated and wasn't too long for a day's ride. The route to Himeji took us through many pretty valleys with tall mountain backdrops. The green mountains were dotted with patches of pink and white blossoming cherry trees.
We took a wrong turn along the way, but as the scenery was so beautiful, we didn't get too stressed about it. As Ted Simon, our motorcycling hero, has stated “the interruptions ARE the journey”. Among the variety of housing styles, this grey-roofed house is an example of a typical house of the more well-to-do folk that we saw along the way.
We had a few tea stops along the way and although the temperature was still a bit chilly in the morning for our liking, it was much more bearable than the 5 degree rainy day we endured yesterday. The vegetable garden photo was taken from the window of a little coffee shop.

The photograph of river, rice paddies, industry, cemetery, houses and mountains was a typical view on today's ride.

As the day wore on, the sun came out and whenever we stopped, we left our gloves to warm up in the sunshine, and the bike seats were cosy warm when we got back on the bikes. Hmm -global warming's OK! Speaking of which, did I mention that most of the Western-style toilets in Japan have heated seats? This will be high on the list of things I will miss when we get home.
We checked into the Washington Plaza Hotel in Himeji and had to hand over about $20 to park the scooters in a car park nearby. This is the first time that we've had to pay to park the scooters. We had a bit of a snooze and then went for a walk to find some dinner. Himeji is quite a large place, so there was no shortage of food to be found. We found a nice little restaurant and had okonomiyaki, which is like an omelette/pancake kind of thing with various bits of meat and vegetables cooked in the mixture. They were really nice and once again I ate too much. We are still puzzled about reports that we've heard that Japan is very expensive. We just stuffed ourselves full for about $30 for the two of us including drinks.
From our window we can see the trains, including the shinkansen (bullet trains) going by. I'll be having my first experience of riding on a shinkansen on Monday, and I'm really looking forward to it. As I write, there is a road crew right below our window making a huge racket. Fortunately, I have a good supply of ear plugs in my bag. The workmen all look quite spectacular, with flashing lights on their safety jackets. They look like a little group of Christmas trees moving around the road. I've just looked up and down the road in both directions, and the only place where roadworks are happening is right in front of our hotel! Will post a 'sleep report' tomorrow.

This is a fairly typical meal that can be found in the little restaurants/noodle shops around the town. This is a set meal of 3 dishes for 850 yen (about $10.00)