This morning we went to the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu. It is very large and one of the most historical gardens in Japan. The buildings there date back to the early 17th century. There are hundreds of pine trees here and no flowers, although there are irises here in the spring.

It started raining while we were there so the reflections were a bit disturbed.

I have no idea what these were but obviously they are a choking hazard!

On our way to Kobe we crossed the inland sea and stopped on Awaji Island which is famous for its onions. There was an amazing shop there with everything onion! And all their foods had little tasting boxes so you could sample, it was fantastic. They had these little fish that looked like whitebait but they pressed them in a small square machine into what looked like fish paper, had a strong fish taste, I have no idea what you would use them for.

Dried fish tails anyone?? All the food is packaged and have a plastic version or in you can’t see into the packet they have a packet with a plastic lid so you can see what is inside each box.

We then we on to the city of Kobe and had lunch at a Kobe beef restaurant – delicious.

We had a wander around Kobe for an hour and came across this pet shop, They had kittens and puppies, the kittens were around 440,000 yen which is around $5,400NZD!!! You must really really want to have a cat!!!

We then headed on to Kyoto and arrived at dinner time. I was tired and just felt like a chicken salad so went to the 7 Eleven and grabbed one and had an early night.

One of the ladies on the tour makes Temari balls, I bought this one today and think I will use it as a Christmas decoration.