Japan 2014

Tag 12 (January 1st, 2015)

Our stay in Japan was com­ing to an end. The return trip to Osa­ka with the Shinkansen was again per­fect­ly organized.

In the after­noon, we vis­it­ed the beau­ti­ful Osa­ka Cas­tle. It stands on a high stone pedestal, which is sup­posed to pro­tect the base, and was built almost com­plete­ly out of wood, as it was usu­al for Japan­ese build­ings in for­mer times. Dur­ing the restora­tion at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, how­ev­er, the destroyed cas­tle was almost com­plete­ly rebuilt from con­crete, and since the restora­tion in 1997 it even has a lift.

When we got there, it start­ed snow­ing. In the upcom­ing dusk the cas­tle was illu­mi­nat­ed and looked like “enchant­ed”.

Orig­i­nal­ly, we had planned to enjoy a nice farewell din­ner in a typ­i­cal restau­rant, but we had to real­ize that in Japan every­thing was closed on New Year’s Day. Unfor­tu­nate­ly they even did not offer din­ner in our small hotel. But there are the Com­bi­ni, some of them are open around the clock and so we got ben­tos, sand­wich­es and drinks and “pic­nicked” in the hotel lobby.

Day 13 (January 2nd, 2015)

Ear­ly in the morn­ing we were picked up at the hotel and brought to the air­port. There await­ed us or rather our daugh­ter a nice sur­prise: Some employ­ees of the com­pa­ny, where our daugh­ter had done her intern­ship, had come to the air­port to say good­bye. We were very touched.

Say­onara Japan.

Con­clu­sion of our jour­ney: Absolute­ly rec­om­mend­able, with­out japan­ese speak­ing com­pa­ny veeeer­rrrrryyyyy dif­fi­cult. In any case, we would like to come back and look around for a longer time espe­cial­ly in rur­al areas around the Fuji-san.