On our way from Kanazawa to Tanabe south of Osaka for our next part of the trip we made a stop in Hikone to just break the tedious journey. The city itself is rather non-descript but the castle is nice and well worth a short stop. They claim to be on the selection list for UNESCO and might well achieve it. 25 years the castle was built and still in the original state…

The typical Japanese pleasures are everywhere

Inside all parts are made from wood. The ceiling was amazing as they used the natural trees. We didn’t find out if it was done for beauty or for fortification (earthquakes, etc.)

Anyhow it looks interesting

As usual the procedure is – shoes off, get a bag and carry them around.

Just walking in socks is a strange feeling at stairs like these. They are perfect for defence but a nightmare with slipping feet…

The castle garden and grounds were very, very nice

And again the petals are washed away…

Again the castle from the garden

Another petal stream

As we went down the hill to the castle’s vast moats the very nice castle garden was en route as well…

A little bit exhausted… Long days, warm, humid…

Old tea-houses

nice bridges & rocks

The typical Japanese garden

Evening mood

Koi-Carps and turtles as well, of course…

In general not very much to distract the eye, very rarely colour, but solemn beauty and structure are the main characteristics of Japanese gardens.

After the gardens we headed for Lake Biwa through some classical suburbs

The recession is visible everywhere

Finally the lake

Evening approaches

Close to sunset

And our lucky day – the ferry terminal still sold us some beer!

What a place to enjoy

Rusty heart

The last ferry…

A channel towards the lake

With people trying their luck with their rods

The more active people use the moat as a racecourse – why not it has up to 800 m long stretches…

The view of the castle from the southern end over the moat

Well, this is not a six-pack but a sixteen-pack

On our way to grab some bite Ursi discovered a small temple with a nice dragon

and a wish-tree…

Searching for food can be thrilling

Amusing

Or arrogant… In the beginning this looks funny, but just imagine the concept. The customer has to learn the vendors language…

In the end we took a restaurant which had at least non-smoking parts. Taking off the shoes was the first challenge after a long day walking… Sitting cross-legged behind a table the second. I cannot sit like that for a longer time, so I opted for the relaxation variant

We never found out what this was…

Sometimes the English texts are just too stupid to ignore

The food was average, the portions small… Then they had no idea what Mastercard is or a pin-code and as no-one (as usual) speaks English this gets pretty frustrating… In general the rule for Japan is to have cash with you all the time – never expect to be able to pay by credit-card!

So in the end we selected a second place and got one of the smallest glasses of beer ever

The menu seems pretty straightforward

Yet the outcome was unexpected… Fat (yes, pure white fat) in gravy with soy… Well, we tried one and then the soy

The usual look & feel of these places

This is the classical way how to sit

If only we would be able to read all the specials…

Funny they had Barcelona (Sagrada Familia) on the wall…