(Japan Jan 2015) Day 4: Visit Nara and Himeji. Stay at Osaka

Day 4 (26/1): Visit Nara and Himeji. Stay at Himeji

Itinerary for this day: 

(Day 3 of the 14 days' JR Railpass's usage)

0747-0807 Shin-Osaka to Tennoji via Haruka Express (21mins)

0814-0851 Tennoji to Nara via JR Yamatoji line (35mins)

Took short 5mins bus ride to near Todaiji

Quick visit to Nara's deers outside Todaiji

Took short 5mins bus ride back to JR Nara station

1101-1134 Nara to Tennoji via JR Yamatoji line (33mins)

1150-1205 Tennoji to Shin-Osaka via Haruka Express (15mins)

Lunch at Shin-Osaka station

1305-1342 Shin-Osaka to Himeji via Shinkansen

Visit Himeji

1625-1705 Himeji to Shin-Osaka via Shinkansen

The plan for today is to visit Nara and Himeji. 
Before heading out, we had our free breakfast at the hotel (well, technically the hubby did. The brother and I opted for more sleep) and here are some photos of the food.

Since brother and I didn't had our breakfast, so we bought some drinks and waffle from the convenience store to eat on the train for breakfast.

From Tennoji station (can board from Osaka station as well), we took the JR Yamatoji train to JR Nara station. The green and older looking train doesn't seemed to have toilets onboard the train, whereas the newer looking white train has 1 toilet onboard the train. Both trains run along Yamatoji line. 

From Tennoji station, it is about 35mins to reach JR Nara station via a Rapid train on Yamatoji line). The journey will take slightly longer if you'd board from Osaka station.

Didn't see any toilets onboard this train

There's a toilet on this train.

Since the hubby and I have already visited Nara on our previous trips, so this short visit to Nara is just to see the deers at Nara since my brother have yet to visit Nara before. 

From JR Nara station, it's just a short 5mins bus ride to the areas where there's deers roaming about freely near Todaiji. 

Not long after we arrived at Nara, it started to rain, so we cut short our visit and went back to JR Nara station to catch a train back to Osaka.

Lunch at Shin-Osaka station.

After a quick lunch at Shin-Osaka station, we managed to catch at Shinkansen ride to Himeji. I've visited Himeji castle on my previous trip but it was all covered up due to the restoration works. But this time round, the castle seems to be already done, but it's just too bad that it was raining heavily when we arrived at Himeji. 

Since the rain don't seem like it will stop anytime soon, so we decided to skip visiting Himeji castle, and just walk around Himeji station since we are already here. 

Raining heavily when we arrived at Himeji. 

There is actually a long sheltered shopping street that links Himeji station up to not too far from Himeji castle.  So we decided to stroll along this street and see how's the view of Himeji castle look like from the end of this street.

Can't find the name of the shopping street on google map, so linked google street view of this street instead.

This shop sells many cheap snacks

Finally we walked to the end of the shopping street and this is the view of Himeji castle from where we stood. 

Cold and disappointed with the weather, I found something that cheered me up. 

Yes, a Hello Kitty cafe! I managed to drag the 2 guys with me to take a break at the cafe while promising that I'd treat them to whatever they like from the menu. :)

Hello Kitty Cafe (Cafe de Miki) at Himeji, somewhere between Himeji castle and Himeji station.

The pink colored white chocolate ribbon is so cute!

Donut

After our teabreak, we took Shinkansen back to Shin-Osaka where we decided to just have a lazy day and buy food from convenience store to eat for dinner instead of heading out to explore the city.

Go to previous blog entry: Day 3 Visit Kyoto and Osaka / 

Go to next blog entry: Day 5 Osaka to Tokyo. Visit Tokyo.