yesterday

Yesterday, we headed out quite early to Hikone.

It's been a year since Satoshi's grandfather's 50 year service and we wanted to bring some flowers to his grave.

We also wanted to check out what was left of the cherry blossoms.

On the train we shared a variety of baked items (ginger cheese roll, fig & walnut bread, bacon epi, cream pan & basil olive bread) from Manpuku Bakery. It was our first time buying items from here and they were so good, next time I go to Kitahama, I'll have to pick up other items to try.

We also had a cup of Sunaba Coffee. This coffee is from Tottori prefecture, it was siphon-style, but had been sitting out for a while, so it wasn't too good.

After arriving in Hikone, we decided to have some coffee at Micro-Lady, while we waited for the florist to open.

Cappuccino for me and a house blend for Satoshi...way nicer than the cup we had earlier.

As we walked towards Hikone Castle, we were surprised that there were quite a lot of blossoms to see.

We then grabbed some sweets from Kimura Seika (a sakura mochi for me and a kusamochi for Satoshi) and headed to Azuchi.

Azuchi is the area where Oda Nobunaga built a 6-story castle called Azuchi-jo.

The castle only lasted 3 years before it was burned down when Oda Nobunaga was killed.

The area is huge!

We didn't have enough time to go up to see the ruins. I'm glad too...look at all those stairs!

Luckily, we rented some bicycles too, walking to all these areas would've taken us forever!

One area we visited housed a replica of the top three stories of Azuchi-jo.

It's so big that you can't really get a clear shot of the whole thing!

After returning our bicycles, it was nice to finally be able to have something for lunch.

We had Omi beef bowls at Sawae-an which really hit the spot!

Then we went back onto the train to the Yamashina area to check out their cherry blossoms along a canal.

I've seen this on tv many times and wanted to see it for myself.

Though most of the blossoms had fallen it was still really beautiful!

Even though the whole day was overcast, I'm glad we got to visit Satoshi's grandfather's grave and also got to see some new sights and some cherry blossoms...have a nice week!

Manpuku Bakery
5-1 Kitahama-higashi
Chuo, Osaka
Phone: 06.6944.4488
Hours: 10:00-22:00
Closed: Mondays and every 3rd Tuesday

Micro Lady Coffee Stand
1st floor of the JR Hikone station
Phone: 080.1445.2374
Hours: 7:30-20:00
Closed Thursdays

Kimura Seika
11-18 Sawa-cho
Hikone, Shiga
Phone: 0749.22.1934
Hours: 9:30-17:00
Closed Wednesdays

Sawae-an
1334-1 Kamitoyoura Azuchi-cho
Omihachiman, Shiga
Phone: 0748.46.5570
Hours: 11:00-21:00

Yamashina Canal
10 minutes walk from the JR Yamashina station