On our way back from Himeji, we stopped at Kobe. It’s one of the seaside port towns along the coast of Japan. My ignorance about the area and the well known Kobe Beef made me think of green pastures and lots of grazing land. Of course, I was totally blown away by how wrong I was about it (or at least the coastal part), since the port side was very well developed and particularly spectacular at night.

We didn’t go up the Kobe tower as we had a nice enough view along the coastal stretch though there is plenty there to keep everyone entertained. It would have been interesting to see Kobe in the day. According to this tourism website, apparently there’s plenty more to see than just the Harbourland, Meriken Park that we saw, still it was plenty for us to walk around in a single night.

The Himeji Castle is one of the must visit sites when staying in Osaka. It’s best to get the JR West Rail pass for the Kansai area (available to visitors at least) as the JR train from Osaka will cost ¥1450 one way, so considering the pass is ¥2000 you already save a significant amount. Although Himeji Castle doesn’t cover the entire town like it used to when it was first built, it still magnificently sits atop its hill with enough of it preserved to give you an idea about what it might look like.

Volunteers run an English tour that starts at 10am so it’s worthwhile getting there early. Keeping in mind that it was a volunteer-run tour, it runs for about an hour and gives you the fantastic insight into all the little bits of the castle that are easy to miss simply walking around. As you can tell from the picture below, Himeji Castle is also popular amongst the Japanese as a classic place for a wedding photo.

Set aside at least a few hours to walk around the grounds as it is big enough to interest most people. There’s plenty of space to enjoy the grounds as well on a nice day and a great view from the top of the castle.

Though we were based in Osaka for the first part of our trip, before the rest of the family arrived, I managed to make it out to the Suntory’s Whisky Distillery located in Yamazaki. It’s an easy JR train ride out from either Osaka or Kyoto (it’s on the JR Kyoto line). I can’t remember the fare but I think it was ¥450. Here’s the station you’d get out of.

The distillery is about a ten minute walk, though you pass it if you’re travelling in from Osaka. Look for the big pot still, outside (like below).

Alternately just starting walking towards it and follow the sign posts with the arrows. It’s pretty well marked as it’s one of the major attractions in this small town. Like most places in Japan, this place was immaculately kept. Beautiful lush green gardens, clean pavements and roads lead you to the front desk where you state that you’d like to participate in the free tour. You can read plenty about the history of the place on the Suntory website, but you could tell the air was really fresh, and the site had been picked because of the clean tasting waters, and the ideal climate to replicate classic Scotch recipes.

The tours run hourly and we arrived with about half an hour before the noon tour started off. We signed in, filled in some paper work (like which country we were visiting from), and were then handed a portable audio guide spoken in English. Like most audio tours you have in Europe, you get a funky little device you plug numbers in before you heard someone replaying a scene, or describing different situations. However, unlike many of the ones that came with uncomfortable little earbuds, Suntory provided a comfy “behind the ear” clip earphone. The whole tour is free as well, so you didn’t even need to put a deposit down.

In our time to kill, we walked through the “library”, a small building containing their tasting shop, a whole lot of whiskies on display and lots of interesting bottles and set ups. They also have a store upstairs, conveniently just around the corner from where the tour starts (and ends) that sells lots of different merchandise and, of course, lots of single malt whisky.

I’m going to skip describing the details of the tour, since I learned a whole lot about the whisky doing a trip up to Speyside a couple of years back. What I did learn though was that they used a lot more of Japanese white oak trees in their production yet still imported a lot of their barrels. If not for the Japanese oak barrels, the whole process was otherwise remarkably close to the ones that I remember back in Scotland.

Of course, the great thing about the visit to the distillery is the free sampling at the end of it. Amongst the group of us (pretty much the other eight people being Japanese), we sat inside their decadently outfitted sampling room with a number of drams given to us to try, even complete with a tiny basket of small goodies (rice crackers, chocolates and biscuits) to accompany each dram. Strangely I found that they assumed that everyone wanted some sort of mixer with their whisky but I (at least tried to) say I wanted to appreciate the flavours on their own and just had the dram “straight”.

We were first presented with a Yamazaki 10 year single malt, followed by a 12 year from their other distillery in Hakushu. Unfortunately I didn’t take down what year each of these came. The Yamazaki 15 year definitely had a much lighter roundness to it, full of fruit and sublime tones. A drop of water rounded it out without taking away its sweetness. The Hakushu had richer caramel tones, and a slightly smokier after taste that I preferred much more.

I’d highly recommend people come to Yamazaki for the tour. It’s nice to get out of a major city and see the small suburbs, and the tour is still pretty reasonable even if you don’t understand Japanese. It’s free and best of all, you get access to some great quality whisky.

Visit their website here

I have very fond memories of Boston with the last time I went here, now, almost eight years ago. I’m not sure what it was exactly. Perhaps it was the strong college town feel with big names like Havard, MIT, and Boston University located right in the centre, or perhaps the blend of confusing English-style streets that creates hidden pockets of culture to be discovered. Either way, I had another great time visiting all the different sights that Boston has to see, to make a bit of a change to all the attractions New York has.

Eight years ago, I remember taking a Duck Tour (that unfortunately don’t operate in winter), and only got to see the Cambridge side of the river when the bus was operating in boat mode. This time, I made an effort to get over to that side and walk around the campuses of both MIT and Havard. Both have amazing campuses, particularly all their buildings, and we made a special trip to visit the Gehry building, though beautiful on the outside, apparently had some flaws that the institute sued him for. Havard Square was fairly bustling when we arrived, particularly considering it was the holiday season, and in the middle of winter so I can only imagine the life it would have at the height of spring or autumn when the school is in full tilt.

Cambridge isn’t the only side with nice buildings, with the Boston skyline dominated by small high rises, all very different and interesting buildings. With everything from the super reflective mirror windows of the John Hancock tower (pictured above), to the Prudential Tower (pictured below), all of them really stand out when you’re by the water at night time. We paid for the Top of the Hub skywalk, in order to get the views of Boston from above, and complete with audio guide for adults and children, it was fairly great value.

Nearby to the Prudential Tower, was the Mary Baker Eddy Library, home to apparently the world’s only Mapperium, a three story glass sphere containing maps of the world. Though you pay about $US6 for a brief video, tour and admission, it’s definitely strange to stand inside it as it echoes everything almost perfectly. You can hear literally hear a whisper from across the room as the glass and spherical shape echoes it all around. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos, as the inside is a lot more spectacular than the photo shown below, taken from the area you end up waiting in.

One of the better free things to do in Boston is the State House tour, a free guided tour that operates fairly frequently in the building with the only gold leaf gilded domes. The public are welcome at attend, and it is still an active building with all the politicians required to meet, I think it was, at least twice a week. They have some amazing rooms, and plenty of history to talk about and I found it quite fascinating thinking about all the paintings, murals and statues all throughout.

One of my favourite places last time to visit was the bustling area of Quincy Market. Admittedly it caters for the tourist, but it just always seemed to have a busy atmosphere, and decorated with the Christmas lights really shines at night time. It’s also a place where you can grab small bites to eat from all of the different eateries, and indulge in the famous New England Clam Chowder (or Chowda! as a local) served in a sourdough bread bowl.

We were really lucky with the weather that we had, since the day we left it was snowing heavily and combined with the ferocious winds, was difficult to walk around without starting to feel the icy chill. Clear blue skies heralded over all of the hours we walked around, and even though it was cold and windy, having the sun out made a huge difference to us enjoying our time there. Check out the rest of the photos from the trip here.