day 275 - washroom washi...

Toilet paper, Higashi Ryokan Hotel, Kinosaki.

Well D'uh! Where else ya gonna use it ?!

As well as having wood block prints all over Himeji, Ken Iwata is often commissioned to do stuff for schools, like text-book covers - and toilet paper!

day 270 - chutzpah footspa

There's even a foot-onsen by the train station where weary travellers can soak their tootsies in a very hot natural spring sprouting from the mouth of a frog...

Ehhhhh?! A shrine to crabs on the mountain-top...

Kinosaki from the lookout. (The ryokan hotel we stayed is in the white building, centre.)

day 268 - more Kinosaki

Crab is pretty big in Kinosaki. This was the biggest.

Fortunately there were no earthquakes or typhoons in Kinosaki on the evening of the 23rd, so weren't forced to seek out out the pocket in the roof...

On the way to the bath houses we posed next to the smiling jizo in the shrine.

Goshonoyu - The best one we went to. Sadly, no photos to be taken inside...

Such a chilled-out town... There's a lot to be said for a place where you're encouraged to wander around town in your dressing-gown and chat to naked people in the bath that you've never met before...

day 267 - Kinosaki and Takeno

Finding our way around Kinosaki.

Along the canal.

This nice lady told us she was "hachi ju nana sai" (87 years old.) She gave Lyn an origami crane (but insisted she take off her shopkeeper's apron before allowing "shasin" - a photo!).

Yesterday and today we travelled north from Himeji to the opposite coast of Honshu on the Sea of Japan. The beautiful onsen town of Kinosaki is on a canal, with 7  public onsen all within walking distance of each other.