Castle and Temple tours

Hello All,
We made the the trip to Osaka by train on Monday and visited the Osaka castle and the surrounding park. It was very beautiful and hard to believe that such a thing exists in the middle of a city of 9 million people. The castle it self has a museum inside which has many of Japans national treasures. On our return of an hour and a half by train we were invited for dinner aboard Kakiharas boat. One of his friends Mr. Morishita joined us for the feast of BBQ chicken, noodles and many other things. The dinner was out standing and had a great visit also. Yesterday morning we were invited for breakfast aboard Mr Morishita's boat not far from where I have my boat. He offered to take us by his car to Nara which is just north of Osaka to visit an ancient temple. An hour drive into Osaka we stopped by his home to pick up his wife and we set off for Nara. The temple and the grounds surrounding were fabulous and has one of the oldest buildings in Japan. When we arrived there we saw many deer roaming the park areas. They were very tame and we bought some cookies to feed them. That was so amazing, they would swarm you looking for food. You could just walk up to them and pet them also. Without food in hand they wouldn't give you much attention. The weather was not that great raining off and on but we still had a great time.
After the temple tour they took us to downtown where there is a huge market and a big tower like the space needle. We also had a wonderful dinner at a Ramen noodle shop not far from there home. They dropped us at the train station last night where we caught the 8 pm train home.
They were wonderful hosts and I hope to see them here next weekend.

We are invited on another tour of this area tomorrow by a boat owner we met the other day. I forgot his name but we will get reintroduced in the morning.

The weather looks like it could give us a window to leave by Monday, the only thing is there is another Typhoon developing to the South of us. The next few days will show which way it is going to track so we will hope for the best.

I added pictures of the last few days on the photo album so take a look.

Thats all for now.

PEACE