April 9

We decided to do something different today. We are going to take the train system to Kobe and do a hike to the Ashiya Rock Garden. This hike is described as hard and includes some “scrambling”. We are all on board. Mohan is not sure but he is a good sport.

Started the day with our typical 7-11 lattes. Matt and I got an English muffin sausage, cheese, and egg sandwich. I also bought some Danon yogurt that had probiotics in it. Decent but not great. After Dan and Mohan got up, we headed out to the train station, grabbing more lattes along the way.

Getting to Kobe is a complicated train trip with four different trains, including the Shinkansen bullet train. The stars had to align for us to make all our connections. When we got to the first station, I realized that my stomach was not going to give me a choice except to find a bathroom. Daniel was gracious and changed all our tickets as I ended up spending some time in there. My body decided it was time to evacuate everything in my intestines. I was ok but somewhat unsettled after. 

We got on the trains and continued our journey. We finally arrived in Kobe. It was nice to be in a smaller city without thousands of people everywhere. The cherry trees are in bloom everywhere. We started our hike just a short distance from the train station. What an incredible hike. It lived up to the description. We did some crazy scrambling but so much fun. Beautiful purple azalea trees were everywhere on the hillside. Add cherry trees, peach trees and some camellias. So many flowers. Just wonderful. The hike was a high point for me which is not surprising. I love nature over cities any day.

The hike took about four hours and the search for a place to eat lunch/dinner began. The guys decided on an all you can eat sushi place in Osaka. Matt doesn’t love sushi but he is a good sport. He is ready for cooked food in a frying pan, not in boiling water or not cooked at all! We’ve eaten a lot of very different food, that’s for sure. I’ve enjoyed most of it very much. Sometime after the hike, I had developed a rather intense stomach ache. I discovered that I could race through train stations with knife like pains in my stomach and abdomen. Fortunately, it didn’t get too bad. Dinner made my stomach feel better until I started moving again and the pains returned. 

After dinner, we had tickets to view the city from the skyscraper Abeno Harukas. Fortunately, there were no lines and we were able to get up to the top and view the city without battling crowds. The city was beautiful although it was an overcast evening and it is starting to rain. Our tickets included some takoyaki, fried octopus balls. I tried one and Matt declined. I haven’t seen this guy decline food very many times in my life but I think he has had enough of some of these weird foods. I drank a ton of water while we were at the little restaurant and my stomach finally started feeling better.

It is starting to be a more persistent rainfall now and Dan and Mohan decided to return with us, instead of hanging out in the city for a while. We are all tired. A good day but many steps and some of them straight uphill. I have almost 26,000 steps on my watch again! I’m happy to go to bed.

Matt is still battling a nasty cough. It just seems to hang on but I do think he is slowly improving. 

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