Museum Hopper

This post is kind of a big deal for me...it's my 300th blog post! This was not the first stop on our Japan trip, but this was one of our favorites!  On our way to Kyoto, we stopped at Himeji to visit the castle there.  The shinkasen train from Hiroshima to Kyoto stops in Himeji -- it is about halfway.  We had our smaller suitcase with us, which we put in a locker in the train station in Himeji.  We were able to find space for a smaller one, but I think the bigger one would have been challenging (we ended up shipping that one ahead to Kyoto).   The Himeji Castle is about a 20 minute walk from the train station.  We loved the walk. The castle was quite impressive.  Throughout the castle, there were plenty of signs in English highlighting the key elements of the castle.  The castle grounds and tower were quite spacious.  We got an idea of how they were able to have 2.5M visitors in 2015.  The castle is one of the few originals still standing.  Many of the others either

This weekend, I went back to the Cincinnati Art Museum for a girlfriend date since it was the Art in Bloom exhibit. We made a reservation at the Terrace cafe for lunch.  It is surprisingly good and reasonably priced.  I got a club sandwich, which was unique with a delicious red pepper aoili on it.  My friend really liked her mufaleta.  She only got a half one, but it was huge!  Our waitress was a delight as well. We ended up wandering the museum to see the floral compositions.  90 pieces of art were selected to have floral arrangements made.  Each florist makes a list of three pieces of art that they would like to create an arrangement for and then, they get one from the list.  The art includes paintings, statues, vases, furniture, so really across the entire spectrum.  Some of the floral arrangements were quite literal; some were what I would have expected as "on trend" for the time the original painting was done.  Some of the arrangers were in the museum and answering