Himeji Castle

Himeji Castle was closed on Sunday. It will remain closed for the next five years as they do renovation and some reconstruction on the castle and the castle grounds. Our group decided to head out early on Saturday morning to see it, since it was our last chance. GOOD THING WE DID! Himeji Castle was by faaaaar my favorite place in Japan and I'm sad that Japan's tourists for the next half a decade won't be able to see it.

I personally woke up at 6:15 and dragged my sleeping self to Hirakata station at around 7:45 where I joined the others. He headed out to our adventure. About 2 and a half hours later we arrived. It's a straight walk to the castle and the huge crowd of tourists directed our way. The mob that day was actually nice and since we had gotten there early, it was still BIG- but our wait to get into the castle was significantly smaller than people that came later. The transportation costs to get there was excruciatingly high but the entrance fee was rather cheap. We waited in line for about 30 minutes, taking pictures along the way. Our friend Andrew who had gone the week before went later in the afternoon and had to wait 2 hours to get into the castle. The outside of the castle is amazingly beautiful. There were six 'water' gates we passed and the crowd took the lesser grand entrance through the basement. We worked our way up to each level of the castle. There was beautiful artwork inside and it what was amazing even more was that the castle was FULLY original, it had never been destroyed or damaged in any war and was in rather good condition considering. (The renovation is replace the original however, and I didn't catch what they were doing with the original parts, putting them in museums, etc. I don't know). The stairs were extremely steep and since we had to walk through without our shoes on it was rather scary at some points. And it is true that Japanese people were short back then because the ceilings were so low that when Emily or I walked up stairs or downstairs we had to bend our back, and even when I did that I hit my back onto he ceiling's beam. It amused me and I didn't get hurt so all was good. At the top floor there was a Shinto shrine that had been on the land before the original castle. The story goes tat they moved the Shinto shrine and the gods punished them somehow so they moved it back on the land and in the attic.

There was a great view and you should go look at my facebook pictures when you can. After the tour through the main castle we toured the women's quarters to the west. It was for the lady's attendants and lady's in waiting and looked very much to me like a dorm. Afterwards we had lunch out by the cherry blossoms. Great day :)