smokyme: Back to the Past...

Aug. 20^th – Himeji/Osaka

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad (and anyone else who got married today!)

Ok, trying to get this all up to date. Summer travels again. One day I'll get caught up on everything in life. Not today though.

Back in the summer, on the 20th, the day after the waterfall hike, we headed out to Himeji Castle. Which has famously been in a number of movies. It is the most visited castle in Japan, and one of the few remaining extant (still existing; not a reconstruction) castles in Japan.

We took the local express train out, which was about an hour trip. L commented throughout our trip (repeatedly) on my “ability” to readily fall asleep on any train we rode. This is a skill that has been perfected by Japanese people, and I can only aspire to the higher levels of the skill, wherein the sleeping person automatically wakes up just in time to get off at the correct stop. I’m pretty good, but I have on occasion gotten off at the wrong stop. Or I wake up several stops too early.

As we walked up the main street from the station, the castle came into view, gracefully perched on a hill overlooking the town. We paused only for L to get waylaid by a cute girl with a clipboard who needed a foreigner to take a survey. Apparently I didn’t look foreign enough, as I didn’t get to take the survey.

We eventually made it to the castle, which is really quite spectacular. World Heritage Cultural site and everything. It’s also a maze of walls, where it’s difficult to tell which side would have attackers and which would have defenders. Lots of buildings, with lots of stairs, and a fantastic view.

One book (which I highly recommend) that I read mentioned that the people of Himeji were inspired by their castle, as even though the city was bombed to ruins, the castle was spared. Ironically, it was (possibly) spared because American bomber crews used it as a highly visible landmark to direct them toward the targets of Osaka and Hiroshima. Regardless of why it was spared, I'm glad it was - it's a beautiful castle, with lots to see, from historical aspects of castle construction and defense, to ghostly legends, to interesting architecture and even a scale model of the castle’s structure. All in all, a couple of hours well-spent.

After that, we headed back to Osaka, and spent a couple hours wandering around a couple sights recommended by Lonely Planet. The Umeda Sky Building was interesting to see, Amerika-Mura was mildly entertaining, but not really worth the detour. We also checked out the Giant Ferris Wheel on an island near the port which had some really great views. From Lonely Planet Japan: “Said to be the largest Ferris wheel in the world.” Note that it doesn’t say it IS the largest in the world, just that it’s SAID to be. Whoever said that is wrong. But we didn’t really catch that until after we went. It was big, and did have great views.