Himeji-jo castle
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2007
1
82
95
Trip End
Ongoing
Himeji,
Japan
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
We got the shinkansen train here and from here again onto Hakata in the south. We will use Hakata as out base for our trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as its only about an hour and a half on the shinkansen trains from here and we may aswell use our pass.
We had dinner in a very local place! Initially it looked a little dodgey but it was nice food in fairness.
Got to the castle just in time for last entry, so it was a bit of a rush around to see it all before it was closed. Some of the main points about this castle is for some of the buildings around it (where stone was used they were running out of stone from the local supplies), one poor old woman gave the millstone she used for her own personal use in order to help the cause
Bullet trains
. This act of selflessness sparked off a wave of similar generousity, and against the odds all of the stone required for the project was gathered.Throughout the castle there are very low ceilings, so climbing the stairs was a bit of a challenge for us!!! ouch!!!!!
On the top floor there is a lovely shrine, and after checking this out we descended and made our way to the exit.
On the way out we saw the beautiful cherry blossoms, they were not in full bloom yet, which was a pity as there were hundreds of trees there waiting to explode into colour.
