Day 8 – Your Princess is in Another Castle
Today so far, 13,713 steps, 10.05 km, 18 floors climbed, 2 layers of clothing, 2 pets in clothing and 7 kitties!
Himeji Castle today! We started a little later than we probably should have, but we were up and out by about 10 this morning. We seemed to all be a little crabby this morning, but we managed to perk up and not kill each other, probably thanks to the breakfast we had. We stopped in at a cafe on the way to the station and all got a variation of the same thing. Basically it was toast with your choice of spread, Drew got an egg salad spread and I tried a sweet red bean paste. Quite yummy actually! Kind of a savoury jam if that makes any sense. We moved on fairly quickly, being later than we’d like already, and headed to the station. We took a local train to Shin Osaka station and got to ride a bullet train from there! It was a purple one (apparently it was an anime themed one – meant something to the boys, absolutely nothing to me). It was a pretty great experience though. Something you can tick off the Bucket List.
Three quick stops later and we were at our destination. As soon as we surfaced from the subway we could see the castle in the distance. The 1.km walk didn’t seem too long (after all we could see what we were heading to), but we got probably 3/4s there and decided we’d like some lunch. Bento boxes! Delicious. Absolutely yummy! A challenge for my inexperienced with chopsticks hands, but I got most of the food down.
Again, we were late, so didn’t stop for too long. We headed towards the entrance, paid our fee and started the climb up. Steep slopes will never compare to the stairs and slopes of Monkey Mountain, but man did my legs hurt. Turns out the stairs leading to the temple aren’t the problem, it’s the ones inside! But I’ll get back to that. We climbed up through the inner walls of the Castle grounds and were stopped at a room to remove your shoes. You were given a plastic bag to carry them with you this time. As soon as we were all ready we headed for the first floor. The inside of this castle looks amazing! I would have loved to be able to explore the floors and rooms that they have shut off from the public, just to see all the old wood and the grooves in the floors from the wear and all of that. Most corridors and rooms you walked through had weapon racks on the walls, you could imagine the warriors of the time running up the stairs to grab their weapons and defend the castle from whatever threat was coming for them. It was a really cool experience! Getting to the next floor was a problem! These stair cases were built in times where you would climb to the top and push up a trap door to get to the next room, but having had to convert that for the tourists coming through the castle, this meant there was very little head space for anyone over 5 foot tall. I don’t ever feel tall, but when I have to duck to get through archways and stair cases, you realise that times have probably changed! The steepness of the stairs was hard enough to climb with the added hand rails, you have to admire the agility the people using them in the olden days would have had.
As we climbed higher and higher the views got more and more impressive. You got to walk through some displays showing different stages of the construction of the castle, as well as a shrine at the very top. A really great time, crowded but great.
It was then time to head down and start our way home. About a half way down we came across a well with a grate over the top. There was a small crowd around it, so me being me was curious and went over and had a look. It’s common here to toss loose change into bodies of water (ponds, fountains etc) as a form of prayer. So of course this was no exception. There were coins all over the grating balancing on the beams. But when you looked through the grate and down towards the bottom, all you could see was shiny silver and gold coins. The bottom could not be seen through the coins!
We kept heading down ready to get home, but we came across another crowd, so again my curiosity stopped me, and I had to go over and have a look. Kitties! There were 6 or 7 cats just chilling in the garden. Very very cute (not a crazy cat lady at all).
We finally got to the station and on our second bullet train ride of the day. Although this one was much squishier than the last! It was so packed, but the conductors seemed to know what they were doing and kept cramming people onto the carriages. We managed to get on our train, although it ended up being a standing trip home. Luckily it was the bullet train though, so smooth! If it had been a local train I’d have fallen on someone for sure.
We got home at about 5.20, decided to hang out and relax for awhile. I had been such a long day, we needed to chill a bit! We then headed over to the restaurant across the street (we’ve been trying to get there for 3 days, we finally caught it open!). Pretty good Chinese food.
Now we’re home, still waiting on the second group to arrive. We had planned on going to the arcade in Denden Town, but if they don’t get here soon, I’m going to fall asleep! And with Universal Studios tomorrow, I’m going to need all the sleep I can get!
