So completely missed the bullet train at 7am. Instead dragged myself out of bed sometime around 10am, and caught the 11am bullet train to Himeji. It happened to be the Hikari Railstar, which is the Hikari Shinkansen but using the faster engines from the Nozomi. It was sweet. I hadn’t reserved a seat, so you have to get in pretty fast to get one of the non-reserved seats. If you don’t, well it’s a pain the ass to stand for three hours if you’re heading to Hakata or Tokyo.
After one stop in Shin-Kobe, we were in Himeji. It’s all tunnels between Shin-Osaka and Himeji, so there’s no sightseeing at all. Because it’s New Year’s day, pretty much nothing was open except food places. From between the 2nd and the 11th/17th of January is when all the department stores in Japan have bargain sales, so I’m going to wait until tomorrow to buy a suitcase. Instead, it was just a straight trip to the castle and back.
The castle, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, is the real deal. Unlike Osaka Castle, which is really a museum dressed up to be a castle, Himeji Castle is Japan’s most famous castle, and best condition one as well. Having managed to survive Japan’s civil war, earthquakes, firebombings, WW2, and everything else that could be thrown at it is pretty impressive. Himeji Castle is six stories tall, and has been around since the 1600s. It’s just a really impressive structure, and is the only castle in Japan that still dominates the skyline around it, unlike say Osaka castle which has skyscrappers next to it that are five times the size.
Himeji castle was done a little on the cheap, and uses gravestones and old millstones as part of the walls. A famous story was of one Japanese peasent who donated the only stone she had, her millstone to the castle. After this, the castle was flooded with people doing the same thing, and then the castle was built pretty quickly. There was no rhyme or reason in the stone placement, really just big stones at the bottom, and smaller stones filling in the gaps.
Because it was New Years day, the castle entry was free, instead of the normal 600 yen. But in return, the place was packed, and there was a solid line from the 1st floor all the way to the 6th. It was madness, and must have taken half an hour to go up 6 flights of stairs. Oh well, such is life!
From here, I was super tired, so I walked straight back to the train station, to catch the next train back to Osaka. The Hikari was going to be about 40 minutes, so instead I caught the Limited Express Super Haruko. This is a diesel train that goes from Himeji to Kyoto, going through Osaka. While it took about an hour, at least I could see the coast of Japan, and a massive bridge heading over to an island. The bridge was easily twice the length of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and was something impressive. In the end I ended up falling asleep on the train and waking up at Osaka Station. Must have had god on my side, because it would have been shame to wake up in Kyoto. And imagine if I had fallen asleep on the Shinkansen, and ended up in Tokyo. I wouldn’t be smiling much.
Now it’s bed time, tomorrow, Hiroshima.
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