And the Shinkansen (bullet trains) are really nice. ^^ It was only about 2-3 hours from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka, and then maybe an hour more to Himeji, which is a bit west of Osaka. I decided to start at my farthest point, and work my way closer to Tokyo throughout the week. Anyway, Himeji is a bit out there, and home of probably the best castle in Japan. Before I went out to see it though, I stored all my luggage in one of the many lockers they have in all the subway stations.
Convenient! So then I left the station, and since the castle is on top of a hill I could see it from the exit and just started walking towards it. It was kind of empty cause it was rainy and already about 3 in the afternoon, but I still had fun. ^_^ It wasn't hot or crowded, so that was good. And the long street leading up to the castle was filled with booths, and lots of people in yukata. I don't know if there was a festival going on, or if it's always like that, but it was pretty awesome.
Street lined with food and game booths.
There actually might have been a festival going on, judging by this poster though...
Though if it was that festival, this wasn't the main day, since the big float thing was still on display instead of parading around.
And I bought some dango (also known as odango ^^), which are really sweet and sticky.
A game where you try to catch the goldfish with a thin piece of paper. It's really hard.
And a booth selling pineapple. O_o I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with a whole pineapple.... maybe they make pineapple pops for you? I had one of those in Ginza - just a long chunk of pineapple on a barbeque skewer. ^^
And here's the bridge crossing the outer moat to Himeji Castle.
Another view of that nice wide moat. ^^
And here you can see the castle standing off in the distance. It was a bit of a journey to get to the top, and that's because Himeji is like, the best fortified castle, EVER. You'll see.
Huge wide open plain laying in front of the castle.... no where to hide for approaching enemy armies.
As well as a zoo to distract said invading armies! No, I'm kidding. And apparently the Zoo was closed... due to rain? I dunno. But I do know one thing. The CATS secretly rule this place.
There were three lounging outside the zoo, and you can see that they're glaring at me suspiciously, because they know I'm onto them.
Alright, the castle is getting closer....
Al....most.... there....
And now for a short History of Art and Architecture break. You might notice from the two pictures of the castle above that their foundations are these curved stone walls. An interesting note is that the Japanese didn't use morter, but instead engineered the walls in such a way that the weight of the stones supported each other without anything else. Also, this was actually better than if they had used morter, because it allowed the walls a bit of flexibility during earthquakes, so they wouldn't go crashing down when shaken, like a regular brick wall would. Since Himeji Castle is so gigantic though, there was some trouble finding enough rocks to build the walls for the castle. They even used stone coffins, sometimes with the body still inside. O_o Anyway, the legend goes that an old widow, whose only livelihood was grinding stuff with her millstone, was so loyal to her lord that she offered him her only stone, so that he might finish his castle. I don't know if he actually accepted it or not, but the story spread around, stone donations came in, and the castle was quickly finished.
And here's the first gate to the Castle! It was not meant to be impressive, as the whole point of the entrance was to confuse the enemy. You'll see in a minute.
And here's a close-up of the top of the gate. Notice the circle-things at the ends of the roof panels? They're usually decorated with the crest of whoever owns the building, and are generally very important. Although the only crest I recognize by sight is the Fujiwara one, so I'm not gonna be much help here... just know that they're important.
So the set-up of the entrance to the castle was designed with defense in mind. It was maze-like and confusing, and one would have to circle around and take a very long and meandering route to reach the castle, giving the defenders maximum opportunity to kill the enemy before they could even get close. Hence why the first you see upon entering the gate is not a view of the castle, but a defense wall. The trail curves up and behind that wall, where there would be archers and such behind the protective wall, shooting arrows through those windows at the enemy.
And here's the other side of the wall. The windows are tapered so that the actual opening is small, to prevent the invaders from shooting the defenders, but there is ample room for an archer on the defending side to aim to shoot his enemy. Aside from arrows, these holes (particularly the ones high up and nearer the castle) were used to throw out rocks, boiling oil, and other unpleasant things. Himeji is also noted for having some of the prettiest of this rock-dropping windows ever.
And the road up to the castle, which is wide and leaves any invading army a sitting duck for that long wall of archers shooting at them. There are at least five of these bends/long walls in the entrance I took, and as soon as you turned a corner, another wall would be facing down at you. You'd have to be crazy to try and invade this place, which is probably why no one ever did.
Another rock-dropping hole.
And if by some miracle your invading army managed to make it through the long and meandering pathway of doom, they would then be presented with several similar looking paths, and most likely take a wrong turn, leading them straight into the line of fire.
Just like I did. Instead of reaching the castle, I ended up in one of the gardens, overlooked by more of those window things, where soldiers would be throwing rocks and oil down.
A little while later, I managed to find the castle. The signs saying "castle - this way!" were pretty helpful. ^^ Anyway, I was still amazed at their defense system, if you WERE an enemy, and finally made it to the castle, how would you get in?! LOOK at that! Arrows and such raining down, a wall of straight-up rock facing you, no idea where the door is.... geez!
I made it to the castle though, only to be stopped and warned to take off my sandals. I found out later that this was pretty standard for any really old Japanese building with wooden floors.
Slipper rack!
And me!! ^_^
Anyway, when I saw this sign I started to feel like I was in a video game. You know, after defeating the level where you try to make it to the castle, now you have to defeat the bosses on each floor to get to the princess at the top? I wanted a little nintendo victory sound to play every time I climbed another flight of stairs. ^^;; This also reminded me of that one Bruce Lee movie where we has to fight some crazy fighter person on each floor to do... something. You know what I'm talking about, the one where he's wearing the yellow jumpsuit thing? It was totally like that. Except instead of monsters on every floor, there were museum artifacts.
Like this book of poetry! Which was some crazy cross between a western-style bound book, and a Japanese handscroll.
And SWORDS! These belonged to the lords of the house, though silly me, I can't remember their names. Not that anyone reading particularly cares though.
And Samurai armor!! Woot!!
And there were these racks all over the place, so one section was roped off and had muskets on it so we could see what all those racks were for. This place must've been FILLED with weapons back in the day.
And here's a close-up of one of the nail covers. All of them are black except the ones on the top floor, which are gold.
This picture is side-ways, but you can still tell how crazy the lock system was for important doors.
And this was a door to a secret room. I think people would've jumped out from here and ambushed an invader who thought the coast was clear. Instant back-up. ^^
And here's the view from the 3rd floor, which has the highest ceiling out of any of the floors. I can totally imagine really awesome battle scenes going on in this room.
Yay, I finally made it to the top!!
Where they had some sort of shrine, with another one of those 'insert-coin, ring-prayer-bell' things, and offerings of some kind of alcoholic beverages.
And me being an asian tourist. ^^;;
Also, the view was amazing. Se that straight road out there? That's the one lined with all the booths earlier, and leads straight to the subway station.
And here you can see a mound that looks like one of the Chocolate Hills in Bohol. ^^ However, I'm going to guess that it's a kofun, which is a super-huge burial mound that had its heyday back in the 400s. What is it with ancient peoples and HUGE graves? First the pryamids.... anyway, I make that assessment because it's one of the few places not paved over. I think these burial mounds are also found in Korea, but the keyhole-shaped mounds are particular to Japan. They would also usually have stone statues around the perimeter serving as gaurdians, and the burial chamber would be filled with lots of paintings and artifacts. ^^
Another view, where you can see the sprawling walls.
And the golden nail covers on the top floor!
And a close-up of the offerings of liquor. ^^
As I make my way back down the levels, I took some pictures of the awesome gable-ing/roof stuff. And you can't see it too well, but the window rims there are black lacquer with gold leaf.
And this here is the suicide area. Um, kinda sad. But that fence there encloses the well, which was used to clean up the blood afterwards.
And this well as a famous story! There are several versions, but the Himeji version goes that there was a girl named Okiku, who was lady in waiting to the retainer of the castle, who was plotting to seize power from the son once the lord of the castle died (he was old and sick). When Okiku refused to go along with the coup (or in some versions, warns the prince-like guy), the retainer accused her of losing one of ten very precious plates, and had her thrown down this well. Then there was a story about the well being haunted, and people being able to hear her counting "7....8...9.... AAHHH!!!!!" but then a shrine was set up to worship her or something, and the supposed haunting stopped. There's a million different versions, especially since the story has been turned into a play many times, but that's the gist of it.
And a freaky picture from my Japanese Literature class last year, with the ghosts' head and the plates she's counting. You can also buy plate-shaped cookies in sets of nine from the gift shop, with Okiku's face/a well on them. O_o A little creepy....
Speaking of creepy, I TOLD YOU that the cats were taking over. This one had a BED in the LADIES ROOM. I have no idea why. And I started to feel a little weird for taking so many pictures of bathrooms. O_o
So, to end on a sweet and more normal note after this LOOONG entry, here's a picture of Odango that I bought at one of the stands on the way back to the station. Mmmm, yummy. ^_^
