Japan, Day 12 (Part I)

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Dad really wanted to take me to Osaka Castle, but I chatted with Margaret online when we were at the Kyoto Station and she said that Osaka Castle was lame and too "cementy" compared to Himeji Castle. Determined to prove Margaret wrong (he didn't), Dad decided that we would go to Himeji instead.

We had to take the bullet train to Himeji from Kyoto, but then to get to the castle, we just had to walk for about ten minutes. Even from the train station, the castle is impressive. But first, the Teddy Bear Shop for Zoey:

Here's the castle from far away.

And the gate leading up to it (this after we crossed the giant moat).

Getting closer...

The thing in front of the castle is one of the many walls surrounding the castle. The walls are actually very narrow buildings with room for guards to walk around inside.

Despite the castle's size, it is covered in tiny, beautiful details. The marks on the ends of the tiles are the family's crest.

And yet another gate to get to the castle.

It really was tiring to climb all this way, but there were so many old ladies with their canes who were beating me to the top, which was somewhat inspiring to at least get there.

Originally when building the castle, the community had a lot of trouble getting everything together. The story is that an old lady brought a rock from her house to help build the base of the castle. Her example made everyone in the town of Himeji get inspired to help out, and soon, everyone was bringing rocks to the castle.

I think this is the last door that we had to go through to get into the castle. At this point, we had to take off our shoes so that we didn't ruin the beautiful wood floors throughout.

The main tower has five stories, and what makes this castle particularly cool is the fact that it has never been destroyed by warfare, unlike most castles. Everywhere you look, there are little holes in the walls near the floor, which are rock throwing holes. They are angled just right to hit anyone walking up the road to the castle. Higher up, there are holes for shooting arrows. As I looked along the walls, I noticed a bunch of hooks all over the place. We later learned that they were all for storing weapons. The entire castle seemed to be devoted to storing weapons--there are hooks everywhere you look, and where there are no hooks, there are closets for storing more weapons.

Also lining the hallways are artifacts that have been found throughout the years. One of the neatest things was some old samurai armor. It was made for someone who was about 3 feet tall! There was also a lot of artwork.

Here's a view from the top:

Also at the top is a shrine.

The stairs on the way up and the way down were really steep and slippery. Yes, we minded our heads. I ended up having to take off my slippers and just walk around in my socks.

This diorama shows the layout of the city of Himeji. The English sign said that the city is divided into three different parts. The city itself is surrounded by a wall, which defined what was a part of Himeji and what wasn't. The people who lived in the outermost part of the city were the farmers. The people who lived inside the second wall were the samurai and skilled workers. Finally, inside the moat and third wall was the royal family (plus as you saw, tons of walls and doors past that).

A view from right in front of the castle.

This area is where people were allowed to commit suicide--the English signs literally said, "Suicide Quarters." As we walked down into this area, we had to go through a dark, cave-like structure. It was really weird because it seemed to get darker the second we entered this area. The black crow making creepy noises didn't help the mood.

Also creepy was this well--supposedly a woman was drowned in it and her screams could be heard from the well until her body was finally removed.

And on that happy note, that about finished our trip to Himeji Castle. The only other thing that for some reason I don't have any pictures of would be the Princess's Quarters. The area built for the Princess is a long, narrow building to the side of the castle. Instead of being hard wood, her room had tatami mats and a dressing area. The entire building was for women to live in.

What a cool place! Dad did admit that Margaret was right, this place is waayyyy cooler.