Himeji Castle..not Bessho!

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April 1st 2008

Published: April 2nd 2008

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xamena

Himejo-Bessho

The worst place to be in Japan. I actually think bessho means hell in Japanese...

On Saturday, me, Lani, and her roommate Rachelle went to see the Himeji Castle, and it was one of the best "little" trips I've had this semester! Even though things didn't work out exactly as we had planned, it was still a lot of fun! And we learned an important lesson from that day...to always expect the unexpected!

We planned on leaving at 11 AM Saturday morning. But let's be honest, this is me and Lani...so we took our time and had a nice breakfast in the dining room and got to talking about Okinawa and skydiving. By the time we had decided that you are more likely to die from skydiving than bungee jumping (Lani had jumped off the Macao Tower over spring break), we looked at the clock and realized it was already 12! So we decided we should be going since Taka told us it would take about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get there!

And getting to Himeji was not easy!...

We walked to Makino Station and got on the train to Kyobashi. Then we had to get on the JR Loop line to Osaka Station. That should have only taken about 10

Middle of Nowhere

This was the entire station right here

minutes but of course we found a way to screw it up! We went to the wrong platform, not really thinking about what we were doing. We just assumed that since it was a loop, it didn't matter which direction we went. If you got on the right train, Osaka Station was only about 2 stops over. But if you got on the train going the other way, like we did, you had to go around the whole loop before reaching Osaka. After we were on the train for about 15 minutes we started to wonder...so what should have taken only 15 minues ended up taking at least 30! And that's not even the worst part...

Once we were at Osaka Station we had to switch to another JR line to take us to Himeji. But we didn't have to go through the exit, all we had to do was switch platforms. So we knew the tickets we had wouldn't be enough, but we were just going to do the fare adjustment when we got to the station in Himeji. We went to this one platform that was supposed to be going to Himeji, according to what we could

Empty

Other than this guy, there was no one else there

figure out from the signs. But we got up there and asked one of the train attendants if this was the right one, and he told us it's actually the next platform over. And as soon as we looked over we saw the train arriving! So we ran down the stairs and went up to the next platform and just barely caught the train. Luckily it was an express train and had pretty nice seats. We were pretty comfortable and decided to eat the lunches we had packed. So me and Lani ate out left over food from Sweets Paradise and Rachelle at a sandwhich she had made. It was so messy trying to eat the cake from our containers since neither of us had thought to bring a fork! And it's already rude to eat in public, but we can get away with it cause we're foreigners! After that we all put on our music and went to sleep since it was going to be on the train for at least an hour...

I dozed in and out of sleep, but the next thing I remember was Rachelle waking me up wondering if we were at our stop.

Waiting...

Waiting at Himeji-Besso for 30 minutes

The stop was called Himeji-bessho, and we didn't know if it was the same thing as Himeji-jo (for once we didn't do enough research). But we all agreed that Himeji couldn't be big enough to have two different stops, so we got off the train at Himeji-bessho. But once we got off the train we realized that we were basically in the middle of nowhere! It wasn't even a real station, just two platforms. And it was completely empty! We immediately knew that we had gotten off at the wrong place. So we checked the train schedule and the next train wasn't coming for another 30 minutes. We ended up having to sit outside on the platform at the empty station, and to make things even worse it was really cold that day! So we were freezing and bored and tired and lost...not a good combination! But somehow those 30 minutes passed and we finally got on the next train. It was even worse then because we realized that the Himeji-jo stop was only 2 more stops away...we were so close! If we hadn't gotten off at Himeji-bessho we would have been in Himeji a long time ago. So now

30 Minutes Later...

We can see the train!

we basically hate Himeji-bessho.

So after all that, we finally reached the real Himeji! But we were in for yet another surprise...when we went to the fare adjustment counter at the exit for the station we were shocked whent he lady told us we owed 1500 Yen (that's like $15). We had no idea it would cost that much to go to Himeji. But we payed anyway and then made our way around to the other end of the station where the tourist information center was located, and it was about 4:15 by then. We were trying to get directions to the castle, and that's when we were informed that the castle CLOSED at 4 PM. We just looked at each other and couldn't believe we had come all that way and paid all that money and then have the castle be closed!

But we were still determined to salvage the trip and make the best out of the situation...

So we started walking down the main street towards the castle. I was surprised to find that Himeji was actually a pretty big city. I had expected there to be just a castle and nothing else, kind

The Train

Finally our train arrived and we were out of Himeji-bessho

of like Himeji-bessho looked. But there were a lot of buildings and even a lot of tourists. I guess that should've been expected though, considering Himeji is the most visited castle in Japan! But one thing we definitely weren't expecting was all the naked statues in the city. We would be walking down the street and see a random naked statue in the middle of the sidewalk. It was very strange! Eventually we could see the castle in the distance, but we were so mad about how our day had been going, so we were in a bad mood the whole time walking to it. We kept complaining about everything...the weather, the long walk, how tired we were. And the Himeji Castle was now referred to as "that damn castle." But we had come all the way to Himeji and we were determined to see that castle even if it was closed!

When we were right across the street from the castle entrance, the day started to get a lot better! We saw an ice scream stand that had some really good ice cream flavors, like cappucino, sakura cherry, grape, melon, red bean, and black sesame, among others. So

On the Train

On our way to Himeji!

we decided to stop and try some...did you really think we could go a whole day without any sweets? I had grape, Lani had cappucino, and Rachelle had sakura cherry. The grape was very oishii! And from the tiny taste I got of the other girls' flavors, they were really oishii as well. Then we kept walking while we were eating our ice cream, and just around the corner were more ice cream stands! They had a lot of the same flavors, but this one stand had some new ones, like apple mango. I really wanted to try it. It was such a funny sight though because the three of us were standing in front of the ice cream stand just staring at the pictures of the different ice cream flavors WHILE we were holding ice cream cones and eating them. That's just sad...but I'm proud to say that I did not give into temptation and didn't try the apple mango ice cream!

Now that we were starting to feel happier, we crossed the street and finally decided to go the castle. Fortunately the castle grounds didn't close, only the inside of the castle. And there was a huge

Angry Kid

This kid's mom made him sit next Lani and he looked really mad the whole time. He wouldn't even turn towards us!

park area all around the castle. In fact, that's why Himeji Castle is so famous...its grounds were used in a lot of movies. It's where Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai was filmed and was also in one of the James Bond movies. So we were able to get a lot of nice pictures of the castle from the outside...but the real fun was when we went walking around the castle grounds...

In front of the castle was a huge open field with sakura trees blooming all around the edges. It was so beautiful! There were people having picnics and throwing frisbees out on the field. We took a lot of pictures with the sakura! Then we started following one of the trails and started making our way to the park and around the castle. The park was really beautiful. There were trees blooming everywhere, and there were also little places to climb up to on stone steps that had a great view of the city. At one point we came to a place where weddings are held, and it was really pretty. Then we came to a stream that went throughout the park. We were taking pictures at every

There's the Castle!

See the castle roof, right behind all those buildings? lol

single place we could find! But the best part was when we came to a little playground area. Although we knew we were probably breaking a lot of cultural rules, we decided to play on the playground equipment! We played on the swings and even got a Japanese guy to take a picture of all of us, even though he had been giving us a strange look before. Then I tried out the slide, and then me and Rachelle went on the teeter-totter (Lani couldn't embarrass herself that much). We had so much fun on the playground that we thought it couldn't get any better...but it did!

Right after we left the playground we saw this Japanese guy walking a HUGE dog! I was so surprised to see such a big dog, because usually everything is so small here. Most people have tiny little dogs that they can dress up, so it was odd seeing such a large dog! We went up to the dog and were like "oh, kawaii desu!" and then asked the owner if we could take a picture of it. He was really nice and, after wiping all the drool off of the dog's mouth,

Himeji Station

Coming out of the Himeji Station

he let us hold the leash! He just handed the leash over to me, which I wasn't expecting. I actually hesitated for a moment because I honestly think that dog could have easily overpowered me. But it turned out ok and we all got a turn to get a picture with the dog!

Then we kept walking along the path when Leilani spotted a tiny little stray cat along the side. It was so cute and immediately ran up to us. I started petting it and was really surprised by how friendly it was! Usually stray cats are hesitant to come up to people, but this one just came right up and started crawling all over me. It crawled between me legs and then started to climb up on me towards my face! I wasn't expecting that at all, so I kind of freaked out. Then he went over to Leilani and was trying to crawl up her leg too! And sometimes it looked like it was trying to attack her. So me and Lani loved the little cat, but Rachelle on the other hand, wasn't very amused. The cat tried to eat the fuzzy balls on her boots

Central Park

The central park area of the city

and after that she started to walk away. But me and Lani played with it more and it even started following us when we were walking away. I wanted to take it with me so bad, it would've fit in my purse, and it could've lived at the Seminar House...no one would ever know. We even gave it a name, Candy, because of our candy cat nicknames! It could have been our mascot or something. But we decided that wouldn't be such a good idea...Oh and it was only afterwards that we realized we still had our containers from lunch in our purses, so that's probably why Candy liked us so much!...Guess she was a candy cat too!

By then we had finally come to the end of the castle grounds and had made our way completely around the castle. At the end there were some more sakura trees, and we wanted to get a picture with them. But this time we thought it would be cute to put some sakura flowers in our hair...but we were scared to take any off the tree because the Japanese love them so much, we didn't want to get in trouble! So

Himeji

The main street in Himeji

I just took some off really quick when no one was looking and we got our pictures! Then we stopped at a souvenir store and bought some omanjuu (sweet pastry) because Rachelle had heard they were famous in Himeji.

After walking around the entire castle, we were pretty hungry and for some reason we were craving McDonald's. But mostly Lani, because she still hadn't tried the ebi (shrimp) burger. We had remembered seeing a McDonald's sign on the way to the castle so we decided to start walking back. Well we eventually saw the sign down the road. So we turned off the main road and started walking toward the giant M. But when we got closer we saw that it was only a sign saying the McDonald's was 600 m ahead. We didn't know how long that was, but we were determined to have McDonald's, so we kept walking. We walked for at least 20 minutes before we finally reached that place...

But it was worth it! For some reason McDonald's just hit the spot that night. Maybe because we had to work so hard for it, I don't know. But we had a good dinner and

To the Castle...

Walking towards that damn castle, that was already closed!

then ate our omanjuu's. Although they weren't what we expected. Usually the omanjuu's have nothing in them or red bean filling, but these had custard filling. It was good though, just a little unexpected. Then after McDonald's we walked all the way back to the main road and back to the station. There we proceeded to buy our 1600 Yen train ticket back to Kyobashi. It was the most expensive train ticket I've ever bought at the ticket machine! The train ride back was a lot less stressful. We had learned our lesson from earlier and took the right train on the loop this time. And then we got distracted by some store in the Kyobashi station, so we ended up taking a little longer, but eventually we made it back to Makino. Then we still had a 15 minute walk back to the Seminar House. So we didn't get back until about 11 PM. We were all so exhausted, but it had been such a fun day! So maybe it took us 4 hours to get to Himeji, and were stuck at Himeji-bessho, and the castle was closed when we got there, but in the end it turned out