Castle and Gardens

Hopefully the wet and windy weather is behind us now. Today was a gorgeous day for our trip out to Himeji, about an hour out of Kyoto by bullet train. All went smoothly getring there, and we were at the front gates of the castle before 10am.

The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture and its not hard to see why. Completef in 1618, it consists of a network of 83 buildings with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period. The most striking being the main keep, a six story, ornate, stark white structure raised on a hill that towers over the town of Himeji. It was awe inspiring to admire its magnificence on the hike up to the keep gates.

However, getting inside the keep itself was slightly underwhelming. Shoes off, polished wooden floorboards, a lot of stairs (like everywhere) but nothing else really. Some weapon racks, a couple trap doors, and little else. So in summary, I guess Himeji is like a hollow golden peanut. Magnificent and shiny on the outside, dark and empty on the inside.

We got through the entire castle, walls and garden in around 90 minutes without rushing. We walked back to the station via temporary (tents) and then permanent (shops) markets. The train had us back in Kyoto just before 1.
From there, a waffle for lunch to tide us over until Arashiyama. We switched to a local JLT train and headed on our way.

Arashiyama is a huge, popular mountainous park. It features a bamboo grove, many temples, dense forest and a monkey park. We covered a fair bit of it. Unfortunately it felt a LITTLE spoiled by excessive tourism, and the fading afternoon light (sun starts to set and fade by 2.30-3) didn't do it justice. We'd planned to grab more food here but on arrival (and pressed for time) it seemed food was pricey and exploiting tourism. We saw a poor woman get forced to pay 3000¥ ($35aud approx) for a plate of about 12 dumplings.

We pressed on through the bamboo grove, which was dense and pretty with the afternoon sun shining through the bamboo stems. From there we veered away from the hoards of tourists into the park proper to wander around, finding a nice lookout. Some of the autumn leaves of the forest and turquoise streams were stunning.

The last stop of the day would end up being the
Iwatayama Monkey Park. I'd hoped to make it to the Inperial Palace by its last entry at 4 but we were here, and running out of time so settled for monkeys. It was a 20 minute hike to their hang out spot... a steep climb into the mountain. There were dozens of wild Japanese macaque (snow monkeys) living here. "Wild" in that they're completely free range/ unrestricted.. but lured here by the prospect of being fed. It was still nice to see them up close and get great views of Kyoto. The monkeys appeared in decent health at least.

By the time we got down, back to the station and into Kyoto city again, the Imperial Palace was closed. I decided to try walk what looked around half hour to at least see its exterior but alas time, light, distance and the battered, blistered ruins of what were our feet, were against us. We headed home for a local dinner for our last night in Kyoto. Tomorrow we head towards Mount Fuji.Read more