Climbing a National Treasure: Himeji Castle

Monday, July 18, 2016

After recuperating from our long, hot trip to Rabbit Island the day before, we had one more significantly easier day trip from Osaka to do. It was to Himeji Castle.

We took a local train to Himeji from Shin-Osaka for about $16ow and in less than two hours we were there.

Arriving at the station one can see the castle in the distance looking very imposing indeed.

Once exiting the train station, it’s a very easy walk to get to the castle. Either walk up the broad avenue towards the castle, take a bus, a cab if you’re lazy, or do what we did: walk through the covered shopping area that is parallel to the main drag keeping in the shade most of the way. It’s about a twenty-minute walk or so and when it’s 90plus, it’s good to escape the sun for that time.

Exiting the covered walkway, we then had to walk a block or so, cross a busy street, and then follow the crowds to the front of the castle entrance. By the time we arrived at the entrance to the castle we were sweating, and hoped for coolness inside the building.

There are two options available for entrance: either 1000yen (about $10) for the castle only, or for 1400yen (about $14) one can see the gardens to the left of the castle as well. We opted for the garden/castle combo because I had read that the gardens were beautiful and for $4 I wasn’t going to miss them.

Entering the castle entrance, there are some great photo ops for awesome shots but very little shade.

Once entering the structure of the castle itself, everyone must remove their shoes and carry them for the remainder of the visit. And by ‘Visit’ I mean a climb of five or six stories on wooden stairs that get narrower and steeper as one reaches the top.

There is really nothing to see except the view from the windows. There is an app available that one can download and which I believe provides some historical information. We didn’t do that, though. So basically we just followed the crowd up to the top and then followed them back down to the bottom.

Luckily, inside the castle it was cool-ish and there was a lovely breeze that came in through the open windows the higher we went. Thank god.

This is not a place for people suffering from claustrophobia or the inability to climb up six flights of very narrow stairs.

But everyone who gets to the top wins a prize! Not really.

 

But it does provide some beautiful views.

After exiting the castle grounds, we walked along the moat to the left side of the castle and entered the gardens.

 

They were beautiful and offered some respite from the horrible heat and definitely worth a visit.

 

After walking around here, we wandered across the street for a cold beer and then slowly walked back to the station.

We decided to wait an hour or so until it got dark to see the castle lit up before heading back to Osaka.

 

It slowly turned a different color. And then we headed home—fried from the heat.

This was a day trip I suggest anyone in Osaka take.

If You Suffer From Leporiphobia, You Can Disregard This Post

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Leporiphobia is the fear of rabbits. Okunoshima Island is a place to avoid if one suffers from this phobia. It’s a small island located in the Inland Sea of Japan in the city of Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture and is a national park accessible by ferry from the ports of Tadanoumi or Ōmishima. The island’s nickname is Rabbit Island.

The island is very small and is home to over 700 rabbits (we learned from the announcement made by the captain of the ferry boat over the loudspeaker on the approach to the island).

One can access Rabbit Island on a daytrip. We took the train from Shin-Osaka to Mihara (transferring along the way). From Mihara, we took the local Kure Train (we just followed the signs for the Kure at Mihara) to Tadanoumi.  After arriving at the Tadanoumi station, we exited the train station and followed the crowd, heading to the right. At the corner, there was a sign directing us to again turn right to the Tadanoumi Port. It took us about fifteen minutes or so walking to arrive at the port itself.

Once at the port, we got in line to purchase the 300yen ferry tickets (about $3 each way for adults), and also some bunny food, as they don’t sell the food on the island.

We waited quite awhile for the ferry as there were some departures suspended due to boat maintenance. From what we could tell, they weren’t really adhering to any schedule though, so we just stood and waited. At this point, there was nothing else we could do.

The day was really hot and by the time we reached the island it was early afternoon and the bunnies were either really burned out on rabbit snacks or they were just plain worn out because we did not get the exited bunny turnout we had expected. I’ve seen pictures of people covered by rabbits, but we never seemed to get more than four or five bunnies at one time. I guess you just need to sit down on the ground, cover yourself with rabbit snacks, and be patient. If that is your thing.

 

 

I thought the rabbits looked a bit mangy looking upon closer inspection though, and did not want to catch bubonic plague, so I kept a respectful distance and didn’t care that we were ignored by the majority. 

 

It was fun to see so many bunnies everywhere though.

 

We did not come only for the bunnies, however. We also came to see the island’s much darker-themed museum.

A small two-room museum was built in the late 80s to commemorate the island’s historical importance and to teach the ‘meaninglessness of war’ according to its brochure.

In the late 20s the island was used as a secret poisonous gas factory. The island was so secretive that it was left off of many maps of that time period and the few residents of the island and its workers were not even told what they were working on, and suffered much because of the poor conditions.

The museum features examples of the poorly made haz-mat rubber suits the workers wore, as well as pictures of the diseases they suffered from exposure to the gases. While much of the museum pieces are in Japanese only, there are some English translations as well as an English version of the brochure.

SML

The museum is located across the street from the Visitor’s Center and can be reached either by jumping on the free hotel shuttle bus located at Pier 2 where the ferry stops, and getting off at the Visitor’s Center—or by walking 15-20 minutes or so up the road to the left from this pier (there are two piers on the island about a 15-minutes walk apart) . 

The free hotel bus picks up at the pier, drives past the Visitor’s Center and Musem and stops at the hotel. That is the route. We kept riding past the museum, thinking it was somewhere else. It’s not.

It took about ten minutes to see the museum contents.

Besides the museum, the island has a hotel, a six-hole golf course and a small camping ground. It’s a pretty place and the water looks clear—though I didn’t see anyone swimming.

I’m glad we went to the island since it’s something I’d wanted to see, but after visiting it, I don’t know that I can recommend the time and expense to do it. Unless maybe you really love rabbits. Even mangy looking ones.

But make sure to leave all bunny memories behind.