Day Thirteen: Kyoto/Osaka + Himeji (Yeah, I guess it's pretty big... Vol 2)

Due to the lack of a laptop charger, we have not been regularly blogging for a little while. I propose to gloss over this error by posting updates for all the days we missed and acting like it never happened. So even though this is actually the very early morning of Day 15 at the time of writing, please pretend it's Day 13 (Feb. 14) all over again.

The stay in the ryokan was all too short; by 10am we were packed up and ready to ship out. But although we would end the day at a new hostel in Osaka, our sights were focussed on a different target. We were bound for Himeji, and we were headed there for only one reason: to see a really awesome castle. We walked to the castle from the train station, which took about 15 minutes, where we met up with Steph and entered the castle grounds.

We were not disappointed. Himeji Castle has been built and rebuilt across several centuries, and the buildings that stand today are incredibly impressive. This will be a short post: I don't have any particular interest in going over every single bit of it like a tour guide, but there were some distinct highlights. The view of the main tower from the area just outside of it was awe-inspiring, as was the view from the top of the tower itself. There were some cool sets of armour and weapons within the tower, and a range of buildings serving a variety of purposes (like the suicide area). All in all, it was pretty fucking awesome.

After the castle was done with, we made the long journey back to Kyoto to get our bags before hopping on yet another train to Osaka. We arrived well into the evening, but luckily our hostel was right near a station so we didn't have to head far. We ate, I blogged and that's the end of that.


More to come soon.