Himeji Castle

Left the hotel a little earlier today, caught the subway from Gojo station up to Kyoto station (1 stop) and had breakfast at one of the many little cafe restaurants there. We caught the 10.16 bullet train to Osaka (about 20 minutes by bullet) then changed onto another bullet to Himeji (approx 30 minutes from Osaka).

Although we passed through a number of cities, in reality its really one mega city all the way from Kyoto to Osaka and Himeji, a little bit of farmland, but mostly suburb atfer suburb. Most of the houses in the Suburbs look reasonably large, far bigger than I would have imagined for Japan.

At Himeji we walked about 1km to the Castle, one of the few if not the only remaining timber castles in Japan, rather than me tell you all the details, you can read about the castle at :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji_Castle

Your allowed in the building, but must remove shoes. They provide slippers, but its rather scary going up the stairs in the castle (which are more akin to ladders) with slipper, especially when your carrying a ton of cameras etc. I soon took of the slippers and just walked in my socks. A significant number of others were doing the same.

Walked back to the station, stopping at a small supermarket (well small by Australian standards) to pick up a few essentials, had lunch in a small restaurant at the top of a large department store, then caught a bullet directly to Kyoto.

At lunch this time, Paul's lunch was messed up, he was given the same thing I ordered. Quite tasty though, so I don't think he was too concerned.

One thing where Japan is 20 years behind Australia is in the attitude to smoking. Trains still have smoking cars, and all restaurants have a smoking area, which can be very loosely defined. Thankfully they don't smoke on aircraft any longer (international flights anyway, we are not doing any domestic flights)

Todays pictures of Himeji Castle

http://flickr.com/photos/sg_harrison/sets/72157604485689067/