Amagasaki 7 (for Mar. 23)
Carla and Tyler were both working today, but Carla had developed enough confidence in us to send us out on our own – accompanied by written instructions. Nothing too major. Catch the train a stone’s throw from their place; ride to the next station; get off and transfer to another train on another track; ride to destination; and do the reverse on the way back. It’s not quite that easy. You do have to watch for a few things. But we have picked up enough in the last week to make this doable.
We arrived safely in Himeji in the early afternoon and made our way about 1 km to Himeji Castle. The tour book says it is the most spectacular castle in Japan, and I have no reason to quibble. I found it very interesting. As we climbed the hill within the fortress I was intrigued by how, each time you passed one of the many gates, you entered a new courtyard covered by loopholes for marksmen or archers. Thus, the castle had many, many layers of defense, creating huge 
challenges for an attacker. The interior of the castle keep itself was basically empty, except for some exhibits about the various families that had held power in this region in various eras. It was still a very interesting tour to observe how it was constructed. Throughout the building were racks like this for the storage of guns and spears.
Adjacent to the castle was a complex of about 6 Japanese gardens that we toured. Each one had a different theme. They weren’t at their best due to the time of year. Most of the trees had not yet leafed out and it is not yet cherry blossom time, but something was blossoming. We think they are plums. A couple of other interesting things were the way they are training the evergreen trees by trussing them up with bamboo poles and the cherry trees with bamboo structures and the way they wrapped and bound some of the trees with straw. Don’t know what that is all about.
When we got back to Carla’s station we picked up a few groceries at the neighbourhood stores and headed home. Tyler had beaten us back by about an hour and Carla got home about 2 hours after us. We all sat down to some of the ice cream we had bought drizzled with some of the liqueur we had brought them from Australia. Mmmm, good!
We arrived safely in Himeji in the early afternoon and made our way about 1 km to Himeji Castle. The tour book says it is the most spectacular castle in Japan, and I have no reason to quibble. I found it very interesting. As we climbed the hill within the fortress I was intrigued by how, each time you passed one of the many gates, you entered a new courtyard covered by loopholes for marksmen or archers. Thus, the castle had many, many layers of defense, creating huge 
challenges for an attacker. The interior of the castle keep itself was basically empty, except for some exhibits about the various families that had held power in this region in various eras. It was still a very interesting tour to observe how it was constructed. Throughout the building were racks like this for the storage of guns and spears.
Adjacent to the castle was a complex of about 6 Japanese gardens that we toured. Each one had a different theme. They weren’t at their best due to the time of year. Most of the trees had not yet leafed out and it is not yet cherry blossom time, but something was blossoming. We think they are plums. A couple of other interesting things were the way they are training the evergreen trees by trussing them up with bamboo poles and the cherry trees with bamboo structures and the way they wrapped and bound some of the trees with straw. Don’t know what that is all about.
When we got back to Carla’s station we picked up a few groceries at the neighbourhood stores and headed home. Tyler had beaten us back by about an hour and Carla got home about 2 hours after us. We all sat down to some of the ice cream we had bought drizzled with some of the liqueur we had brought them from Australia. Mmmm, good!
posted by Celeste at
6:10 a.m.
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