White Heron Castle
- owwwla
- Mar 11
- 3 min read
After a few days in Tokyo, I set off on my journey to the west of Japan. This morning I boarded the shinkansen and traveled to Hiroshima via Himeji.
For those interested in the topic of superfast trains, I will mention that the journey from Tokyo to Himeji took an hour and a half (exactly), and Google Maps shows a distance of 572 km. When you calculate the average speed, remember that the train stops for a few minutes at each station, which shortens the actual journey time. And then there is slowing down before stoping.
The train looks similar to our intercity trains, although the vehicles I traveled in today were older, so the equipment is also not the latest design. In addition, you could feel the speed, and the tracks were clearly inclined in many places (more than on the Pendolino road). There was also a lot of noise, so if I had to compare this experience to something, it would be to flying by plane.
I posted a video on my channel with trains like these, which I watched myself while sitting in my window seat. Check it out through this link: https://youtu.be/SBeCJmXw5eQ?si=3PrIMdHgRSWaazoj
Himeji is a city that was destroyed and rebuilt after World War II, but fortunately no bomb hit the castle. That is why you can now visit it and admire the structures and arrangements of the space. You may have heard that approaching a samurai castle was a difficult task, because even if the attackers got through the moats, they would then end up between the walls on the Narrow paths leading to the main building (donjon) where they were exposed to the defenders with no way to hide. Today I saw it with my own eyes (and I'm posting photos below). I am very impressed, really.
Next to the castle are gardens arranged in various styles, and in their artificial streams and ponds there are crowds of koi carp. There are 350 of them separately. I can confirm that there are definitely a lot :)
There is also a tea pavilion hidden among the gardens, where you can stop for a treat - sweets and a bowl of "thin" tea, usucha. It was doubly enjoyable for me, because not only did I sit on mats like in my home pavilion in Krakow, but also hot tea was really exceptionally useful today. I didn't mention it, but the weather today was such that I could wonder if I was visiting Japan or Scotland ;P It was drizzling all day, although it was generally quite warm. However, if you add to this walking barefoot on the wooden floors of the castle, you can imagine how pleasantly warming the hot drink was :)
Okay, time for photos ;)
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