Himeji, Japan

Himeji was on my bucket list, in particular, Himeji Castle which is a great building in the Forge of Empires online game that I play regularly. I have a goal to visit as many great buildings as I can, in real life. Himeji was a relatively short train ride from Osaka. The day before we checked out of the Park Front Hotel Universal City Osaka, we took our luggage to the Sagawa Luggage Service desk located inside the hotel itself. This time around, we have an additional large suitcase, bought in Kyoto for the Japanese stuff, kimonos and Universal Studio souvenirs that we have picked up. The suitcases will be going directly to Tokyo Bay Hotel near Tokyo Disneyland where we will stay for 3 days.

We arrived in Himeji train station and walked to our hotel nearby, the Comfort Hotel Himeji. This is a modern hotel, clean and simple, in the business district. After the crowds in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, Himeji felt very quiet and peaceful. We checked in, dropped our bags and immediately went to Himeji Castle.

Then we walked to Himeji Castle a majestic feudal castle listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. At the ticket booth, we discovered that we had only one and a half hour before the castle is closed although the grounds were open a little longer. Since we were in Himeji for only one night, we paid for the tickets. The walk to the Castle took about 15 minutes: we were required to take off our shoes when we entered. They allowed only a small group at a time because the stairs to each floor are steep and narrow. Exhibit boards in English pointed out historical and cultural details. We climbed all 4 floors, and made sure to peek out the windows to check out the roof tiles and the courtyards.

After the Castle, we walked around town looking for food. My daughter found an oden restaurant with great reviews. Oden is a well known dish special to Himeji. We had a hard time finding the restaurant and walked by it twice. It was a tiny diner, past the door was a narrow space with about 6 high chairs along a counter. We were the only 2 customers. The owner did not speak any English but managed to convey what we should order. It was a bit like Chinese/Korean hotpot except they don't serve the broth. We watched him prepare our meals, selected veggies, tofu, boiled eggs and fish cakes that were cooking in broth, cut them into pieces, beautifully presented and served with condiments (soy sauce, ginger, grated daikon) in a separate bowl. He recommneded a cocktail made from Japanese gin that was pretty good. He was curious how we know about oden. My daughter, who spoke a little Japanese, said she learned about it from reading manga. He thought it was very amusing. Personally, I found oden to be rather bland.

After dinner, we stopped at a local supermarket and got some mochi for dessert.

The next morning, we had a very good breakfast at the hotel, free with our room rate. We checked out of the hotel and walked back to Himeji Station. We are on our way back to Tokyo, the last segment of our trip.