Driving Miss Karen

A blog about our travel

Daytrip to Himeji Castle

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Kyoto is very convenient to Himeji Castle. About an hour by train with trains every 15-20 minutes. We were bold (for us) and didn’t even make reservations. Himeji is a cool little town but the Castle is the highlight. Himeji castle is one of the few if not the only castle in Japan to have not been attacked, knocked down by earthquakes, burned down by fire, or bombed. So it is one of the earliest original structures in Japan. The gardens next door are also quite nice and we enjoyed the small town a lot

Himeji castle was built as a defensive castle but for most of its history it has been an administrative center for the prefecture

It is gorgeous and imposing and all that. The views are pretty and there is a lot of history since it was built in the early 1600s
The inside is equally impressive with gigantic beams and beautiful wood everywhere. You have to take your shoes off which makes it even quieter
Of course there is a shrine at the top and people lining up to pray
These are the carp roof caps. Since fish live in water they are believed to help prevent fires
The gardens next door had the normal Japanese garden items. A waterfall, a bridge, some koi, and a tea house. It was very pretty like all the gardens we’ve seen
Karen’s fried tofu was pretty good
My curry with beef was super-rich and tasty
We thought we had lined up some Kobe beef but the place was shuttered even though Google said it was open. Found a really nice udon place filled with locals. It was such a nice experience and they were so happy when we said it was “Umami” or savory (which it was). Karen had fried tofu (good) and I had curry with beef (great)

Jose

AKA Alfred

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