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Himeji, Japan
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This place was Great
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Himeji-jo from a Distance
I had to get back to suburban Tokyo for another job interview so I caught a morning train and stopped in Himeji on the way. In distance, this is the equivalent of stopping in Fresno on the way from San Diego to San Francisco, in fact, its probably a hundred kilometers or so further from Hiroshima to Tokyo. But the train does it in 5 hours tops, with plenty of leg room and food service. So I had 3 hours to walk around the largest surviving (original) castle in Japan. It actually is only about 60% original after a recent retrofit in which they literally took it apart piece by piece and then rebuilt it like a lego castle your little brother knocked over or something. Anyway, it IS quite an impressive sight, which was the whole point I guess. It was built during the reign of the first Shogun as a display of power. The local lord didn’t even live there, in Japan, Castles were apparently only inhabited during times of war. Otherwise the lords and retainers lived in mansions arranged around the surrounding gardens. Not many of the living quarters actually survived, but the castle did its job, in 300 years it was never so much as attacked. Now, its pretty much the generic Samurai movie set, and was also used for an old Bond movie (they were proud of that one). They offer free English language tours and I asked so many questions that the free guide sent me home with a free book on bushido, the samurai code. I guess that they were in a big hurry to build the thing so they indentured 10000 people to build it, and sent them off to find really big rocks. The lord, meanwhile, went to the village where he was approached by an old woman who offered her mill stone to be used in the foundation. Touched by her generosity, the lord confiscated all the millstones in the village, a lot of people starved, and somebody wrote a Haiku about the whole thing. The millstone, or one of them anyway, is still visible today. Forgive me if I sound a bit skeptical, but they did just take the whole thing apart a few years ago. Anyway, it was quite a sight, and the gardens around the castle are just as beautiful with countless planned vistas with trees planted and pruned to provide a perfect picture window view of the tower. People just don’t pay that much attention to detail in other countries.
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Closer
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Famous Movie Set
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Main Gate
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From the Garden
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From the Garden 2
Posted
Dec 05, 2004
by ckrauskopf
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