Day 9 Touring: Kyoto - Himeji -Hiroshima, Sunny, 14

Early Blossoms, oh and a Castle!

A baggage transfer day and a change of accommodation and bed. We really enjoyed our time in Kyoto and agree that there is plenty there left undone to bring us back in the future. Perhaps after Australia allows us entry again we could wander here for a time on our way home. Once again we are sitting on a high speed train, the fanciest we have thus seen, on our way to Hiroshima for a one night stand. It's an hour run down from Himeji where we stopped to see the early blossoms and have our first lunch in an udon noodle joint. 

 

The formal gardens we stopped to see were quiet lovely even in early season. They were laid out in a very typical Japanese formal pattern with stones, q uiet waters and lots of different trees and bamboo. Very nice!

 

 

There were smaller Japanese cherry trees with a variety of different blossoms. Beautiful! These are for my fellow gardeners and flower lovers. The rest of you can just wait a moment!

 

 

 

This is an Azalea tree.

Rhonda, does this tree work, or do you want to wait and see what I find on the walk as the blossom season comes along the next three weeks?

 

 

Ok, enough with the blossoms! The real reason we stopped in Himeji on the way south was this...

 

Himeji Castle, a World Heritage Site. Construction began in 1333 with various additions over the following centuries. It's magnificent and quite photogenic!

 

We climbed up into the main keep which rises to 92 metres above sea level and the main walls are 23 metres high. Very impressive! The central vertical supporting beams are about a metre thick! The fortress covers a massive area .

 

 

 

The detail exquisite for this type of structure.

 

Even had its own ninja who tried to take me out! Missed me, but got this poor devil. I shielded Annemarie..."my hero!"

 

Will arrive in  Hiroshima shortly. Very curious about this stop. Having marched together through Amsterdam in 1981 during the "Ban The Bomb" protests that drew over a million people to the protest, I must say I'm not a fan of these weapons. But then who is? Ok, except for that nut in North Korea.  This could be a very memorable and likely emotional experience. But then, what Camino Ohenro experience isn't? 

Time to get off the train, and we will see what happens.

LATER:

We are sitting in an Italian restaurant having just customized a pizza with the owner. Now that was fun! We had a huge Japanese lunch today...the proof.

 

And knowing that we have endless fish and rice, udon, pickled vegetables and miso soup ahead of us in the coming weeks, we are eating some other dishes while we still can:)

 

It's after dinner and I'm finishing up this entry to post when we return to our hostel with fricken hard beds. It's going to be a long night for these pensioners! We are each consuming a fair bit of red wine tonight to dull the pain:)  Our host has just joined us for a chat and of course the conversation turned to the cherry blossoms that are coming soon. I showed him my photos from today and he called them sekura which is the word for the cherry blossom season, but in Japan it also means new life, new beginnings...spring. We had a long talk with him about the Ohenro and he has walked part of the Shokuko route and the second principle route on the main island. Yet another wonderful connection to what lies ahead of us. It fit in nicely with what we have been discussing tonight over dinner...our reasons for this journey. We haven't had this discussion until this evening and it's been a very good talk.

 

Before I turn this over to Annemarie, a last photo to share...

 

...never did see the grass?!

I have a series of haiku from Annemarie to share...but there may be a surprise tomorrow.

Haiku series for Kyoto

Temples, shrines, temples

History, culture preserved

A place to reflect

Market and buses

Philosophers walk, Gion

Imperial castle

Excursions on trains

Koyasan a highlight 

Long day well used

New friends,  new foods tried

Great Ominagiyaki 

Takomaki too

Practicing English 

While we try some Japanese

Communicating