The "purpose" of our trip was to see the Kobe Iruminarie (or illumination). We left early Saturday morning and took a bus from Takayama to Kyoto, where we caught a train to Himeji. As it turns out, the bus drops you off at a random stop along the highway in Kyoto, nowhere near the station. Or anything, for that matter. We ended up catching a cab once it became apparent we had no idea where we were in the city, ha ha ha
In Kyoto station we found these fabulous ice cream sandwich things. Heart-shaped and made of delicious ^_^ I got mint chocolate chip. They're so adorable they force you to make cute poses in pictures
....anyway, we actually rode the train through Kobe to a town called Himeji, which is the home of what has been called Japan's most beautiful castle, Himeji-jo.
We were lucky and got a great English tour of the castle, for free! So what would have been the two of us quickly wandering through the castle and gardens not having much of a clue of what we were looking at turned into a 2 hour, very informative, stroll.
We got a nice lecture on all the fasicnating defensive designs built into the castle, as well as a little history on who lived there and how they lived. For example, these ladies are playing a type of "memory" game using colored seashells. The cat, however, is just sitting there.
The castle is full of really cool defensive structures that were never used. It was never attacked, and even managed to avoid destruction during the bombing campaign of WWII.
The different shapes of the holes are for different types of weapons - guns and arrows mostly. It's cool to think it was first designed right after guns were introduced in to Japan (castle was built in the 17th century, guns arrived in the 1500's I believe).
As a (somewhat dormant) geologist, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the "oil-slick" wall, which is actually the original wall. It's 400 years old, and made of dirt. I am SO impressed
Himeji, as viewed from the top of the castle
And our guide was kind enough to show us the perfect spot for getting an up-close shot in front of the castle. Cause we didn't already have like, 50 pictures in front of it, ha ha ha
One of the most famous ghost stories in Japan purportedly originated from this castle. The story goes that there was a maid in the castle whose sole responsibility was to care for 10 priceless dishes. Each day she would take them out, polish and count them, and then put them back. One day she was asked by the lord to bring the dishes... but she could only find 9. As she lost one of the dishes, and had therefore been derelict in her duty, she was executed and her body was thrown in this well
The story goes that her sould is unable to rest, and you can hear a sorrowful voice coming from the well, counting... ichi-mai, ni-mai, san-mai (1, 2, 3...) up to kyu-mai (9), at which point it wails and starts all over again.
This story is quite famous at many castles, but our guide assured us it really started at this one. I asked her if there was some back story or alterier motive for them killing her (seems a bit harsh for losing a dish, even if it was expensive). Apparently, she doubled as a consort and her lover happened to be a samurai the lord was plotting to assassinate. However, she found out about the plan and warned the samurai, who got away. So the lord hid one of the dishes and used it as an excuse to execute her, which then enraged her samurai lover who then attacked the lord and was himself disposed of.
Pretty sneaky, hu?
After the castle we wandered over to the gardens that are right next door, and absolutely beautiful. I'll let the pictures do the talking...
After Himeji we headed in to Kobe to see the Illumination. Which involved waiting in a line that puts even the best wait at Disneyland, during New Years to shame. It was more like following a parade route through Sannomiya (the district of Kobe we were in) than waiting to see anything
It took us about a half an hour of shuffling along with the herd before we finally approached what drew so many people to Kobe to stand in line in the cold...
You can see all the cellphones sticking up taking pictures ^_^
From far away it looks like a church, but as you get closer you can see that it's made of many separated arches along an arcade
Once we finally got into it, we started to wonder, there aren't any tickets or anything, it's all outside, how do they enforce the 10pm close time? About 20 seconds after we took this picutre we got the answer
As all the lights went out precicely at 10pm. lol, Japan.
The next day we got up and found an enormous outlet mall near our hostel.
It came complete with a Starbucks, which we hovered around until it opened. While we waited, we took in the view of Akashi Strait, where you can see the longest suspension bridge in the world - the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge.
Once we got bored of looking at the view, we literally sat outside the Starbucks until it opened. I was too embarrased to walk in immediately after they opened the door... so we waited a good 30 seconds before making our way in ^_^
People here usually assume Theresa is Japanese until she openes her mouth, but nobody makes that mistake with me (I can't quite figure out why... must be something about the way I carry myself -_^). The guy behind the counter was trying to talk to me in English and gave me the price - 4500 yen. Hee hee hee, I didn't have the heart to tell him he was an order of magnitude off, I just smiled and said "wow, great English!" in Japanese. Which ended up endearing us to him apparently as he personally delivered our coffee to our table after making a special trip over to the condiment counter to get cream and sugar and napkins. I love this country!
After Starbucks we headed into Kobe and visited the Chinese market.
Theresa was in heaven, and I got my first taste of bubble tea!
And then, before we left, we set off in search of Kobe beef for lunch. Which turned out to be quite the odyssey as we could not find ONE coin locker in the station. Not one! So we hauled all our crap with us, all over Sannomiya looking for a restaraunt in the guidebook. Which we neved did find. But we took a chance and actually ended up in a great tempanyaki restaraunt with a nice view of the city and a good lunch deal.
The beef was really good. Well worth it's reputation.
After we finished eating, and while we were drinking our coffee, one of the watiers/ cooks brought out a giant slab of Kobe beef and plopped it on the grill in front of us. Bewildered, we just looked from it, to him, and back to it, before he said "take a picture"...
And then he said "now I'll take a picture of you with the beef." Quite matter-of-factly. And so, I found myself holding a giant cut of raw cow, an inch from my face...
I kept going back and forth between a smile and a strange look on my face, and managed to wind up with a strange-looking smile instead, ha ha ha.
After that we got some Kobe Pudding (which all of my students had instructed me to get when I told them I was going), and headed home. To the snow!
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