Visiting
Himeji/Carlos Pueblo
Traveling
from Kanazawa to Himeji, I have me take a tourist express train
across the
central mountain area of Japan on Hakuriku Line, the future of
Hakuriku
Shingansen, passing through some pretty cities such as Fukui and
The beautiful
Biwa Lake, of course, I didn’t see very much of the lake due to
snowing. The
4th Senior High of Ishikawa and 3rd Senior High of Kyoto
athletes
competed in
rowboat before the War as recorded. In two hours I reached to
Kyoto
Station and transferred to Shingansen to Himeji in an hour. As usual,
I
encountered certain difficulty to locate the Hostel inside a busy shopping
center not
far from the famous Himeji Castle.
Finally, I
found the small inn and waited in front of the door until a lady manager
woke me up.
I was all sodden and in a panic due to the heavy rain. She took my
luggage
inside and asked me to come back at four, daily open hour. I wondered
around the
shopping center had food and dessert, a kind of small fish shape cake
with sweet
red bean paste in it. Reiko, the lady manager on duty, was our Dallas
SMU
educated, speaks good English and the next day manager, Poon is a sophomore
at the university
both are very polite and kind. I had visited the Castle, an art Museum,
and the
Koko-En Garden, an unique Japanese garden next to the Castle.
Himeji
Castle is white color is also called White Egret Castle, or White Heron Castle
because it
looks from distance like the bird is opening its wings and ready to take off.
A Castle has
always had an interesting history behind it especially after such a long
Time that I
call it a legend. Aksmatsu Norimara was appointed here as a lord in 1333
and built
the first stage of this Castle to protect his domain, this was Ashikaga’s
Muromachi
era, the one before Togugawa. Toyotomi Hedeyoshi made a big addition
To the 3rd
story in 1581. Tokugawa Ieyasu gave it to Ikeda Terumasa for his loyalty and
help in the
decisive Sekigahara Battle. He kept on building the Castle between 1601-
1609. For
some reason that I haven’t understood, the Daimyo became Honda Tadamasa.
He married
Ieyasu’s first granddaughter, Kumahime. Look, hime is a honor greeting of
A lady in
Japanese. His son, Honda Tadatoki, married Ieyasu’s successor, Hidetada’s
Daughter,
Senhime. Senhime and kumahime are cousins. This Senhime had a very
happy life
in her 10 years marriage with Tadatoki. I run out of my space to describe
more. The
other two famous Castles in Japan are Matsumoto Castle and Kumamoto
Castle among
the 100 preserved Castles in Japan.
Koko-En
Garden is the closed neighbor of the Castle with classical design yet current
Construction,
small bridge and the brook stream with a lot of colorful koi carps swimming
around. The
Garden consists of pine, bamboo, plum, and peach sub-garden with a one
story tea
house very beautiful, of course, many flower cherry trees.
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