Japan: Himeji Castle

June 5, 2018 - 

You’d think after the long day I just encountered, I’d be sleeping in the next morning.  This was not the case.  I woke up around 4:30am.  I laid around trying to get back to sleep, but finally surrendered an hour later.  Ben had to go to work at 6am.  They don’t even give him a day to deal with jet lag.  And if that is not bad, he was looking at pretty much a 12 hour day.  That has to suck.

For everyone else, we were now in a quest for food.  We walked around some but just settled for some good ol’ American McDonalds.  Sam was our guide for today and suggested getting on the train and to head to Himeji to see the Himeji castle.  He claimed that once you see this castle, we wouldn’t need to see any others.

When someone says the term castle, I usually think about the von Ludwig castle in Germany; the castle that inspired the Walt Disney castle.  This looks nothing like that.  However, it was still cool to see and walk thru.  There were many floors, or ‘keeps” as they called them.  The stairs were very steep and he had to be careful not to hit your head going up or down them.  That was more so for Jack.

Sam explained why the castle was build the way it is; mainly for defensive purposes.  There were plenty of places where rocks could be thrown down on invaders and doors when they shot arrows out.

On our way back, Sam suggested a stop at Suma to eat at his favorite hot dog place.  Making our train stop, the first establishment we see was a Mister Donut.  Yes, a Mister Donut; just like we had growing up.  In fact the logo was still the same.  Dennis mentioned he saw one when we were riding out to Himeji.  I figured it was likely a name coincidence.  Nope.  This looks to be the original chain donut shop.  Japan is sounding better and better.

We went to the hot dog place first with plans to stop at Mister Donut for dessert.  I order 2 hot dogs as Sam told me they would be small.  All portions of food and drink are small in Japan.  The waitress seems to be in some disbelief that I want 2 hot dogs and needs to confirm it.  I somehow manage to do this.  The meal was ok.  The hot dogs are just different in Japan as they are in the US.  In both countries, you have no idea what’s in a hot dog.  In Japan, they have a thicker bun and place a lot more toppings on it.

Now on to Mister Donut.  Again, they were good, but a bit different than what were used to in the US.  I noticed the selection to be a lot less than what we had at Mister Donut.  But that was a long time ago.

We retuned to the Crowne Plaza to rest and get cleaned up to eat later.  I decided to take a nap which then turned into going to bed for the night.  I woke up about 5:30 and was too tired to even get up.  I did awake again around 10pm and figured the day was done.  I got up to take my contact lenses out and call it a night.  Jet lag was in full force.