TL;DR – I visited one of the Wonders of the World at Himeji Castle.  

Disclosure – I paid for my flights, accommodation, entry, and everything you see purchased in this article.

Exploring Japan –

I had always planned to go back to Japan one day, and had started making plans to go back in 2020, and then 2020 happened. But late last year, I finally had the chance to put those plans back in motion as I flew out of Melbourne for Osaka, and thus my time in Japan began.  

Now, I had been travelling around Australia for work before heading to Japan, which meant two things. The first was that I was hit with a nasty batch of Jet Lag [not the game], but secondly it meant that I took some good advice and booked a hotel with a washer-dryer in-house because I don’t think I had any clean clothes. It also meant that I made sure I got the hotel breakfast, and it was a delight.

Today was my first day taking a shinkansen on the trip after a nice line-up to get my Local JR Pass activated. It also meant my first time dabbling with Japan’s sandwiches, and few countries do sandwiches better than Japan.

My destination for the first trip was Himeji; I wanted to go there on my last trip, but back then the Castle was under extensive renovation. But I was going to fix that today. When you arrive at Himeji train station, there is a handy Himeji Castle exit that is extremely helpful for tourists. However, what they don’t tell you is that there is a boulevard right from the station to the Castle, so the moment you exit the station, you look down, and the Castle is framed in all its glory.   

When you arrive, nothing quite prepares you for its majesty. It is a beacon on the hill, and you can feel its draw.

More than that, you can expect how good it is from pictures, but nothing quite prepares you for how wonderful it looks up close.

But I should make it clear it is a castle on a hill; there will be many steps in your future when you visit.

Thankfully, it was quite an overcast day as I made a trip up to the Castle; however, some of Japan’s famous humidity was on show. The Castle makes you work for it, which it is right to do.

By the time I got to the top of the castle hill, I knew it was about half an hour before the Castle closed, and that I would not have time to get to the top. I was cool with that, because the view from the top of the hill was already stunning. I thought, as it is one of the last intact castles, I did want to have a look at the first floor and see all the details. What I didn’t know was that when approaching the Castle, I crossed a point of no return that forces you on a path all the way to the top, in your socks, going up very steep, slippery stairs with low-hanging beams. Thankfully, one of the staff members showed me a shortcut to escape down, because that climb was difficult even if you were super fit.

I took some time to watch the Castle, looking at all the different stones, shapes, and angles until the Castle started playing Auld Lang Syne, which was a cultural dissonance for which I was not prepared. What I learned was that this was the Castle’s closing music, and thus I made my way back down.

I decided to take the walk back to the train station and got one last look at the Castle before taking the train back to Osaka.

Back at my hotel, I decided to avail myself of one of Japan’s local convenience stores for dinner, and goodness, they don’t miss.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images and content have been created by the author unless stated otherwise