As I have slowly recovered from jet lag, I have gone back to having way too many things on my to-do list. However, I don’t want to fall behind in my posts about Japan, so today I present you a brief description of Himeji Castle. Himeji Castle is interesting because, not only is it a really cool castle, it is also the oldest surviving castle in Japan.

Panoramic view of the Himeji Castle

A moat!

Wait, it’s the cat’s turn!

Each round tile has the design of the castle owner at the time of construction or reconstruction. The butterfly crest was my favourite.

While the outlining structures were used as living quarters, the main building was intended to hold the army. On the second to last floor it even had hiding holes for the soldiers to attack the unsuspecting enemy. I don’t really understand that since, if the enemy has gotten through the entire castle, two guys hiding on the last floor are quite unlikely to turn the tide, no? Though, with the element of surprise, it just might work.

View from the castle.

The field in front of the castle was full of people, there was even an Onda dancing competition in an adjoining grove.

Though I have been aware of the existance of fish markets, apart from an empty, hosed down, slightly fishy smelling section of the general market area, I have never seen one. I’ve heard tales of the fish market goings on, but due to my inability to wake up early enough, the only reason to believe that such events happen are the fresh yummy fish served at lunch time.

Well, at least there is one jet lag benefit. Our second morning in Tokyo, Chris and I were all bringt eyed and bushy tailed at 5:30 AM and ready to visit the Tokyo Fish Market.

Tokyo Fish Market

The place is absolutely nuts. There are buckets upon buckets of every kind of fish and sea creature imaginable accessed by small corridors through which little carts with oil barrel shaped motors zoom about. The carts deliver fish from the vendors to the trucks and motorcycles (from stores and restaurants I guess…) parked outside.

Here is a better picture from National Geographic along with a link to their article about how huge the Tokyo Fish market is.

Because we had to wait for my final exam before we could leave for Japan, we were afraid we’d miss the famous cherry (sakura) blossoms. As soon as we got to Tokyo we run to the nearest park we suspected to have cherry trees to catch the last of the flowers.

We caught sight of the cherry trees at Ueno park in Tokyo.

The Sakura Blossoms were checked off on our to do list and we continued with our sight seeing. A few days later as we were getting out of the train station in Kyoto, an enthusiastic old man walked up to us and insisted that we go to Ninnaji temple where the blossoms had just opened two days ago. We did and we were very glad for it. The temple had a cherry orchard in full bloom.

Sakura Blossoms in front of five story pagoda at Ninnaji temple

It was absolutely beautiful. There were picnic tables for people to have tea surrounded by cherry trees.

Tea time in the orchard

Unfortunately for us, we got there right before the temple was closing so we didn’t have the chance to relax with some tea. We did get a chance to take a few more pictures though.

Five story pagoda at Ninnaji

Sakura Blossoms

We’re back from Japan and severely jet lagged. The trip was amazing. Chris and I will both try and post our impressions and trip photos over next few days so keep checking our blogs. But first, I’ll take a nap.

A teenage chaos shopping street in Tokyo