Himeji, Okayama, Kurashiki; Himeji Castle, Himeji Museum of Literature, Koraku-en Garden

This morning’s breakfast was good. A little bit of Western and Eastern food: croissants, cereal, toast, bacon, orange juice and coffee / miso soup, rice, natto, and tofu. I also forgot to mention that we slept on bed for the first time since coming to Japan. So our bus tour continues on to the Himeji Castle.

Himeji Castle, also known as the Castle of the White Heron, was awesome. It’s on par with any European castle, albeit as well furbished. The museum portion of it was scant, including only some examples of samurai armor and weapons, but the fact that I was in an actual Japanese castle was amazing. Its one of the few surviving castles in Japan, thanks to the fact it was never actually sieged in war, and it was never bombed in World War II.

The central keep is five stories high, with steeped-stepped stairs, confusing corridors, topped gabled roofs and with gargoyle-like shachi-gawara, mythical tiger-fish monsters. The inner passageways and courtyards were purposely made confusing to navigate, in case of enemy penetration; however, there were also the gates to contend with, as well sloped and tilted quoin outer walls, outfitted with musket and arrow slits, and the moat.

The next building was Ando's Himeji Museum of Literature, not a far away walk from the castle. It was built to pay homage to nine prominent Japanese writers; however, we were there more for the architecture. The outer part of the museum was more like sculptural garden, with a path zigzagging through, creating views and spaces. Water ran through the space as well, giving a cooling feeling along with the already cool concrete on this hot summer day. The exterior part bordered right next to a traditional tea house, separated with a distinct line of rocks, further supporting the idea of liminality, that separates the old and new, traditional eastern and modern western architecture, and the sacred and the mundane. The interior part of the museum was particularly nice; large glass curtain window, curving exposed cast concrete, overlooking views down from the second floor, and exquisite attention to details.

After a short bus ride was the Okayama Koraku-en Garden, our first strolling garden. This garden type is equivalent to the European type: an artificial paradise for the elite of society to escape into to explore and kill time. This was the first garden we visited to have vast pastures of grass instead of moss. There was a pond with water lilies the size of parasols, truly of fanatical size, with a small stream and falls passing through with stepping stones strategically placed for crossing. A zigzag bridge crossed the pond of lilies into a wooded bamboo area that had scattered shrines, torii, and pavilions within. The remainder of the garden had other trees, such as pine, cherry blossom, and plum, plus tea bushes, all scattered and perfectly pruned along landscaped mounds. There was also an artificial lake that had its own island for the socialites to row boats to, as well as a pavilion that had one of the many streams running through where the privileged held drinking games that involved writing a haiku poem before a miniature boat passed you by on the stream that held sake. To top it off, there were also caged herons.

We ended the day by bussing over to Kurashiki with enough time to ride around on the hotels bikes and go score some dinner (Japanese shish kebab).