Related to this post is another one about Himeji Castle,
here.
That one covers the castle and the wall related surroundings of it, and this one is about the
gardens nearby. The gardens are various districts that are surrounded by walls, but unlike
the walls of the castle which appear to have a military purpose, these look more decorative,
like this one.
Each of the districts has a different layout, which I suppose makes sense if you were making
a garden. While I appreciate uniformity for its own sake, I think that aesthetically it makes
sense for the walls and pavement, but you would want the specific elements to be different.
Otherwise, what's the point of having more than one, except to increase capacity, and if you
wanted to increase capacity, you would be better off not subdividing the space with walls and
roads, and just using the open space. With that in mind, here are pictures of districts, but
I don't know which are which, and no promises that these are not all the same district.
These gardens include usually involve water, either in the form of waterfalls as above,
streams, or ponds. In ponds, they put fish, which I think are called carp. As a side note,
the local ("local" being a relative term) baseball team is called the Carps, which I believe
is referencing the same kind of fish. That definitely gets lumped into the list of sport
teams that make you think twice. If carps are supposed to be lucky, then maybe that makes
sense, why you would want them as your baseball team mascots and also in your garden.
With all of these water features, there are a number of bridges or walkways that allow access
from one side of the water to the other. I imagine that this was designed as an area where
a person could stroll in their slippers without getting their feet muddy. As this is a
garden, which I imagine is an artifact of the upper class, for a castle, which is definitely
an artifact of the upper class, a lot of it seems to be designed to be convenient for leisure.
The gardens are not without their dangers, however. This was the closest that I dared get, and I didn't
want to get out from behind the bamboo to get a better picture, but here is a dangerous, deadly gazebo
that we came across. (This is a Dungeons and Dragons joke. Pay no mind.)
We took the Shinkansen, aka bullet train, to get there and back. The whole affair is
more fancy than the local trains and subways, but less fancy than an airport. It's clean
like everything in Japan is, but since the trains go in and out, there are large opennings
in the walls of the station, which makes it feel more like a subway station. I've only
been on one other train, AmTrak, in California, which was more like a building next to
a rail yard. It had platforms for ease of boarding, but it felt very minimalist. The
Shin is really fast, which is nice, and incredibly smooth. I don't recall feeling the
acceleration, not like you would on a plane or car, and I don't remember the car swaying
or jostling like a subway. So yeah, very comfortable, very smooth, very convenient.
That was the Himeji trip. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I don't know what else there is to do in the area,
but it's a good half day event. There is more information about the castle, including the history and
practices of the people who lived there. I found it quite enjoyable, but I don't remember it well
enough to confidently recall it here.
At the time of this post, SarisonZero lives and works in Japan. He wrote this post on the same day that he wrote another post, so he doesn't have any other updates to make here.