Japan 2025 - Day 5: Himeji, Hiroshima

Sabrina was up around 5 AM today because she is not able to adjust to a 13-hour time change within a few days, strangely, so she did the only logical thing to do at that hour: switch the laundry. I mention this to help explain why the controls for the bathroom fan have instructions translated into a few dozen different languages, on the hotel website.

While the hotel rooms have washing machines, they don't exactly have dryers in the way that we're used to. Instead, the bathroom is the dryer.

We had a busy day planned today, so we met at 7:30 AM for hotel breakfast, grabbed our overnight bags, and asked the front desk to call us a cab to Kyoto Station.

We had just enough time to buy tickets and still make the 8:29 Shinkansen bound for Hiroshima, although we would be getting off in Himeji.

It was just under an hour to Himeji, maxing out somewhere around 185 mph. There's a wonderful scale model of the reason we're here, in the station.

But first, we hit 7-Eleven for second breakfast and/or coffee.

It was raining again today, so we stowed our bags in a coin locker in the train station before walking about 1 km to the castle; it'd be hard to miss, as the castle is visible at the end of the street, from the station, in a straight line.

Oddly, I've taken photos of plenty of interesting manhole covers, over the years. This specimen is one of my favorites. (I just searched the Photos app for "manhole cover", and it found 12 results.)

The rain was gentle, barely disturbing the surface of the water in the moat.

It wasn't heavily precipitating while we were there, but it clearly had been earlier that morning; everything was soaked, and we'd been dodging puddles for the entire walk.

Still, I think we were all a bit surprised to discover that we had to remove our shoes (and carry them with us in plastic bags) to enter the long, narrow building atop the outer wall that surrounds most of the castle.

The windows were all open to the air, so the floors were somewhat cold (but dry).

I'd love to know what the story is behind the "please stay hydrated!" messaging. There were probably a dozen of these, throughout the castle.

Here's one of the 1000ish murder holes, referenced by the informational sign on the street.

Apparently it was important to keep the women folk locked up at night, back in the day.

The city surrounding the castle is a hectic jumble of residences, but I find it visually quite appealing anyway.

After we'd finished touring the out buildings (I want to say they're called "galleries"?), we were allowed to re-shoe and funneled back out into the rain.

Our reclaimed footwear was to be short-lived, however, because the main keep was right around the corner, and obviously we had to remove our shoes again.

The inside of the keep reveals the massive timber framing and intricate Japanese carpentry.

I wish there were a Sabrina for scale, here; I think that wooden pillar was probably at least three feet in diameter.

We followed the steady stream of visitors, climbing our way up in a spiral of steep staircases and large, empty rooms.

The keep has six floors, narrowing substantially as we ascended the cold steps.

The views from the top were fantastic, even on this overcast day. On a clear day, I imagine it would be quite impressive.

At the very top level, of course, is a shrine. 

It was just after 11 AM by the time we climbed back down to ground level, where we once again were re-shod and sent out into the rain.

The model of what the surrounding town would have looked like is a far cry from modern reality.

Our tickets also allowed us entry into the Himeji Castle Garden (Koko-en), but the rain had intensified so we opted to defer until after lunch, in case conditions improved.

About a block from the moat, we snuck into this little hole-in-the-wall bakery that was also a burger joint.

We stacked a variety of goods on our tray... some for later consumption, some for lunch, and one was just a snack to eat while waiting for my burger.

After lunch, it was raining even harder, so we nixed the garden tour and returned the train station. The fact that the garden add-on to the ticket had only been 50 yen (about 35¢ US) helped convince us that it was probably not worth the hassle.

Back at the station, we retrieved our bags from storage and went to hunt for train tickets to Hiroshima. We managed to get on a slightly earlier train, but there was a line of 12 people waiting at the manned ticket counter, so we had to struggle through all 17 screens of the kiosk purchasing process. In our haste, we accidentally upgraded to business class.

It turned out that we all needed a brief nap, though, so the upgrade was definitely worth it.

The farther we went south, the more the weather out the window improved; by the time we got to Hiroshima (in about 55 minutes), patches of blue sky were poking through the clouds.

It was almost time for fika, so we hit 7-Eleven again before leaving Hiroshima station.

We also got distracted by a... claw machines shop? I'm not sure what else to call it. It was the lower level of a department store in the mall that's attached to the train station, and the entire store was filled with claw machines and similar games like one would see at the edge of an arcade.

Michael tested his skills with the claw, but came away empty-handed.

Once we finally got out of the train station/mall, it was a short walk along Enko River to find our accommodation for tonight: the Randor Hotel.

We were a bit too early to check in, so we left our bags and ventured out for the rest of the day.

Our first stop on the tour was the Shukkei-en Garden. The weather had turned to "absolutely pleastant", and it was about 10 degrees warmer in Hiroshima than it had been in Kyoto, too.

The centerpiece of the garden is this beautiful pond, encircled by walking paths and bridges.

Sarah managed not to fall in, or drop her phone in, while making friends with the carp.

Sabrina wonders why we cannot touch this specific stake, per the sign.

I couldn't resist; I touched it. Nothing happened.

This stone lantern has some significance.

Sarah is getting used to the shoeless lifestyle, and jumped at the opportunity to do it again.

Here you can see Sabrina and Michael enjoying the tranquility of the garden. It looks a lot like when they're annoyed that Sarah and I are lagging behind, taking all of the photos on their behalves, but don't be fooled.

To avoid making decisions, we (mostly) stuck to the prescribed route.

At the end of the lap, we found a grove of cherry blossom trees that were well into (or somewhat past, in a few cases) the blooming season. Being just a bit farther south than Tokyo, or even Kyoto, they start earlier.

After seeing Japanese tourists taking close-up shots of the flowers, I decided to give it a go.

After the garden, we continued our walking tour of the city, heading toward Hiroshima Castle. This is just a photo on the side of a random restaurant we passed. (One bowl of DEATH, anyone?)

Having already seen the best castle in the entire country just a few hours prior, we didn't feel the need to go into Hiroshima Castle.

Instead, we just crossed the moat and strolled through the grounds, en route to our next destination.

Even after seeing the Ruins of Hiroshima Imperial Army Headquarters, it didn't occur to us that the castle is a reproduction (until later today).

In the distance, we could hear a crowd chanting a sports-team fight song of some sort. Edion Peace Wing Hiroshima is just to the west of the castle, visible across the moat on the way out of the castle grounds; there was a soccer game just about to conclude (Sanfrecce Hiroshima vs Kashiwa Reysol, tied 1 - 1).

EDION is apparently an electronics retailer.

"Historical Site of Hiroshima Castle" was the final clue...

Our next destination was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (colloquially the A-Bomb Dome, it seems).

This was ground zero for the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, and it's a remarkable story.

Being tall enough to hold an iPhone over a crowd has its perks. For example, it's possible to make it seem like we're the only people here, which isn't quite accurate.

Just across the river, we saw the dock for the sightseeing boat that takes tourists out to Miyajima. This is one potential option for tomorrow's itinerary, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Next, we visited the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall. Having been to the Pearl Harbor Memorial, it was interesting to see the (very different) Japanese perspective on the other end of that saga.

It was after 5 o'clock by the time we were done touring around, and it was getting colder as the sun started to set, so we decided to return to the hotel.

We walked a few blocks back to a more-commercial area, then hopped on a tram headed in the direction of our hotel. After some sort of mixup that resulted in the tram not going where we wanted it to (and we're still not clear on what happened, there) we found a different tram (that was the same route number...?) that went our way.

Back at the hotel, we took a breather while deciding what to do for dinner, later.

Michael and Sarah wanted to go check out a Japanese instance of Costco, as we'd passed one on the way into the city and it was less than a mile down the road (and they serve food).

Sabrina and I opted out of Costco and decided to consult Google Maps for inspiration. Decoding the options in the "Cuisine type" dropdown menu required some research, but we identified several promising options nearby, and went out to investigate.

The first place we tried was tiny and full, so we were turned away, but we wandered into a ramen place about a block away that had plenty of seating.

The Tokyo Giants were hosting the Chicago Cubs, apparently, as it was live on TV in the noodle shop.

With the help of a somewhat-English menu and the Google Translate app, we managed to order a bunch of food and enjoy a decent dinner.

Afterward, we discovered that it was cash-only. We didn't have enough cash left, so I left Sabrina behind as a hostage while I went went across the street to a convenience store to find an ATM.

Back at the hotel, we made some plans for tomorrow; we're going to get down to Miyajima, one way or another, spend most of the day there, and then return to Kyoto on the bullet train.