Vacation Day 5

Sorry for another long delay in writing.  Things have been pretty busy and the Fall Semester here in Japan is drawing to a close.  I'm going to try to put up 3 posts today in between homework assignments and studying for a test tomorrow.  This post will be mostly about Day 5 of the vacation adventure, so lets dive in!

November 5th was also the fifth day of the vacation.  Hard to believe it's been a month ago!  In some ways it feels a lot more recent, and in others, even longer ago than that!  We started out in Nara, but quickly headed to catch the JR train towards Himeiji on the way to Hiroshima.  The first stop was Himeji Castle in Himeiji.

As it turns out, the castle is pretty historic, having gone through relatively few renovations or rebuilding since it was originally erected.  Most of the other castles I've visited have either been completely (relatively) new structures, or have undergone some pretty serious restoration efforts.  This one was just really well maintained from the look of it.

 

As it turned out, there was a major festival going on
when we were there.  Apparently it was a pretty big
week for that everywhere.  These are a few shots of
the approach to the castle from the train station.  As
you can see, it was pretty crowded!

  

One thing that stands out to me about Japanese
Castles is how similar they are to European
castles.  In many ways, they developed
independently, thanks to Japan's isolationist
policies before the Meiji Restoration period.
They feature the same style of "murder holes,"
similar layouts with overlapping fields of view
and ever increasingly high walls with each layer
of walls able to defend the next out out.  It's
fascinating to see the similar developments like this
worlds apart.

Well, those are all the pictures I want to share from Day 5.  The majority of the day was spent traveling, so it wasn't a lot of sight seeing.  After the castle, we did go to the Himeji Zoo, which was very close to the castle grounds.  I didn't take pictures though.  As it turns out, Japan is an island without much space, and so the zoo was very small and the animals seemed very cramped.  I'm sure it is very educational for the people that visit it, and it serves to get a lot of young people into conservation and related fields, but it was hard to take as an American.  Sorry for no pictures of it, but it was probably better that way.

Sorry for a relatively short post, but the next one that covers Day 6 of the vacation will be significantly longer!