Himeji and the Streets of Osaka

Yesterday I went to Himeji castle, the centerpiece of the town of the same name. I've had to cut quite a bit out of my itinerary in Japan. Himeji is the largest and most spectacular of the castles that have survived the bombing of WWII, and is thus considered the best original example of Japanese castle architecture. I kept Himeji as a priority because in my mind it was the house that Hideyoshi built, but as I learned, he was just one of many lords to have controlled the castle in its long history.


These are examples of the crests of the different clans that occupied the castle in its long history. The paulownia crest belongs to Hideyoshi, it has three branches above and three leaves below, in the center, first and second from the bottom.


Some of the roof tiles are Korean style. Holla!





I visited the local art museum, but its permanent collection was a single room full of mainly French paintings and a bunch of Matisses. I was expecting some regional Japanese art. It did have an impressive Rodin, though.



I was also disappointed by the prefectural museum. It consisted mainly of scale models of castles and modern boats, rather than house a collection of artifacts from Himeji-jo. They had this udderly pointless model of the castle that was made entirely of plastic (I think) crystals. There was this hyper little girl there shouting and dragging her grandfather all over the place, but she was awestruck when she discovered this crystal castle, she became quiet all of a sudden. It was cute.





I only stayed in Osaka two nights. I had a single room all to myself, but it turns out that it is in the worst part of the city, which is apparently known to be one of the shadiest areas in Japan, near the Osaka zoo. I didn't get to see the red light district down the street from my hotel, but I was told that it is cluttered with illegal brothels and drug dealers until midnight, when everything closes down because of some sort of arrangement with the law. This Australian guy, Evan, gave me a tour of the nightlife neighborhoods, and we ended up hanging out with some Japanese ladies we met at a snooker bar. It was the start of Obon, one of the major holidays in Japan, so there were plenty of people out, despite being the middle of the week. Obon is a Buddhist holiday honoring one's ancestors.





My room reeked of cigarette smoke, but it was nice to have my own space for a change. People often ask me in surprise how I can travel for such a long time with such few things. Well, it involves a lot of washing clothes in the shower and drying overnight.