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June 3rd: Himeji, Okayama, Kan-Onji

     On our free day of June 3rd, we went to go complete our independent field trips of Himeji Castle in Himeji and the Korakuen garden in Okayama. We woke up at 6am to try to have the rest of the day to explore the cities. This was a little challenging for us, but we did end up leaving at around 7am and arriving at our first destination of Himeji at around 8:30am. We got breakfast at a cool little coffee shop that we found, it was also really the only one open at that time but it fortunately worked out. I ended up getting a banana espresso, which was pretty wild but actually quite good.

 

After that we headed to Himeji Castle. Walking around the walls and defenses was impressive but the inside was probably the best part. I loved looking at all of the ceilings and supports. There was a diorama of all of the entire framing of the castle at the end that was super interesting to look at. The interior was very empty which was surprising to me. It wasn't really clear where people actually lived, worked or ate due to the lack of furniture. I'd imagine all of the furniture was easily removable like pillows to sit on or futons to sleep in so maybe that is why it was left so barren. 

 

We didn't spend long in Himeji, instead choosing to go to Okayama as soon as possible. The train ride was rather uneventful and once we got there we had to walk about 30 minutes to get to the garden. The gardens were beautiful and all but none of us particularly enjoyed them. I found it to be a little too sprawling with a lack of consistent theme. I think this is due to its long history and numerous changes to the gardens made over generations. However, after the garden my friend asked us if we wanted to go to the island of Shikoku and hike to the top of this mountain to a shrine. It was going to be a full day thing essentially as the trip there and back was about 5 hours, but we agreed. We ended up arriving at the town of Kan-Onji where the shrine was located around 4pm, and took a bus to the base of the mountain. We found out there that it was going to be about an hour up the 1.5km vertical ascent. It was pretty grueling, but the views from the top were absolutely fantastic. 


Fearing that we would miss the last train back home at 7:14 we had to rush down the mountain and run back to the station. Fortunately we made it with about 10 minutes to spare and hopped on the train back home. The views from the train window over the Seto inland sea as the sunset were stunning, and made the choice to not fall asleep all the better. We arrived back home at around 10, where most of us decided to immediately go to bed.

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