Himeji Castle

Photo from Wikipedia

Himeji Castle (or Himeji Joo) is the iconic Japanese Castle. However, it currently doesn't look anything like the photo above, as it is undergoing a five year restoration process (due to complete in 2016), and the main castle keep is surrounded by scaffolding and a protective cover. Thus it looks much more like:

Notice the lovely big keep tower is missing?

Despite this, Himeji Castle was definitely worth a visit.


When we bought our entry tickets, we saw a sign saying "Free English guided tours available, please ask". We looked at the sign, but decided that it probably wasn't worth it. However, as we were walking in, a lady grabbed us, told us that there were guided tours available, that they were really good, and lead us over to the appropriate window. I'm so glad that this happened, as our tour guide turned what would have been a very damp visit into a truly interesting and memorable one.

Our tour guide came out, and, somewhat to our surprise, off we went, just the two of us and our personal tour guide, for over three hours. We've visited a few other Japanese castles, Hikone Castle, Osaka Castle (I've actually been there three times), and Nijo Castle, but having someone with us to explain things made the experience much much richer.

 
Thanks to our guide, we finally understood so many things that had puzzled us on previous castle visits.

• Why are Japanese castle walls always white? Because they were traditionally made of wood, which was flammable, so to protect them, they were rendered with a white plaster.
• Why do so many Japanese fortifications have arrow slits just above floor level? They're not arrow slits, they're designed to be used with a musket, lying down.
• Why does siege weaponry never seem to have been a factor in Japanese warfare? Because to win a battle, you needed the head of the opposing leader, so you couldn't risk anything that would potentially mangle the body.

Arrow slits, or a child's "which shape fits in which hole?" activity?

He also pointed out so many things that we would never have noticed otherwise, such as in the below photo, the window is behind the white bars, and the black and gold bars are just for decoration.

Something that was really interesting was how he drew attention to the attention paid to psychology in the development of the layout. It wasn't a maze as such, but at several points was designed to lead people to go the wrong way. This was illustrated when he stopped us at a gate, and asked us which way we would go next to get to the main keep. Of course having charged through a gate, we would continue through,  not turn around and go straight back through a smaller gate going downhill back in the direction we just came from (the actual path to the keep). Also, he just pointed out little details, like how the defensive corridoor had built in ventillation to deal with musket smoke.

Let me out!

Because of the restoration of the main keep, we didn't get to see it in its full glory. Somewhat (though definitely not fully) compensating for this was the fact that we got to see (for a small extra fee) some restoration-related aspects.

The roof of the keep with all the tiles removed

The process of tiling:
Wooden shingles are used
Wooden supports are covered with clay
Tiles are laid
gaps are sealed with white plaster, which then goes grey with mould after a few years

As we walked around the castle grounds, we also had a number of opportunities to pose for photos. Since it was raining, there weren't many people around, so we never had to wait long.

 

The non-ninja Japanese guy is our friendly tour guide

The fool tried to run off with a Ninja's sword...Look like I'm single again

Throughout the day, our tour guide was incredibly friendly and informative, as he followed us through the mud in his dressy black shoes. He had great English with a surprising vocabulary. Often, he had to search for the right word by trying out a number of similar sounding words, but he nearly always got the right one. We had lots of laughs, and Hunter and I managed to teach him some new English (such as murder-hole instead of the official stone-throwing-hole), as well as explaining some of the ambiguities in English (an English information board stated that the women's quarters were thought to be lively, which got a laugh out of us, and apparently plenty of previous English-speaking visitors too).

Then it was back home (after well over and hour on the train), to have a hot shower and get into some dry clothes.