Himeji Castle

I really wanted to do a day trip from Osaka on this trip, as we had spent a lot of time in Osaka on our last trip. I decided on going to Himeji Castle as it was only an hour on the train and I had read about how beautiful the castle was.  

I loved all the different scenery on the train.  We saw lots of cities including Kobe and huge bridges - one even reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. 

As soon as we stepped out of the train station, we could see the castle in the distance. 

On the way to the castle, we saw an incredible artist selling his water paintings on the street. 

Another incredible manhole cover. 

The castle is absolutely beautiful. It is a World Heritage site and has never been destroyed by war, earthquake or fires (there are only 12 castles in Japan that are like this). 

You can pay to go inside, but we were happy just walking around the grounds.  

Kobe wasn't feeling well this day and didn't have a lot of energy to do a lot. 

This video makes me laugh every time I watch it as we were joking about how everyone needed their own space. Poor Kobe just kept having to sit all day. 

Jalen would always tease me about how I would say how special everything was. Cheeky! 

While we were looking around the grounds, we saw some traditional Japanese boats going around the canal. We went down to check it out and when we found out it was only around $20 we decided to do it. 

It's actually one of my favourite memories from the whole trip. I loved wearing the traditional hats and just listening to the tour guide as he steered the boat. We had no idea what he was saying as it was all in Japanese, but I loved the whole experience. 

The tour guide spoke a little bit of English and told us safety things like that we would need to put our head down under the bridge. When we were getting off the boat, he asked us where we were from and was excited to tell us that his daughter lives in Sydney. 

Kobe fell asleep on the train on the way back to Osaka and still has bad memories of feeling unwell all day, but we all loved it and it was an easy trip as there wasn't a lot of walking since the castle is right in the city and close to the train station.  I'm so glad we made the effort to go to go there. 

For Kobe's birthday last June, Jay, Harri and Melissa, bought him the Himeji Castle Lego which is such a beautiful gift.