Thursday 22 October, Caste Himeji and Hiroshima

Thursday October 22 Himeji Blue sky, sun, 24C Visited Castle Himeji-jo. The biggest castle of Japan, of the 12 castles still remaining.We are up very early and the sun in the blue sky shines with great light on the castle. Better photograph opportunities than this you can not wish. From the city you can already see it, as it is build on a 49 meter high hill, and itself is also about 49 meters. We follow a group with a french guide, so we can sneak peek some of the things she says. We continue on our own and enter the castle. What a big castle and sophisticated architecture is used! The view on the city and the mountains is breathtaking. I buy some real Japanese style food, you take in a box. The line of business man, tells me this restaurant might be good and I order there. We take the food to a grass field, with view on the castle and in the sun... thats what you call holiday picknick! We travel to Hiroshima. In Hiroshima, we received the map of the city at the tourist information center in the train station. When looking at the map and determining the direction to the castle, a man comes to us. He asks where we want to go. He mentions he lives nearby and can't speak much English, but we should follow him and we would get to the castle. So we walk for 20 minutes behind this kind business man, who walks home with these 2 Dutch people. I try to talk to him, but he indeed does not speak much English. His nodding and smile say enough though. We made friends. The last part of the trip he is also busy with his hand in the bag. Later we understand why. When the time has come to split our ways, he grabs something out of his bag. Its a paper folded crane-bird. The birds one of the young victims was folding when she was diagnosed with leukemia. She thought by folding 1000 birds, she would recover. She died, but its the story in Japan. Its the same bird, this man had given us before he walked back home. And now I tell the story to others. He might read it some day, or not. Thank you again kind stranger. The castle is nice to see, but nothing compared to Himeji-jo, I think we are getting spoiled with all the great sites we have seen already. My photograph hobby tells me, that with the sun set, there might be lights shining on the the A-bomb building. So despite being tired, we continue for some more walking to this site. It has lights, and the sky is becoming dark but also has that little light still. Exceptional conditions for a picture of a world historic site. We walk back via nice and busy shopping streets, where we also bump into a restaurant where you grill the delicious meat yourself. Great dinner and a wonderful day comes to an end. Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com