|
Himeji
Castle
|
|
On Tuesday July 9th, 2002 I hopped on a train from Osaka to Himeji. There I met my friend Mai and we traveled to Japan's most impressive castle, Himeji-Jo. I hadn't seen Mai for a couple years (we met at OSU when I was a student there) and I hadn't seen Himeji since 1998, so I had a good day catching up with both. |
 |
Himeji
Castle was first built as just a fort and
over the years was built up more and more to the point where Tokugawa Ieyasu was once residing within it's walls. That first fort was built in 1333. |
 |
 |
On
the left is the view from
the top of the castle. On the right is where seppuku was commited by warriors. |
 |
 |
The
winding labyrinth of walls was part of
the castle's defence and the square and triangular holes in the wall were for shooting guns and arrows through. |
 |
 |
The well pictured on the left is said to be haunted. Once a servant named Okiku foiled a plot to kill the lord of the castle. The man who had plotted to kill the lord found out about Okiku's interference and stole one of the ten treasured plates from the lord and blaming her. She was tortured to death and then thrown in to the well. It is said that her ghost can be heard at midnight counting the dishes "one, two, three..." and that she often wanders around in search of the missing plate. |
| And on that happy note I think I'll end this page about Himeji. Below I've thrown 3 more random pictures of the castle, me, and my friend up. Enjoy. |
 |
 |
 |
