Today is our last day in Osaka, tomorrow we will be leaving Osaka for Kyoto. In the morning we went to Himeji city to see the Himeji Castle. It is one of the most famous and most visited castle in Japan. It was built in year 1333, and had been used by many Japanese rulers, such as the Tokugawa shogun family. The castle has never been destroyed by warfare, but it has gone through a few refurbishment works, which is why the Himeji castle has kept its form intact for more than 400 years.
We went to Himeji by train from Osaka, and it took us around 1 hour to arrive at Himeji. The Himeji Castle is located 800m from the train station, which takes us 10/15 minutes to get there by walk. When we got there we were greeted by a marching band and a couple of well dressed Japanese women. The Himeji Castle is huge and beautiful. It is indeed a very good place to take photo shoots.
The castle is very big and filled with many high stairs. It can be quite an exercise for unfit people. My backpack was moderately heavy, and it feels like doing lunges exercise when climbing those stairs. At night I felt sore on my thighs, and I had to rub some oil to ease the soreness. I highly recommend you to have a light backpack when you go there.
The castle is planted with plenty of Sakura trees, which had not blossomed yet when I was there. Without the blossomed Sakura, the castle is already magnificent, I wander how it looks like during spring. Sakura trees start to blossom early spring in Japan which is mid April, really made me wished I was there one month late.
After Himeji Castle, we took the train and went to Kobe. Kobe is famous for its Kobe beef steak, which is the reason why we went there. We decided to have Kobe beef Tepanyaki instead of a western style steak. We tried the highest grade of Kobe beef (grade A-5) and a cheaper mid-level grade (grade A-3). I have to say it was THE BEST beef I have ever tasted in my life. I can feel the juice coming out of the beef in each bite. This really makes Wagyu beef feels like nothing. After the meal we walked around to explore the city before heading back to Osaka to spend our last night shopping in Osaka’s Dotonbori district.
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