Himeji Castle (May, 2025)
For our second day in Osaka, we decided to take a day trip to Himeji Castle, which is about a one hour train ride. But first, we got some breakfast at a restaurant that appeared to specialize in Western breakfast because the menu consisted of scrambled eggs, an omelette and eggs Benedict. All of the items came as part of a set menu, which included a drink from a small menu of coffee, tea and juices, as well as a salad. We’re not sure why the Japanese have a side salad for their breakfast, but it’s been very common for all of our breakfast sets. I guess we appreciate the thought of providing us a vegetable in the morning.
Anyway, Nick got the eggs Benedict and I got an omelette, and they were pretty good:
Next, we made our way to the special rapid train to Himeji. There would be a few stops between Osaka station and Himeji, so we knew that it wouldn’t be direct. However, once we made our brief stop at Akashi, the train just stayed there for a while. The conductor made numerous announcements, but they were in Japanese, so we couldn’t understand what was happening.
This experience brought back memories of our first trip to Japan in 2007, when we took a train from Tokyo to Kamakura. On that ride, the train also stopped at an earlier station, but it never continued. At that time, all the messaging was in Japanese, so we really had no idea what was going on. We then noticed that everyone was getting off the train, but we thought they were all getting off at that stop. Fortunately for us, a woman saw us and told us in English that we needed to get off too because the train was now out of service. We thanked her and were able to get on the next train to Kamakura, but Nick and I always talk about that experience whenever we’re on a train that is taking a bit too long to leave a station.
But back to the Himeji ride, I could read the digital sign on the platform and all it said in English was that there was a delay. Since no one was leaving the train, we figured it wasn’t canceled so we waited with everyone. The good thing about using the trains now is that you can find the status online if you can get to the correct JR train page. After a couple minutes of searching, I was able to find the status update for our train, which said that there was a delay due to an ‘emergency button at a level crossing.’ Not the most informative message, but it was something.
The delay ended up being about 15-20 minutes, and eventually we made it to Himeji station. We were happy we didn’t buy a timed entry to the castle because we wouldn’t have made it, and also, without needing to rush for an entry time, it gave us some time to casually stroll the streets leading to the castle.
It’s pretty easy to find the castle from the station because once you exit, you can easily see it in the distance. We started to walk the main road, but we wanted to get another cup of coffee, so we started looking for a cafe. We quickly took a side street down a block to the nearby shotengai, which was full of cute shops and more importantly, Hamamoto Coffee.
Inside, the esthetic is that of an old school Japanese coffee shop with rich wood decor, a marbled countertop bar, and an older Japanese man individually siphon brewing cups of coffee for each patron. We sat down at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and a toast, and it was amazing:
I was telling Nick that it reminds me of Cafe LeBlanc in Persona 5, but he said that it was missing the acid jazz music to complete the feel. In any case, we enjoyed our brief coffee break before walking to the castle.
The one street we walked on was full of various cute little stores, and on the ground were small murals where you needed to stand in a certain spot in order to correctly see the image.
Soon we were outside the castle grounds, where you can easily see the majestic white castle:
Himeji castle, also known as the White Heron Castle, is the largest castle in Japan, and is one of the few original castles in the country dating back to the mid 1300s. Obviously there has been some restoration work, but the original structure is intact and there isn’t an elevator in the main tower (like in some other castles).
We started off our visit by going to the west bailey, which was built in the mid 1500s. You can’t walk inside any of the main structures in your shoes, so they provide everyone with a plastic bag for you to hold you shoes as you walk through. Or you can bring your own shoe bag if you want to help the environment.
Inside the bailey, you could see some of the living quarters for the women-in-waiting as well as the various defense mechanisms they had like holes for shooting arrows or dropping stones below. Nick wasn’t a fan of the low ceilings, but he says that about every castle we’ve visited. The wood hallways were pretty:
As we were walking around the bailey, it was quite hard to resist doing the Naruto ninja run through the hallways…
Once we made it through the bailey, we headed to the main keep, where we removed our shoes once again before heading inside. The main keep is composed of 6 floors, with some extremely steep stairs, especially near the top. There were at least two instances where even I could hit my head on some overhangs if I wasn’t careful, so keep that in mind if you decide to ascend the keep.
There were many open spaces inside, with one floor having an entire weapon storage rack, and another floor with an extremely large pillar made from a 100ft tall tree. At the top, you could get some amazing views of Himeji.
It was cool to be able to navigate the keep like the nobility did, but OMG it would have been a pain to bring anything up to the 6th floor because those stairs were…something…
So when we checked into our hotel in Osaka, the women helping us gave us some trivia about Himeji castle, Apparently, the inspiration for Sadako, the creepy girl in the movie The Ring, is from a well in Himeji Castle, We were able to find it and fortunately for us, we’re still alive:
The actual history of the well is tragic though. A woman was betrothed to a man against her will, and after an extended time of resistance, the man pushed her into the well to her death, and thus Sadako was born.
Next to the castle is a small Japanese garden. You can buy a combination ticket for the castle and the garden, which makes the price of admission 50 yen, so super affordable.
It isn’t extremely large, but there are many moments of zen to be had, including a beautiful large koi pond with a bridge that was a huge photo op for everyone.
Nick wanted me to get in line to take a photo on it, but a woman was on the bridge before me and was taking forever while her friend was taking photos of her. At one point, as the line was getting longer, she sat down on the bridge, adjusted her hat, and continued to pose. At this point, it was getting ridiculous, so I left and we walked through the rest of the garden:
We would love to be able to do this to our yard someday, but the maintenance must be insane…
At this point, we realized that we hadn’t really had lunch, and we were getting thirsty and a bit hungry, so we went back to the shōtengai to stop at a cute taiyaki place (Rice Flour Taiyaki Stand) that we passed by on the way to the castle:
They offered three fillings: red bean, custard, and chocolate. Nick opted for chocolate and I got red bean, as well as some tea. Shortly afterwards, our taiyaki were being prepared:
And then they were served to us fresh off the griddle:
So we’re not sure what the usual taiyaki pattern is, but ours had a sword and a shuriken. Super cute!
Across the street from the taiyaki place was a wagashi store with some extremely cute offerings:
I knew that we would have to eat this fairly soon, so we only got four pieces, but I would have gotten more:
They seemed to specialize in their dog face and butts, so of course I got those two, as well as an orange and a strawberry.
We decided that it was time to head back to Osaka to do some shopping. Our ride back was not as eventful as our ride in (i.e., no delays). Our first stop was Lucua 1100 to find a perfumerie for my cousin. Being that it was 6pm on a Friday, it was insane, and checking out took a while. Nick decided to wait outside the store:
Some of the negative reviews for this store noted that no one seemed to help them, or that the staff didn’t really care about showing any products. Well, the moment I walked up to the scent display, a woman immediately came over to help me. I had to ask about two specific products, and she showed them to me and I headed over to the register. I think they knew that I wasn’t just casually browsing, and I appreciated that I was able to find the correct products quickly.
Next, we made our way to the Nintendo store to see if there were any new items I wanted to buy.
They had some cool hanafuda themed Mario items, including a t-shirt that I wanted, but they only had it in a small. I ended up buying some small hanafuda napkins, an Isabelle keychain, and a small tin of Super Mario candies.
On the same floor was the Pokemon store, where I got some Pokemon cards as a gift to bring back to Seattle.
For dinner, we wanted to get some okonomiyaki from one of the many okonomiyaki restaurants in the city. After doing some research, we realized that a 15 minute walk from our hotel was a street with some good options, so we headed over there. Unfortunately, the first place we went to was busy and they simply turned us away. The next place was down the street, and we found the sign for the restaurant listed on the building, but we couldn’t find it anywhere on the floor that it was supposedly located on. After a few minutes, we gave up and headed to the third place on our list, which was also a few steps away. With my basic knowledge of hiragana, we found the building the restaurant was in and discovered that it was all the way in the back of a narrow hallway.
Inside, we discovered that the restaurant had counter space for about 8-10 people as well as a small table for 4. And then we realized that they didn’t serve okonomiyaki, but something called kashimin-yaki, which appeared to be a variation of the savory Japanese pancake.
While we were disappointed that it wasn’t specifically okonomiyaki, we were still excited to try something new, so we ordered a curry and cheese kashimin-yaki, a stewed beef one, and an egg and chicken one:
I think I still prefer an okonomiyaki, but these were still delicious, and the vibe of the small restaurant was super cute and intimate.
And with that, our short visit to Osaka was coming to an end. Tomorrow, we head to a small beach town called Atami!