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Blog 24: The tale of castles and princesses

 

My blog day was the 27th of July. I woke up early that morning and started getting ready at around 7:30. It was the day we were scheduled to go to the famous Himeji castle. So, I met up with the rest of the students at the front lobby on the first floor. There were only a few students there at the time, around 5 or 6, but the rest of them came into the lobby a few moments later. We then went to the train station in Shinsaibashi. Several people got lost on the way, from the trains to the walk over. Then when we made it to the Himiji train station the professors decided that it was time to break for lunch and a few students and I went to an Italian place. At this restaurant I ate a pizza and a bowl of pasta. I enjoyed the pizza however the pasta I ordered ended up being far too spicy for my liking. After that I got a Mint Chocolate ice cream cone from the local Baskin Robbins. After that a small group of students and I headed out to the castle. After a while of walking in the baking sun throughout the town of Hijimei we finally got to the castle.

 

The castle itself was massive and magnificent. It was breathtaking in every single possible meaning of the word. The castle was 152 feet high, a length of 5,600 feet, and a perimeter of 2.6 miles (that’s nearly 14,000 feet!). After getting the ticket to the castle I went inside to the garden, and that area, which was fairly pretty with a bathroom which to me seemed slightly out of place in the breathtaking ancient castle but when you have to go you have to go, I guess. After walking through the gardens and the out of place bathroom I decided to go to the west wing. They made us take off our shoes as soon as we got to the true entrance to the west wing and put them into a bag that we would have to carry around while we were inside the west wing.

 

The west wing told the story of the famous Princess Sen who lived for several years. Princess Sen was born in 1597. She married her first husband when she was only 7 years old. Her husband was only 10. After a failed military mission her husband committed seppuku (Seppuku is the word for ritualistic suicide via disembowelment by a special type of Japanese sword.) A few years later she met her second husband. It was at this time that Princess Sen moved to Himeji castle. After a few years however a terrible illness claimed Princess Sen’s second husband as well. After this Princess Sen left Himeiji and became a nun for the rest of her days. After going through the west wing, I walked up the many steps and walked through the many rooms to get to the main castle area and looked around at the beautiful scenery, after that I was getting hot and tired so I went back to the hotel.



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