The castle in Himeji is known to be one of the most beautiful in Japan, being one of the best surviving Japanese castles, being built in 1333.
The castle itself is empty and the rooms are made from wood. Everyone has to take their shoes off and carry them in a plastic bag through the castle, on those many stairs to the sixth floor. The entire experience was cold and funny in the same time.
The people carrying the shoes:
The Koko-en park close to the castle is the most beautiful that I saw in Japan until now.
I can’t believe what an amazing weather I have until now in Japan!! The pictures look like this place is from another world!!
Having these images in mind, I headed to the temple-on-the-mountain (how I like to name it), or Engyo-ji. I had to take a bus close to the Shosha Mountain, for about 30 minutes. From the bus station starts the hike up on the mountain or one can use the ropeway available.The climb was short, 2 km, 400 m high. In 40 minutes I was up already, sweaty, but enjoying it!
This temple is from my point of view the best I saw (until now) in Japan. There were less tourists and it was much quieter. And only the fight to get up, made the temple itself like a prize. What a wonderful place I’ve found. For the first time I felt that positive energy that a Buddhist place should have.
The walk was very stony, but not hard to climb.
The statues on the way to the temple were very interesting: the Kanji mean “11 faces and 1000 hands”:
The views over the city:
The entrance in the temple:
After this point, the place is said to be saint.
The entrance was 500 yen (4,15 euro), but there were so many to see!
The temple was founded 1000 years ago. It is said that everyone who climbs the mountain would be purified both in body and spirit.
I saw before pictures made in Japan, with all this joyful play of colors and I always thought they are fake, that they are somehow modified. No, they aren’t, the places look really like this, even better in reality. It’s a shock for the mind, I personally have troubles understanding that I am still on Earth.
I continued the walk through all other temples, the place is huge.
Tomorrow I will be in Hiroshima and the day after tomorrow on the island Itsukushima. I plan to make a hike on the Mount Misen and while researching about the hiking trails, I have found that in Japan there are the Japanese Hornets, that are very aggressive, possible deadly and a nightmare for the hikers, especially if they are dressed in black. All my clothes are black. Ohhh my Goood!!! Why, Japan, why?!?!!!
I read the entire Internet about this topic already (yeah, I hate bees and wasps in general!!) and it seems that I might be lucky, because they should DIE (!!!!) late in autumn, and now it’s late in autumn (!!!!), 21 November should be late enough for them to not disturb me during my walks. My life was much better without knowing that something like this exists …