Nasty Conjugation

Well, our days of derring-do are coming to a close, but there’s still two full days of excitement and adventure before we board a bus for home. On Day Five we visited Himeji, home of the White Heron castle, and finally ended up in Hiroshima, the ultimate destination of our journey. Read on, true believers, and don’t forget to look at pictures of a castle on our Flickr page.

Castle, castle, castle.

On the morning of day five we woke up even earlier than usual, planning to bid a fond farewell to Costa Del Sol and begin our longest traveling day as early as possible. Unfortunately, Kyoto’s banks conspired against us to not open their ATMs until after eight o’ clock. Trapped in the city for another hour, we hunkered down at a café in the station and tried calling our ryokan in Hiroshima to cancel our second night – still no luck. We weren’t worried yet since we could call at our next stop, but it was starting to get annoying. Why wasn’t anyone picking up?

After we managed to coax some money out of Kyoto’s ATMs, it was time for a full day of railway adventures. Our itinerary was ambitious. First we would travel for two hours to Himeji where we would tour its famous castle. After that we would grab a quick lunch, travel for another four and a half hours, and get to Hiroshima in time to check into our ryokan and eat some of the city’s famous okonomiyaki. Ambitious indeed, but we had yet to sample the bitter fruit of defeat on this trip. Our souls still shone bright with the desire for adventure.

Himeji was a small-ish town, hence our decision to make it a day stop and not stay overnight. The only thing worth seeing was the castle, but it was completely worth the extra travel time. Himeji Castle is considered by many to be the most beautiful castle in Japan, and it’s also a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site and a Japanese national treasure. The current structure dates back to 1601 AD. Like every other national monument in Japan, it is now home to innumerable school children in yellow baseball hats.

When we made it into the castle proper we were greeted by Himeji’s first line of defense: dozens of tiny, high-pitched voices hollering from behind the main gate.

“HELLO!” they yelled at us.

“YO!” I yelled back, giving them the peace sign. This seemed to encourage them.

“HOW ARE YOU!” they yelled at us. I gave them my most intense thumbs up.

“GOOD!” I said.

As a reward for my indulgence, we got to enjoy them yelling, “GOOD!” at us while we took pictures in front of the castle. Children really are just like animals.

We enjoyed the rest of the castle, including the incredibly steep, narrow staircases. What made these staircases even better was that you couldn’t wear your own shoes in the castle. At one point, as I was climbing to another floor, my ill-fitting castle slippers fell off and hit a poor Japanese lady in the face. Back in the castle’s heyday I would have been required to publicly disembowel myself for such a transgression. Fortunately Japan is much more liberal these days.

Finished with the castle, we walked back into town for lunch. Once again I tried calling the ryokan, but I still got nothing but the mysterious message in Japanese. I knew it said something about the number being out of service, but it was the same number I had called in the first place. Maybe they had left their phone off the hook? Either way, our only choice was to begin the long, final leg of our journey and hope they wouldn’t charge us a cancellation fee for only staying one night.

The train to Hiroshima took about four and a half hours, but it passed through some incredibly beautiful seaside scenery. Unfortunately the best scenery came as the sun was setting, so I didn’t manage to get any pictures. Just imagine the most beautiful, rocky shoreline you can. Imagine it shrouded in mist with the sun setting behind a few small, mountainous islands in the distance. Now imagine it passing by your train window in Japan, where things seem to be just slightly more beautiful out of national belligerence. There – now you don’t need pictures.

We got into Hiroshima around half past seven, and right away I located a local phone to call the ryokan. I thought maybe we couldn’t get through because our cell phones were out of range, but even the local phone gave me the mysterious Japanese robot woman. Not sure what else to do, we trekked in the direction our map said the hotel was. We got some directions from a convenience store and, sure enough, there was Kyobashi Ryokan. We went inside and, after a moment, were greeted by the elderly proprietors. I showed them the phone number I had been calling, the same number saved in my history from when I made the reservations, and they explained that it was the wrong number. I still, to this day, have no idea how it could have been both the wrong number and the number I used to make the reservation.

There were no problems with canceling the second night, mainly because I’m pretty sure she had us confused for another group of foreign tourists. When we were going up to our room she insisted that the pile of luggage near the entrance must be ours. It was enough for a whole family, so hopefully we didn’t put some poor foreign family out on the street for a night by taking their room. Either way, after we were comfortably checked in we went out to experience Hiroshima’s famous okonomiyaki.

Holly says okonomiyaki is like a Japanese pizza, which is a pretty good explanation. Here’s how it works: they make a pile of soba noodles, cabbage, squid, pork, octopus, egg, spring onions, special sauce, and anything else you want on a grill. Then they turn on the grill. Shortly after that you devour it (the okonomiyaki, not the grill). The experience did not disappoint, and it provided us with necessary stamina for the huge day of exploring ahead of us. Please join us next time as we complete our magical adventures across Japan in our final destinations, Miyajima and Hiroshima.

Next: The Journey Comes to a Close! Bonus – More Sacred Deer!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 10:52 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.