Hikone and Lake Biwa, WTRD 29, October 2, 2017

It's raining.  We dash to the train station as we do not have rain covers for the luggage.  We say goodbye to Himeji.  Here are a few final shots of Himeji we took at the train station last night while looking foe a geocache. (Yes, we found the geocache, too)

Himeji Castle in nightime magenta

This is someone's little camping castle...a little too small for us.

We arrived in Hikone after changing trains three times about noon.  Our hotel was across from the train station.  It was too early for us to check in so we dropped the bags at the hotel, borrowed a second umbrella (we already had one), and struck out to do some exploring despite the rain.

Our first stop was a large supermarket.  We've been doing our shopping in convenience stores close to the train station.  They have little in the way of fresh vegetables and fruits, so we were happy to see that the supermarket did.  After exploring the aisles for products unfamiliar to us, we bought some sweet red apples and headed toward the castle.

Lotus Root

Green onions with 2 foot stems

Beautiful apples

Not sure what these are?

High Fat Marbled Beef - Ohmi is popular here.

Sandwich spread in tubes, maybe egg, tuna, something green?

Sashimi

Americans love cheese - small selection of  cheeses in the convenience and supermarkets

About a quarter of the way around the castle, we came to a street with several restaurants and decided it was time to eat lunch.  The street looked like downtown Santa Barbara.  The rain was clearing the sidewalks of people.

W We tried the Ohmi beef and chicken and really enjoyed our lunch.

The Ohmi-Gyu Beef

The rain had still not let up by the time we finished lunch, and we lost our enthusiasm for the castle and the grounds, postponing this part of our trip until Wednesday morning when it should be clearing.  Instead we just walked all the way to the lake Biwa and 360 degrees around the perimeter of the castle.

The land around the castle is extensive with a 4 km circumference and two moats

 Neighborhood Shrine

Lake Biwa

We returned to our hotel pretty damp after we had walked about 5 miles , and checked in.  Our hotel rooms have gotten smaller and smaller.  This one was billed as a non-smoking, standard double.  Sounded good, but they forgot to tell us it was for Thumbelina! 

The double bed was pushed tight against the window wall with less than a foot of space between the foot of the bed and the foot wall.  There was a sliver of real estate about two feet wide between the bed and the desk.  A skinny hallway with the door to tiny bathroom, and a doorless slot closet big enough for a broom.  There was literally no space for people and luggage in this room.  It was smaller than our bedroom on our boat.  Geez!  

Russ went down to the front desk to enquire if there were any larger rooms available.  There was one, but it was a smoking room.  We decided to see how bad it smelled.  It didn't smell great, but holy smokes there was enough room for two of us to stand up and walk around at the same time without one of us being on the bed or in the bathroom,  and floor space for the luggage too, and places to hang our damp clothing; so we booked it and changed rooms.  The air conditioner and dehumidifier are keeping the air circulating and it feels fresher.

The little restaurant downstairs looked good for dinner, so we gave it a try and it was excellent.  Again we tried the Ohmi beef burger patty.  It melts in the mouth there is so much fat.  It is served seared and raw in the middle.  If it were cooked the fat would totally melt out.  We also tried the roast pork.

So tomorrow, we are taking a break from sight seeing, and I'm skipping the blog.  We've decided to go to Osaka and enjoy a day at Universal Studios.  It's supposed to rain part of the day and then clear in the afternoon.  We are hoping that the rain will keep the crowds low.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Hikone, Japan.

A walk in the woods - Engyoji Temple, WTRD 28, October 1, 2017

Happy First Day of October.  The woods are still very green, but we are definitely beginning to see some change in color.

Wanting to get out of the city and into the woods today before everyone else, we took an early bus from Himeji to the base of Mt. Shosha.  

From a different and slower perspective.

Unlike the high speed trains where the scenery flies by, the bus wove its way through narrow village streets allowing us to see suburbia with enough to time to actually focus on one building at a time.  With few exceptions, our observation seems to be that most houses are built in the low lands and few homes are built on mountainsides.  The flora on the mountains is incredibly dense and thick with greenery; Japanese maples and tall straight cedars.

As soon as the houses stop, the forest begins, and all trails start upward.  It is believed that hiking to the temple on Mt Shosha  as a ritual, cleanses and purifies the body and mind.  We don't start at the bottom however, and take the ropeway or tram to a middle high level on the mountain and walk from that point.  Maybe we will only get partially purified.

Before we began our hike, we enjoy the scenery at the tram moves us upward.

The trail winds up the mountain through statues of Buddha with definite Hindu influence.  Buddha grows more arms and hands as we move up the mountain.

Hindu dieties possess many arms to fight off cosmic forces and can achieve many objectives simultaneously.  We come to the main gate of the temple complex that dates back to the 6th century.

We come to the main part of the Temple Complex and the biggest building.  The Maniden, dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy, was constructed A.D. 970, it later burnt down to the ground 1000 years later and was reconstructed and finished in 1932.

 

 The building has the ambiance of a treehouse.

The next set of three buidings built in the 16th century are the ones we think were used as a scene set for the movie the Last Samaurai.

Jogyodo  (above)- Where ceremonial music and graceful dance was performed.

The Daikodo (above) was a training ground for priests and was the great lecture hall and incarnation of Truth.  Seems we need to have more buildings today dedicated to truth.

and the Jikido, training hall and boarding place for priests.

Many faithful bring books to the temple for monk (yogi) to sign.  We think he is writing blessings, words of wisdom. The couple below is checking out what he has written in their book.

We continue our walk through the forest and by other lesser temples,  buildings, and Buddha gardens.

We have missed lunch and stop at a little cafe on our way down the mountain.  Where we sit under a large red umbrella and watch the fish swimming in a pond, 

We continue down the path returning to our hotel late in the afternoon.  Too late for an afternoon in Kobe.

As a pebble is thrown in a pond and ripples outward, let there be peace in the world,  and let it begin with me.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Himeji, leaving for Hikone tomorrow.