Summer Vacation 2014: Himeji Castle and Koko-en

Now that I'm back in Himeji, I of course had to show my brother the almost-fully-finished Himeji Castle and the Koko-en. With Typhoon Halong coming in tonight, the weather has been pretty icky here; but fortunately, it stopped raining during the afternoon, so we were able to enjoy ourselves in the nice, cool weather. And even luckier for us, due to the bad weather the cranes were kept folded down, so they didn't interrupt our view of the castle!

A lot of people have been commenting around Japan about how white the roof of the recently renovated main castle is compared with the roofs of the other buildings. There is a logical explanation, however: this is what the roof originally looked like when the castle was first built, with its white clean lines. However, after repeated buildup of soot from air pollution, it will eventually turn as dark as the roofs on the other buildings. For now, I will enjoy the clean, unpolluted roof!

So, some of my favorite photos from today of the garden and the castle:

The castle cats were out in force this afternoon, enjoying the cool weather and the break in the rain.

Some of the trees are already showing a slight change to autumn colors, even though it's the beginning of August!

A lone lotus blossom was open in the garden, it looked stunning!

Everything was still wet from the rain that had only ended an hour before.

Caught this cat at just the right instant as it looked back at me! They're rarely so photogenic for me.

It's a bit difficult to photograph the castle on an overcast day, but I did my best. At least there were no pesky cranes in the way!

With a bit of creative angling, you can photograph the castle now without any of the construction equipment showing. However, it won't be fully finished until March 27th, 2015.

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Cherry Blossom Season at Nagoyama Temple!

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Yoshino Mountain is located in Nara Prefecture, and it is often considered one of the best places in Japan to see cherry blossoms. It takes about three hours and multiple train connections to get there from Himeji, which means that if you leave early enough, it's day-trip doable. I went there last weekend, on the 11th of April. The temperature was warm, but the weather alternated between foggy and cloudy. The trails were quite muddy due to the rainy days all of the week prior, but the views were still stunning! The trees were in various stages of losing their blossoms, so with each gust of wind petals were knocked off and blown about, creating a snowy impression. I wish I could have seen it on a sunny day, with the blossoms at their peak! I did my best to photograph the beautiful cherry-covered slopes during my hike, but the fog mutes the bright colors of the blossoms. New cherry leaves grow in with an orange-red color, which combined with the lingering pink and white blossoms c...

Daley-sensei's Adventures in Himeji, Japan.

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