On the hustings, Japanese-style
As it turned out, the ruling Democrat party, which held a majority in lower house, lost overall control of the House of Representatives. It was the main news item on morning TV, as a groggy world woke up to the dawn of a new era.
The Kyoto skies were emptying yet more bucketloads of water this morning. My theory that it only rained on odd-numbered days was being put under duress. So, a slow start was the order of the day.
Guest number three had appeared yesterday evening. Gaston from Strasbourg was staying overnight. His English was not good, but I made out he worked in the construction industry (he had rather large biceps and also confessed a love for rugby) and had been in Japan for some months and was now taking time out to travel around the country on his bike. His ambition was to work his way south to the island of Kyoshu and work his way up north to Hokkaido, the full length of the land.
The service between Maibara and Himeji
Amazingly, by the time we caught the bus into town this morning the rain had ceased. Which is more or less what happened to the bus as we crawled into town. We had less than 2 minutes to spare on the Shinkansen tracks as we boarded the bullet train to the next stop down the line at Maibura. From there, we backtracked down the local line to Hikone which was situated on the shores of Japan's largest lake, Biwa-ko.
The view of Biwa-ko from the castle
The purpose of our visit to Hikone (pop. 110,000) was to visit its famous castle and gardens. Strangely, as we doubled back to Hikone on the train, the final destination on the service was Himeji, west of Kobe, which has the mother of all Japanese castles, Himeji-jo. So, why not head out to the most famous of Japanese feudal strongholds? The reason was simple: Himeji-jo is undergoing a massive renovation at the moment and the webcam clearly shows cranes being manoeuvred in and out of place as reconstruction work progresses.
Hikone-jo
Hikone-jo was a sheer delight. Most castles burned down or were destroyed by natural disaster or warfare and many of those now standing in Japan are concrete replicas. Hikone’s is original. The castle complex is compact and occupies a hill which commands excellent views across Biwa-ko (even though sheets of rain were sweeping across it now). It also has accompanying gardens. There were no crowds of any note and the skies above our heads were (temporarily) dry.
The donjon
Japanese castles, as you would expect, look nothing like their European counterparts. The keep, or donjon is a highly ornate affair and Hikone's had three or four storeys which taper towards the top. Surrounding the central part of the castle are watchtowers, then further out still, massive ramparts and a wide moat.
Raph in the Genkyu-en gardens
The Genkyu-en gardens are next door and accessible from the castle and consist of a pretty Chinese-influenced garden with a large pond being the central feature. Hikone-jo is surrounded by over 1000 cherry trees and a prized beauty spot amongst Japanese during the Sakura (cherry-blossom) season.
The castle from the gardens
We walked back to the station by way of the Yumekyo-bashi Castle Road, full of traditional shops and restaurants. We departed Hikone this time on the local train which takes 45 minutes to get back to Kyoto.
We alighted at the central station and instead of jumping on the 26, which takes an interminable amount of time to get to the youth hostel, we jumped on the JR Sagano line which picks up the 26 bus route further north if you get off at Emmachi station. It worked out much faster, even though we stopped off for a meal and picked up some groceries at the convenience store.
This evening we have guest number 4: Guy from Brussels. Early night tonight. The two of us were up with the proverbial larks this morning and it wasn’t to watch the election results come through.
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