All along the watchtower

[You may be thinking that the title of this post relates to the Himeji Castle, but read on and be amazed!]
Friday 9th April
We looked out the window this morning to see that the road repairs had been completed, including the repainting of the white lines! We didn't hear a thing, but the work must have gone on until the early hours.

We started today by having breakfast in a little French Cafe (yes, I did say French!).

We then went to the Tourist Office to organise the rental of bicycles. I use the term loosely as there is no charge for the 'rental'. The system involves filling in a simple form and then taking a tag to a big underground bike parking station further up the road, and swapping the tags for bicycles. There's even a little escalator to help get the bikes up to street level.


We rode our bikes up to the castle and parked them near the castle grounds. Along the way, I did try to operate the throttle a few times until I got the hang of pedal power. There were thousands of tourists at the castle (how dare they?), including more Westerners than we've seen in Japan to date. The cherry blossoms around the castle were simply stunning. Apparently there are 8000 trees in the castle surrounds and today was their peak day. We discovered that our timing was very fortunate in more ways than one, as we were told that the castle is closing next week for 5 years for some major restoration work.

I turned around at one stage to see John was chatting up a couple of women in kimonos, so I went over to join them. We talked at length about the castle, our journey and the Australian system of Long Service Leave (which they found very hard to believe!). John then asked them if they were just visiting the castle today. One of them said “We're volunteers. We are actually Jehovah's Witnesses” and handed John two copies of The Watchtower. I know that Mum-in-law doesn't like this word, but we were GOBSMACKED!! I've tried to use my mental thesaurus, but can't think of a more appropriate word. Jehovahs in kimonos. Who would have thought!


Are these ladies:

a) Buddhist
b) Shinto
c) Jehovah's Witness


142 photographs later, we left the castle and followed the recommended bicycle route around the castle. We visited the nine traditional Japanese gardens along the way. The gardens were really beautiful and had gigantic goldfish in the ponds and streams. Would have made a good dinner!


We returned the bikes, did some washing and had a quick hamburger for dinner. There are only so many noodles that one can eat. The extra night in Himeji turned out to be quite a blessing, as we were able to relax and enjoy today at a leisurely pace. We're all recharged and ready for more!