Japan’s most famous castle – Himeji Castle; it took me the 3rd trip to finally visit it. We took the train from Osaka Station to Himeji Station which took around 1 hour (included with our Kansai Area Pass). From Himeji Station to the castle was a long 20-minute walk but super easy; flat road along the main street from the station straight to the castle. To enter the castle, crossed this wooden bridge to the entrance gate.
The double stroller was super helpful on the 20-minute walk.
Once we entered the gate, a large open field gave the best views of the castle. The cherry trees lined the open field but we were there right after the peak bloom otherwise the views would be spectacular!
I walked around the field for different angles of the castle, which one you like the best?
A quick family photo 🙂
The ticket office is located just before the stairs to walk up to the castle; the admission fee was 1000 JPY per person. We parked the stroller on the side and started the walk, the kids were great with the stairs. Some of the doorways were super low like this one:
At the courtyard before the entrance of the interior of the castle, we were given a plastic bag to store our shoes and carry with us. I guess no shoes are allowed to protect the wooden floors and stairs. Inside the castle is empty just like other Japanese castles and to reach from one floor to another, we climbed up those very narrow wooden stairways that looped around the castle:
There are 6 floors above the ground, we made it to the 3rd floor and decided to just hang out there with the kids while Jason continued to the top as my mom, aunt, and cousin weren’t great with stairs especially going down those very narrow steps. Every floor looked almost the same so not much exciting new thing to see. My kids wanted to check out what is displayed on that board even though they can’t read haha.
The view of the city outside of the window:
The interior of the castle, every floor looked the same:
Some displays of the weapons used back then:
A miniature model of how the castle was built:
Jason came back down and said it was not worth it, every floor looked similar! We slowly made our way down and had a final view of the castle. Japanese castles looked more impressive from the outside in my opinion.
After the castle, we had a quick lunch at the restaurant across the main entrance of the castle for convenience and available seating. The restaurant’s main dishes were we thought it was eel from the photos but it wasn’t LOL. The restaurant was cash-only, yikes, but fortunately, the lunch wasn’t too expensive at 5940 JPY. After lunch, we checked out the souvenir shops next to the restaurant and then headed back to Osaka.
Once we got back to the hotel, we took a break so my son could nap, otherwise, he would be sleeping during dinner time and missed his dinner. Traveling with kids, I learned to be flexible and kept the itinerary easy and not jam packed with sightseeing. For dinner, I made reservation at Kani Doraku Umeda Branch; it was within walking distance from the hotel.
We ordered 5 different combos to try and share among 5 adults and 2 kids; it was plenty of food! I couldn’t keep track of what dishes belong to what combo but everything was CRAB 🙂
Some dishes were shabu shabu style (Japanese hot pot).
While some where bbq, it was great to try out both.
The crab meat rice was delicious and we got 3 pots of those from the combos; we were so full!
The crab meat feast was 42955 JPY, expensive but totally worth the experience. After the fulfilling dinner, we walked over to Don Quijote, close to the restaurant, to get all those Japanese goodies! This branch isn’t as big as the one we went to in Shibuya in Tokyo so it doesn’t have everything we got from the last trip. We still ended up buying a lot of goodies to stuff our luggage haha!
Vending machine is very popular in Japan and Jason noticed this one………a bug machine ewwww!!!
