Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Hikone and Nagahama
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Well, going to bed without a confirmed destination for today was kinda suspenseful, but I had some idea of where to go today. It was a matter of confirming with my friend when she woke up.
We agreed to go to Hikone to visit the Hikone Castle and then proceed to Nagahama to view the townscape of preserved buildings.
We grabbed an early train out to Hikone. The train ride cost us 1100 JPY and took about an hour. The town of Hikone looks like a super sleepy town. Not many people were about the town. We took a nice cool walk to Hikone Castle. The admission fee was 600 JPY and it includes a visit to the Gakyu-En Garden.
Hikone Castle is quite similar to Himeji Castle, except that it is much much smaller in size. Hikone Castle is about 3 stories high, whereas Himeji is about 6 stories high. Himeji is also much bigger in terms of floor space. The first floor of Hikone Castle is probably not bigger than 2 HDB 3 room flats worth of space. My estimation could be horribly wrong though, I'mnot know for accuracy in estimation. The stairs are really steep, as consistent with Himeji and makes me wonder why Japanese a few hundred years ago needed steps that were so high. Probably strategic or something.
After twirling aorund Hikone Castle, we went into Gakyu-En. It's a pretty nice little place with a pond in the middle covering about half the garden's area. Several bridges connect the side of the pond to a centralised area where they have a old style Japanese hut. They currently have some Matcha ceremonies there and you can join in for 500 JPY. My friend and I did not take up the offer though.
After leaving the garden, my friend wanted to go to Nagahama for lunch, so we proceeded to the train station. we bought tickets for Nagahama (230 JPY) and checked the train schedule boards. I thought it was odd that local trains did not go to where we were going, and only Special rapid service did. we figured that it was probably because the places along the track were further apart than before that point in the tracks.
We got on the special rapid service headed towards our destination, but did not realise that we were in a carriage which would stop at Maibara instead of continuing on to Nagahama. fortunately, the train staff noticed us and told us to get off and into carriages 1-4.
Our first major train booboo! Taking trains in Kyoto has been relatively easy so far... next week we challenge Tokyo! We might be horribly lost.
Anyway, we arrived at Nagahama and we were wondering what to do for lunch. I pointed out the ever present Mac's to my friend but my friend wanted to try her luck looking for other stuff. we spent the next hour (walking around in the rain half that time) looking for food. In the end, we ended up back in MacDonald's and by the time we were done, I'm not even sure if that was lunch or dinner. We finished eating at about 1630 and it was too late to do anymore exploring of the place. We went grocery shopping instead and took the train back to Kyoto. This ride cost us a goodly 1280 JPY. Ouch.
Dinner was back in the hostel. We ate microwaved rice which we bought in the supermarket, with some onigiri seasoning and sausages. Kinda yummy and fun actually. Finally feels like we are backpacking. lol.
P.S. We're not really backpacking... but .. yeah you get the idea.
Tomorrow will be walking around Kyoto!
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