Adventures at Himeji Castle

As of tomorrow, I will have been in Japan for two weeks now. Crazy, right? I'm loving it here and I've made so many new friends. Things haven't always been easy- I still can't read kanji and most of the time I have no idea what anyone's talking about but I've gotten by. Going to Japanese class every day certainly has helped me, and I feel like I've already made a lot of progress.

On Sunday, I went to Himeji Castle with some friends. It's the oldest castle in Japan--according to Wikipedia, it has a history dating back to the 14th century, although it was *officially* constructed in 1561. Since then, there have been multiple additions and renovations to the castle, the most recent of which was from 2014-2015.

 The day began with an hour-and-a-half long train ride to Himeji. After arriving at the station, we ate takoyaki (fried octopus balls) and crepes. Both were incredibly delicious. Even if you have reservations about eating octopus, I would still recommend takoyaki- the octopus wasn't too chewy, and didn't taste fishy.

Mmm, takoyaki.

After lots and lots of walking, we finally reached the castle. And then we walked some more. The castle grounds were huge, and there are six floors in the main building.

Around the entrance, there were a bunch of people dressed in traditional clothing. This is me with a samurai.

Something I found interesting was that once we were inside the castle, we had to take off our shoes- they gave us little grocery bags to carry them in. I didn't mind walking in my socks, but every time we went up a flight of stairs I felt like I was going to slip and die.

Despite the fact that it was cloudy and kind of cold, it was beautiful. The sakura were in full bloom, and I took lots of pictures. 

Well, that's all for now. Himeji was really cool, and I would definitely recommend visiting it, especially in the spring. Stay tuned for more adventures!