After Tennoji we began our journey to Nagoya, but we decided to take a brief stopover at Hikone to see Hikone Castle. Hikone Castle was supposed to be a little less refurbished than other castles like Osaka Castle (which was a little disappointing to be honest). However, we did overlook one thing: the fact that this was an all day STOPOVER.

Stopover meaning we didn’t make accommodation reservations anywhere in the area, meaning we didn’t have anywhere to drop our 50kg backpacks. This made for an extremely painful and tiring day, however, it was most definitely worth it as we got to see a couple great things.

First thing was of course Hikone Castle which was absolutely amazing. It was a LOT smaller than Osaka castle, however, it was also a LOT less untouched than Osaka Castle. Outside looked nice, but still a bit untouched, so there were some dodgy bits of paint and wood and stuff – but i loved all of this. It had a lot of character. The garden surrounding the castle was really nice, however most of the trees were dead. So i would have imagined that in autumn it would have been really amazing. We were also actually quite high up and got to look over the surrounding cities.

The majority of the interior Hikone Castle was lit naturally, which resulted in a dark and dank feel. This was really cool. Also all the steps to climb from one level to another were really steep, almost felt like a ladder. But when we got to the top of Hikone castle, we got to look out the windows, and outside we saw an awesome sight: Lake Biwa.

Lake Biwa is the biggest lake in Japan and, from the top floor of Hikone Castle, just looks like the ocean, but on a clear day you can see the outlines of civilization and mountains on the opposite side. But it’s huge, and very impressive (that’s what she said).

After checking out the Castle and gawking at Lake Biwa we all came to the unanimous vote to sit down, feed our face with peanut butter sandwhiches and rest our aching feet.  So we found a 7-11…. and I had peanut butter in my bag.  YAY!  So using our makeshift knife (spoon), we spread our peanut butter and stuffed our faces, whilst sitting on the ground outside 7-11 looking like the ‘daggiest’ gaijin hobo’s ever to walk the mean streets of Japan.

And so we made it back to Hikone station, completely spent for the day, and caught a train to Nagoya where we could drop our bags, rest, and continue exploring.

Ciao for Now!