Himeji Castle Tour - part 3
Ok, last part of this tour and we still have lots to see.
Here is gate 5 on our way into the castle. When we get close we can see the gate is called the fifth-water gate (actually the kanji say water-five-gate):
After a little more walking we come across the sixth gate:
After we make our way inside, we travel up 6 flights of stairs, leading to the top. Along the way there are lookout windows and rooms for guards and guests stay in. I couldn’t take photos of everything, but I did grab a few photos of the weapon racks.
A rack of muskets, and then a rack of spears.
When we get to the top you get a pretty good view of all the surrounding territory. In this photo we can see the main entrance courtyard below (it is a huge courtyard, but in this photo it looks very small. Farther in the distance we see the modern city built upon the same spot that the previous ones were.
On our way out, we stop by a few more sections on the castle grounds. This one was most peculiar:
This area was known as the suicide quarter. An area for those that wanted to commit harakiri (self disembowelment) for honor’s sake. Not a pleasant part of town I’m sure.
