I had another nose bleed but this time on the bed pillows at about 6am, and unlike all the others this one lasted a long time, and went everywhere. Swallowing lots of blood was not fun either.
After cleaning up all of the blood and having breakfast I did most of my packing for tomorrow since I had a bit of spare time still. Outside it was still raining and the bottom of my feet were still feeling very raw, so I waited in the room for a while before going out.
The rain was forecast to continue all day until after 6pm, and the train at Shin-Osaka was only leaving at 11:30am. Like usual with Japan I expected the train to arrive a few minutes before departure, so I didn't want to leave it until the last minute to get to the station platform.
At Osaka station it was a bit confusing finding the platform for Shin-Osaka, it wasn't at the central area I'd been visiting each day but a separate, unconnected subway entrance for a metropolitan train line. At Shin-Osaka I then had to exit that subway area and head upstairs to the shinkansen platform. There was thousands of people around so it was good practice to do all this before returning for a Nagoya trip tomorrow with the same process.
I had about 20 minutes to wait at the station before the shinkansen was ready to leave. The train arrives quite early but they don't let passengers on until about 5 minutes before leaving. Once the previous train had left the next one came along shortly after, with a special Hello Kitty design. I booked a reserved seat for a few extra dollars as I didn't know how crowded these trains would be, but it wasn't even half full, although school holidays haven't started yet.
After boarding I went to the front carriage and there was a special shop selling some a bit of exclusive merchandise, so I got a magnet. For these long distance trains you can bring food and drink along, and they actually have bins for them too. The train only took about 40 minutes with two stops before I was getting off at Himeji.
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Himeji is quite a small town so as soon as I was off the train I could see the castle only a kilometre away. I decided to run up the street as it was rather quiet, and to see how my feet were feeling, and they turned out to be not terrible. At the top of the town is the entrance to the castle so I went there first with my QR code ticket.
The first stop inside the castle was the west wing section called west bailey. You have to take off your shoes at the entrance, but they had plastic bags to put them in, as they'd have been a little wet and annoying to carry otherwise. This west section wasn't too special, a lot of small rooms and a bit of information, but not a lot on display.
After getting through there it was off the main keep section, and shoes off again. Along the way I smashed my head quite bad on one of the doorways, but no blood. The main keep was about six levels high, with very steep, narrow stairs to climb up. All of the levels were pretty empty too, a couple had some video screens playing but I wasn't that interested. There was some good photo opportunities of the different floors and the views down to the town below. After going through all six levels and back down again there was a small loop around the outside and then ended up back at the entrance.
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Off to the side of the castle was the Kokoen gardens which I had purchased in a combination ticket. From the entrance it looked like the gardens would be quite small, but they did fit in quite a lot of different areas. There wasn't anything too different than other Japanese gardens, probably the fish pond area was the best.
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Despite the forecast for rain the entire day I'd got quite lucky and only encountered very light rain, I didn't even need a poncho or umbrella. After the gardens I started heading back towards the city, passing a couple of souvenir stores across the road from the castle. The magnets for sale were quite limited in variety and didn't look very good, so I decided to wait and see what showed up along Miyuki shopping street next.
This street was another undercover shopping street similar to the one in Osaka, and it seemed to be repeating a lot of the same kinds of stores. I don't going through most of them, but I also didn't notice any that looked like they might be selling magnets by the time I was back down near Himeji station.
It was a bit annoying to not find a magnet, and I didn't feel like walking another 750 metres each way back towards the castle, so instead I had quick look around the station area. There was an information centre somehow selling nothing, and finally a 7-eleven with some average magnets also, but I had no other choice by now.
Instead of another shinkansen I just got a regular rapid train back to Osaka, which took about an hour instead of 30-40 minutes, but less than half price too, and went to Osaka station instead of Shin-Osaka. Once at Osaka station I got some more boring food for dinner, then went back to the hotel to get changed for an attempt at some running.
I decided to go back to Yodo River west rather than running back and forth near Umeda Sky again. Running in a straight line until crossing the bridge I felt pretty good, but as soon as I had to change direction it was very painful. It basically feels like the bottoms of my feet have tender and new skin, like if you'd burnt your feet on a hot surface. I took it carefully after that and managed a total of 7 kilometres without any other incidents.
So that was it for my last day in Osaka already. I made some initial plans for getting to Nagoya in the morning as I was due to arrive by about 12:30pm but check-in wasn't until 2pm. Although it's good to have a bit of extra time to explore the city I'd have to hold onto my backpack with computer so it's a lot to carry around for 2 hours.
Himeji - 5 out of 10
- Good
- Close to Osaka
- Himeji castle
- Bad
- Lack of magnets
- Lack of other attractions
- Missed Out
- Mt Sosha - a bit further away
- Engyoji temple
- Shoshazan ropeway
Osaka - 7 out of 10
- Good
- Breakfast buffet
- Convenience store snacks
- Kaiyukan Aquarium
- Trains
- Bad
- Buying too many snacks at convenience stores
- Limited drink options at convenience stores
- Nintendo Store didn't have many interesting or rare items
- Pokemon Store had long queues
- Rain
- Running options
- Universal Studios crowds
- Missed Out
- Amerikamura
- Nakanoshima park and rose garden
- Namba Yasaka shrine
- Osaka museum of history
- Other restaurants
- Rinku Premium Outlets - an hour away near the airport, might not have had my size
- Running at Osaka castle
- Some other shrines and temples
Steps = 23,197 with 7 kilometres running
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