Yesterday I took a detour from my Kyoto —> Nagoya route to stop over in Himeji to see Himeji Jo (castle).
Spectacular sight, and it's one of the best in Japan. Apparently it's one of the only castles left that still towers above the neighboring buildings.
I actually went all the way up into the top of the tower—from the outside it looks like there are only five stories, but somehow they managed to cram seven inside (including one story that's 15 feet tall).
The tower was in pretty bad shape following the fall of the Shogunate, so the whole deal was completely dismantled in the 1950s and was meticulously rebuilt using whatever original materials were reusable, and otherwise traditional materials and construction techniques.
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