Hikone Castle with Local Guide! | Japan Travel VLOG - Shiga | 彦根城、滋賀

Hello everybody and welcome to today's video. We are here in Shiga Prefecture. Where is Shiga and why are we here you ask? Shiga is located to the east of Kyoto and it is in the center of Japan's main Honshu island. The prefecture is known for Lake Biwa which is the largest lake in Japan and it also has beautiful scenery, shrines, nature, you name it. However, even though it is so close to Kyoto it is much less visited than its neighbor. On this video I'll be visiting which is a town that is known for its castle and deep samurai history and in another video I will take you on a bike ride around parts of Lake Biwa. So if you want to learn about this awesome prefecture come with me as we explore Shiga. Let's go! I arrived late last night taking the Shinkansen from Hakata station to Kyoto station and then transferring to a more local train from Kyoto station until Hikone station and the train from Kyoto station to Hikone only took 50 minutes. So it is quite easily accessible from Kyoto. I am super excited today because instead of my normal solo journeys I'm going to be going on a guided walking tour with my friend Miyuki who is a licensed guide here in Japan. She gives private tours in lesser-known places like Shiga, Gifu, and Aichi and has a great passion for introducing off-the-grid spots and unique experiences with visitors. I'm excited to meet Miyuki who planned today's afternoon tour and learn about this area. Since I have about an hour before meeting Miyuki I am going on a little morning stroll walking around the outskirts of the castle seeing the moat and some of the walls and it is a beautiful morning here. We have birds chirping, ducks in the water, and it is just a lovely sight. Also the fall colors are starting to come out so we have some very very beautiful red maples so enjoying this little morning walk. So I just arrived near the entrance of Hikone castle and met up with Miyuki. Now we are on our way to the Hikone city national museum. Can you see any differences? The one on the left and one on the right. The right one it's taller and longer definitely longer and has the windows. Yes windows how are they used did you know? To what are they? Yeah shoot arrows. I got one answer right. In this museum there was a neat lego replica of Hikone castle and I learned from Miyuki about where people of different social classes lived in the town during the Edo period. Our next stop was just a few minutes away the Hikone castle museum. This museum had an extensive collection of artifacts from the ruling Yi clan, weapons and armor of samurai warriors, art objects and craft works, historical documents, and displays of no theater and tea ceremonies, cultural activities that flourished in this region. These are different swords that have opposite curvatures based on how they were used in battle either on foot or on horseback. There was even a no stage that was built during the Edo period and is still used today that we could walk through and see a recording of a no performance. Beyond the no stage was another area that we could explore to see the reconstructed Omote Goten which was a structure that housed the main government offices of the Hikone domain and served as the living quarters of the daimyo. So we just did a tour of the Hikone castle museum. I learned so much. Miyuki asked me so many questions and I knew nothing but she was very great. You knew something. But she was very great about telling me about the history of the Yi clan and how the samurais lived and then we got to see many different objects and writings and lots of cool things there. So it was much bigger than I expected the museum. But now we are going to lunch? Yeah. Okay we are going to lunch now. We are off to lunch near Yume Kyobashi Castle Road, a shopping street with recreated Edo period buildings that feature black and white facades. We are in kind of the back streets now going to our restaurant which is a Italian Japanese type of restaurant. Here's our menu of different pastas, salads. So we just finished our lunch at a lovely Italian restaurant. Our bellies are very full but it was very good. And now we are heading back to the castle to go into the tower? Yes. Going to the castle to go into the tower. And the garden. We will see the gardens. Let's go. There's even a museum for the mascot of Hikone called Hikonya which is a neko. Yeah the the cat with the red helmet of Hikone. Okay we will take a brief detour to the Hikonya museum. So again Hikonya is a cat that is the mascot of Hikone the castle and it is one of Japan's top five mascots. Here. Oh my gosh. So cute. You can take home souvenirs. Nyan chan. Hikonya. Lots and lots of little souvenirs featuring this adorable mascot. So Miyuki just told me that all of these trees lining the moat are cherry blossom trees which makes it a beautiful place to come in the spring when they're blooming. And there is a boat that you can take in the moat for a even more special experience. Such a lovely day here right before the start of December. We're very lucky. I see some little tiny horns in the distance. I think we're gonna be lucky and able to see the famed kitty Hikonyan. Hikonyan was so cute and fun to watch but the tour must go on. We're making our way slowly up the hill into the entrance of the castle. This is a staircase of 140 stairs. So we are working off the lunch that we just ate on these hard to walk little path here. Have you been to all of the castles in Japan, Miyuki? It's not possible. Not possible? Why? Including the castle ruins. Oh the castle ruins. Yeah. She needs to go to all the castles in Japan. Lake Biwa. Looks like an ocean with lots of mountains behind it. That is Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake here in the center of Shiga. We are still climbing up. So this bell is still in use. People hit this bell like five times a day and this was used during the Edo period to tell the time to the people living in Hikone. We have made it! So this is the Hikone castle, one of the 12 original castles left in Japan and one of the five that are designated a national property. From the top we can see Lake Biwa which is where we will be bike riding tomorrow and over down here is the garden which we'll visit afterwards with the little tiny boat. So cute! These are crazy steep steps but we are climbing it. At the top floor of the castle you can see the huge wooden ceiling structure and a panoramic view from the windows. My shoes are still here. Those were some very steep stairs. Had to be careful scaling them but we were able to see a nice view of the lake and surroundings from the castle and now we are continuing our journey. Look at the castle behind me but we are heading to the garden. This is the ticket that we've been using and it was a three-way ticket to both the museum, the castle, and the garden. So you can see here we have the garden left and they'll rip off this corner and then we'll be done. For the last part of our tour we visit Genkyuen Garden which is said to have been built in 1677 by the feudal lord Naoki. When we visited there was a special boat ride service so we got to hop aboard and enjoy a leisurely ride in the pond. What do we have in here? So we have cherry blossom trees here and these trees bloom twice a year which is very special because usually the Japanese cherry blossom trees bloom from the end of March through the early April but these trees were given by the city of Mito. Special twice blooming cherry blossom trees. Well we finished today's video. We went to the palace museum, had a delicious lunch, also went to the tower and then the beautiful gardens and it was so much fun here having Miyuki as my guide so I'm very thankful for all of the things that I was able to learn. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and I feel like I know so much more about Japan but I need to study to understand so much more but I really appreciated having you here today guide me and I hope to explore more of Shiga and central Japan so thank you so much everyone for watching. If you like this don't forget to give the video a like and check out what Miyuki is doing. She's doing lots of travel planning courses for anyone who is looking to come to this part of Japan. She also has guided tours and is extremely knowledgeable in everything about Japan travel so if you have any questions she is your history expert and travel expert so don't be afraid to reach out to her. And it was so fun with Miyuki because she is such a knowledgeable tour guide. I could definitely tell in the museum she knew which items were new because she just goes there so many times and I was pretty shocked by that but she knows her stuff and made it fun too which is what I really enjoyed. So I am going to be going on a bike ride tomorrow praying for some good weather but tonight I am going to be getting some food to eat and then going to my ryokan. I am staying at a ryokan close to the castle and it has been a really nice day. A very traditional building with very nice owners so going to rest up for the big trip tomorrow and then I will be off on wheels around Lake Biwa but thank you so much for watching. If you are looking to learn more don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you on the next video. Bye!