The last few days in Hikone

On the flight to Osaka Kansai Airport the seat next to me was occupied by a very chatty native Osakan woman named Kaeko. If I wasn’t sleeping we were talking; mainly about what I would encounter in Japan that would be radically different from America, but also about Kaekos’ time in America. Listening to a Japanese perspective on living in the west was fascinating, especially since Japan has a very low crime rate and Kaeko had lived in New York City. One of the enduring points Kaeko made was that the Japanese are obsessed with “cute”. Kaeko had a bright pink cell phone with a long chain of charms hanging off it. In Hikone we have a samurai cat as the official mascot of the city.

On Saturday we went to Hikone castle. The castle is in the heart of the town and has an incredible view of the city. However, to get to the castle you have to climb up a long ramp that twists and turns around guard parapets. Greeting us at the top of the ramp was a souvenir stand selling the Hikone cat on shirts, towels, glasses etc. Although seeing the tourist stand was odd, the castle is gorgeous. Inside Hikone castle there are very few signs and the grounds are very sparse. In order to get to the keep we had to climb up a few sets of nearly vertical stairs. The group was standing at the bottom of a set trying to figure out how best to climb up when a pair of little, old ladies simply went right up; we couldn’t live down the shame of not going up if the elderly in Japan could do it.

On the castle grounds were a set of period actors. A man was dressed as a samurai while a pair of women were wearing kimonos and taking pictures with the tourists. When the samurai saw us across the yard he waved us over and offered to take a picture. Afterwards one of the women came up to me with a dagger and stabbed me. The dagger was a theatrical model and the blade slid into the hilt, but the Japanese found this to be really hysterical. As if to make up for it the samurai drew is katana and offered it to me for a picture, then drew his short sword and we got a few great shots.