830. That was the time that we had ALL agreed upon to wake up to head to the castle whose name I’ve forgotten. So 3 hours later… with no sign of life from the others, angrily Harry Toby Beanie and I decided to leave for the train at 1130 without the others. The JR passes came in handy. Because the impressive 51km in 30 minute trip, would have been $20…. So it was nice to be able to just get on a train with no worries. Ironically there were worries, as the one train we got on in a rush said over the PA that it was not covered by the JR passes. We never jumped off a train quicker in our lives, and it took off only a few moments later. We eventually arrived at our destination. 

From the base, the castle was imposing and impressive. What I love about old Japanese buildings, and even new ones is that they all have very beautiful gardens all around, and this place was by no means an exception. Before going into the main place we did a little exploring of the surrounding shrine area thingy, and we tried to keep Harry and Toby from investigating yet another fucking Pokémon store. As we walked up to the main castle, we spotted a redbull stunt being set up, however we were much too early to see what it would’ve been, so we continued into the castle. 

From my experience I Europe I had expected the place to be mostly preserved with some cool artefacts dotted around, however I was surprised upon entering to see that that whole place had been retrofitted into a museum sort of thing. I’ll admit that I’ve never been a big fan of museums and probably didn’t get as much out the experience as I could have. There were some cool interactive things like a quiz that I was dogshit at and a bow and arrow kinda thing that beanie and Toby played. At the top floor was a little cafe with obviously a great view. I ordered an Ice cream float because I felt guilty about sitting at a table without paying them for something. Everyone was once again pretty tired, so most people had dinner and went to bed. 

The drunkards went to have drinks with a guy staying in our room at the hostel, and came back quite late. I was silly enough to stay up and talk to them instead of getting ready for the early start then next morning