Himeji: Rock Festival + Tsukimi

I met up with my hosts Kyoko and Megumi around 12:30. I didn’t have a clue where we were going, but in any case we headed to a park behind the castle. Before we arrived, Kyoko asked me whether I liked rock music, so I told her I did, and she answered she didn’t and that we were going to a rock festival just because her friend was working there. Hehe going to a rock festival when you don’t even like rock music…

So yeah, there were rocking people and lots of stalls selling all kinds of (weird) food. After finding a few chairs to sit on, Kyoko gave us some money so we could pick what ever food we liked. We checked out the actual stage, were a band was performing.

After that we looked around the various stalls to see what we liked. Of course, since I was the guest, I had to pick all the food!

We sat and talked for a while, and I was introduced to a bunch of people and got told I was so good at Japanese as usual, and so on. Upon returning home, Megumi and I got separated from Kyoko who had some business to attend to. The two of us walked back home along the beautiful castle. Did I tell you I fell in love with the castle at first sight? I took hundreds of pictures of it during my stay, but don’t worry, I’ll post only a few. 😉

When we got home around 2:30 PM, I took a nap while Megumi went back to the guesthouse. I was awoken by men’s voices. Scary! I kept quiet until they left. I was supposed to wake up an hour later…. In the evening, the situation was explained to me and it turned out the annex where we stay is sometimes used for guests as well. Because of the big group of Australian high schoolers the day before, the main building had to undergo a big clean-up, so guests stayed at the annex that day.

6 PM: meet up at the guesthouse again for a second festival. It turned out October is quite the festival month in Himeji. We bought food and snacks at the supermarket and were off to the castle grounds. Time for a tsukimi (moon viewing) party! I’d experience hanami (picnic under the blooming sakura trees), but this was my first tsukimi. The castle was beautifully lit up for this gathering. For the Japanese, it’s just yet another reason to go drinking in public though… 😉 There were so many people, incredible! Even the people I was with were surprised. More and more of Kyoko’s friends and acquaintances joined us and asked lots of questions about me. Sometimes I secretly acted as if I didn’t understand just because I was tired of repeating the same things over and over again.

Around 9 PM, we returned to the guesthouse and watched some TV until Megumi’s shift ended at 11 PM. I went straight to bed after writing my diary (I wrote everything down because I’m bad at keeping up my blog… 😉 ) because I was exhausted.