Golden Week 2012 - Half day in Hikone 彦根

28th April 2012

I took shikansen from Kumamoto 熊本 to Hakata 博多, then night bus to Kyoto 京都. The bus was scheduled to reach on 6.20 am, but reached on 5.00 am instead. Even the toilets were still locked in the Kyoto station. I had to make a detour to the front gate of the train station to use the toilet. Since me and my travel mate, Tee were early, we took an early train and reached Hikone before 8.00 am. It was a sleepy town.

Just Outside Hikone Station

The town was famous with Lake Biwa 琵琶湖. So, we walked there, passing the Hikone castle. Since we had boat trips many times before, we just took photos around the lake. Since the lake was too big, we were just walking on a portion of the lake. Then, we walked around the streets of Hikone. There was a very traditional shopping street with a dreamy name, 夢京橋. Since it was too early, the shops were still closed. So, we found a cafe to have breakfast. Me and my friend spoke Chinese, so the coffee shop owner and others were gossiping, when we finally paid for our breakfast, she finally asked us about our origin. Hahaha!

There were lot of birds chirping around!

Lake Biwa 琵琶湖

Lake Biwa 琵琶湖

the place to take the boat tour around Lake Biwa

seeing the Hikone castle from afar

the shopping street

Hikonyan ひこにゃん

a statue of 观音, i think

it was an old horse stable (entrance free) , near the castle

Then, we went to the shopping street for the souvenir. The Hikone mascot, Hikonyan ひこにゃん was very cute, it was a cat wearing a samurai's helmet. After that, we walked around the Hikone castle, we didn't go in though, as we have seen a lot of castles in Japan already. Then, there was really nothing for us to do in Hikone, we just bough the train tickets to Fukui 福井 for our next destination. We took normal JR train to Maibara 米原, then express train to Fukui. What surprised me was that no one checked the train ticket on the express train. In Kyushu, I had never experienced that!

Click here for my itinerary!

Day 1 : Hikone & Dinosour Museum & Ojima, Tojinbo & Eiheiji
Day 2 : Kanazawa
Day 3 : Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route
Day 4 : Kusatsu Onsen & Around Matsumoto City
Day 5 : Kamikochi
Day 6 : Kawaguchiko
Day 7 : Mt. Fuji & Around Shimizu Area
Day 8 : Hamamatsu Matsuri 1 & Hamamatsu Matsuri 2 & Meiji Mura