In Himeji inn town part 1, we touched the eastern part of Himeji castle town. And we encountered the wonder of two Saigoku Kaido routes.
Let’s get on the street. Here is the overview of central-western part of Himeji inn town/castle town.
This is the north route of Saigoku Kaido.
Close to the central area with arcade street. The north route of Saigoku Kaido goes straight then turns right.
South route, on the other hand, goes completely under the arcades.
The south route is now Nikaimachi business street. Nikaimachi, which literally means, “the town of two-story houses”. In castle towns, only building flat houses were allowed during Edo period. However, this Nikaimachi was an exception. This street became more popular than the primary route of Saigoku Kaido which is the north route. Eventually the south route was recognized as Saigoku Kaido.
The original Saigoku Kaido. There is a sign that explains that many people went down south then westward to Nikaimachi direction. But it does say that this was indeed the Saigoku Kaido.
This corner is called Fuda no tsuji(the corner of the signpost). It says that this corner used to be crowded, and there was a signpost for any notifications and rules. Basically, it’s 高札場(Kosatsuba) signpost, just like any other inn towns used to have. Of course, one of rules on the signpost would have been “Notify if you find Christians”.
Here the sign says “The house of Onatsu”. The story of Onatsu along with her boyfriend, Seijuro, was described in the Tale of Onatsu-Seijuro by Saikaku Ihara, in late 17th-century. Sources say that Ihara’s version of this story has fictions, but the basic story of Onatsu and Seijuro was that both fell in love each other but their love was forbidden, so they tried to elope together but failed.
This used to be a shrine. DuringbEdo period, there were events regarding administrative affairs of this town. In 1876, former members of Sakai clan(who presumably lived and played the role of a leader in this town), along with town folks honored Masachika Sakai and enshrined him. The shrine was later moved out of this place.
The south route has been one of the main streets of Himeji up today. Lots of businesses are open. Now we see why the south route
About this building, several sources say that it was built either in 1917 or 1921 as a local bank branch office: the Thirty-Fourth Bank Himeji branch office.(In the old days, national banks took numbers as the name according to the order of establishments. The national bank in Osaka was established as the 34th bank. Some banks still keep the original number as their names up today.
The north route goes down south to merge with the south route.
This is Shirasagi bridge. The name of the bridge came from the nickname of Himeji castle.(Shirasagi means “white egret”.)
But this bridge was built much later, not in Edo period. The next picture will show the bridge of the original Saigoku Kaido route.
This is the ruins of Himeji castle Bizen gate bridge. Bizen gate was standing on the direction of Bizen(today’s eastern Okayama). So Saigoku Kaido went through this bridge.
Saigoku Kaido is going north.
This white house is Hatsui family house. Shizue Inoue married to Saichi Hatsui, and lived here for her entire life. She was a 20-century poet.
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