Renovation means that the entire main keep is covered by a huge scaffolding, so you don't see anything from the outside, and you can't go in either. The bonus is that the entrance fee is a lot cheaper than usual!
Some of the smaller buildings and most of the castle grounds were open, however, so I got to see at least something. Somewhere on the grounds was the piece of wall you can see on the picture below. The round tiles are usually used to decorate the eaves, and the different designs show the family crests of all the lords who contributed to building the castle.
Right next to Himeji castle is Koko-en garden, a handful of different Japanese gardens. They were nearly empty when I visited, probably because tourists stay away from Himeji due to the castle renovation. All the more opportunities to take nice, uncrowded pictures! ;-)
After strolling through the gardens, I went on to Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History (Hyogo is the name of the prefecture where Himeji is located). The most interesting exhibit was a room full of models of Japanese castles. The biggest one in the image is Himeji castle, of course.
My final stop that day was Himeji City Museum of Art. They had an exhibition showing mostly paintings by a single Japanese artist (forgot his name.. ah well). This allowed to retrace how his style evolved over time which I found very interesting.
