Sunday, 16 November 2025

This visit was something I was going to squeeze into my itinerary no matter what, and it caused a whole lot of changes to make it fit as it’s only open on weekends and Wednesdays. The former residence of the Yamamura family, a national important cultural property, Yodoko Guest House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s one of four buildings that still exist that were designed by FLW in Japan. One is a private residence in Tokyo, another was the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (the foyer was saved when it was demolished), Jiyu Gakuen Girls’ School also in Tokyo and this one.

It’s about 1-1.5 hours by train from Himeji back towards Osaka so I caught a train around 9:30 am (it opened at 10 am) and “planned” to have a late lunch in Ashiya before returning back to Himeji.

I am spoilt for choices on railway lines between Himeji and Ashiya. Shinkansen was an easy elimination as its expensive and Ashiya doesn’t have a station so there would be a transfer involved, probably backtracking too. A couple of other JR choices but I decided to use the private Sanyo Electric Railway which uses a station slightly closer to my hotel.

Heading east out of Himeji seemed quite industrial and while looking out the window at the scenery we pasted a foot race of some sort, and kept passing it, and still some more. Might have been a serious race and a fun run given the number of people out there.

I got fleeting glimpses of the Akashi-kaikyo Bridge which is one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, located in Akashi Strait between Kobe and Awaji Island.

Navigation once I reached Ashiya was pretty easy, for once, get off train, pick west exit and follow a river towards the hills.

I walked past the Ashiya Buddhist Hall and wondered why the flag might be at what seemed half mast.

And first sight of Yodoko Guest House, surrounded by trees on its hill.

The last bit of the walk was quite steep.

But I got there

Google says the plaque on the right says “Important Cultural Property, Yodogawa Steel Works Guest House, 1918, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright”.

So I entered and walked up the drive

No mistaking the hand of Frank Lloyd Wright right from the outset.

I have a lot of photos from this point on but I’ll try to stay under control and only share a few. People who want more can nag me about it later 🙂

If you sit in that chair (the sign on the desk with the wonderful legs says you can) this is the view

The dining room was the most impressive and important room in the house

and from the dining room you could step out onto the terrace

and the view from the terrace

Behind the dining room is the kitchen

There was even a fish in the ponds near the door

and finally the view from the car park. It looks like a ship’s bow surrounded by trees. What an execution and a fantastic house.

Lunch time! On one of the iterations of the itinerary I had looked at staying in Ashiya and so researched restaurants. This wagyu burger place was rated 3.66 (very good) on Tabélog so that seemed ideal for lunch.

After lunch and after raiding a bakery it was back to a different railway station to come back to Himeji, this time with a transfer in Sannomiya.

JR East’s real time route search was very optimistic that I would navigate between the two stations in Sannomiya (basically Kobe) but as I had tapped out of the Hankyu Railway meant it didn’t really matter and I could go for a short wander. The place around the stations was full of restaurants, bars, and chaos. It reminded me of the back streets of Hong Kong.

Anyway nap time called so it was back into the JR station for a Kobe line special rapid to Himeji station.

The castle is tomorrow’s target.