June 4th, 2000
4. Wonderful Hikone, Lake Biwa
Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan. It's really beautiful lake specially northern part of it. The Lake Biwa is completely located in Shiga Prefecture and I did not know that until recently but the width of the Lake Biwa shares 1/6 of complete Shiga Prefecture's scale. I believe that its size would be pretty much same as Lake Washington by Seattle. That's the one of the reasons why I love Seattle as well as Hikone.
Hikone is typical castle town. The city is located north-east shore of Lake Biwa and has pretty cute looking traditional Japanese castle, "Hikone-Jo". During I was a college boy there, I belonged to Soccer Club. For the club, the city, Hikone was so open and kind that we all members utilized the Hikone-Jo Park for the training everyday since the park had a small hill and was really workable for running. The castle was located at the top of the hill of course to prevent from enemies long time ago.
There is another beautiful park by the Hikone-Jo so called "Hakkei Tei". For me to take the entrance examination for Shiga University there in 1976, I stayed the hotel located in the park because it was very special occasion. The hotel in the park was really wonderful and relaxing. It was oldfashioned and typical traditional Japanese style one. I strongly recommend you to try sometime. But please note that now the fare must be over $ 200-300 per night with dinner.
Now I realize that I should put some pictures I have in these pages as "JAPAN, MY HOME COUNTRY". I will do that as soon as possible. Please be patient and look forward to having them!
Thanks!