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the beauty of Himeji Castle, one of Japan’s greatest historic sights, has just reopened following a five-year restoration.

Michael Booth is the first foreigner to peek inside Imagine a pair of gigantic chopsticks 87ft high, tapering from a diameter of around 38in at their base. This, give or take some clever joinery and a lick of plaster, is all that has kept Himeji Castle, one of Japan’s most important historic buildings, upright for the last 400 years through earthquakes, bombing raids and the vicissitudes of time and climate.

I am standing beside one of the “chopsticks”, darkened and polished by the years. They are surprisingly rough-hewn for such an otherwise precision-crafted building. I mention this to one of my Japanese companions. “Perfection is not regarded as beautiful in Japan,” she admonishes. This is the notion of wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection or asymmetry, which, it seems, even has a role in a feudal fortress.

The survival of Himeji’s main tower is all the more remarkable when you consider that most of the rest of Japan’s castles are replicas, but even the giant pillars – one fir, one cypress – which provide its core structural support have their limits. For the last five years this World Heritage Site, home to five of the country’s eight designated National Treasure castle buildings (the main tower being one), has been shrouded in scaffolding during an extensive 24bn Yen (£143m) restoration. It opened again last month, unquestionably the event of the century in the surrounding town, but also a national news story.

My first sight of the castle comes as I entered Himeji by bus at night.

Floodlit, it resembles a ghostly Alp: colossal, jagged, a shimmering, brilliant white. I explain to the Japanese woman seated next to me that I will be writing about the castle, and she literally applauds – it is the first indication of the immense pride the locals here have in the “White Heron”, as the castle is nicknamed.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the great unifier of Japan, ordered the construction of Himeji in 1601, on the site of an existing fort, as part of his strategy to build one castle per province. Ieyasu’s peacekeeping plan was so successful that Himeji’s defences, a combination of moats, baileys, towers and winding, walled alleyways – 83 buildings in all – have never seen combat, unless you count the fight scene in You Only Live Twice which was filmed here.

James Bond Movie If you recall, Bond stays undercover at a “ninja training camp”, necessitating highly dubious “Japanese” make-up plus an accommodating Japanese bride. Ninja connections to historic buildings in Japan can often be rather flimsy (no ninja has ever set foot in the “ninja temple” in Kanazawa, for instance), but Himeji is different. A troop of ninja, the spy caste which originated in the secretive mountain communities of Mie Prefecture, were resident in the grounds of Himeji. As a lower caste of warrior, ninja were not considered worthy of a place in the castle itself, plus their secretive nature kept them apart from the rest of castle life. Nevertheless, the ninja spirit of concealment and stealth is evoked in the design of the castle.

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f himaji castle With the completion of the restoration, of course, Himeji resumes its place as one of Japan’s major tourist attractions, expected to attract up to 10,000 visitors a day for the foreseeable months. I am the first outsider to see inside the tower since its restoration.

“I am so happy, so excited,” Kenny exclaims as we approach the main tower, passing through 10 gates, with budding cherry blossom and fully laden grapefruit trees alongside. It his first visit since the restoration too. It is raining hard which, as Kenny points out, allows us to see the complex drainage system which keeps the water flowing through the building – useful in case of fire.

At the main tower, I must put on a pair of those slightly too small, vinyl slippers favoured by the Japanese in such circumstances (partly, I suspect, because foreigners look ridiculous in them), but am surprised to find the rooms inside almost entirely empty. I remember from a previous visit many years ago there being various display cases. “This time, we have removed everything,” said Haga-san proudly, holding up his iPad. “See?” Instead of displays of weaponry and armour, visitors will now download an app which provides an X-ray view of the castle’s woodwork wherever you point your phone or tablet, along with filmed reconstructions of how people lived here. The giant jars which once served as toilets remain in their closets, though, I was pleased to see.

We climb from the basement up through a further six floors, only five of which are visible from the outside, another of Himeji’s sleights of hand.

At the seventh floor, there is a lookout, and a Shinto shrine. The view is fabulous.

When it was built, Himeji had three moats, the first of them over a mile away from the castle itself, close to where Himeji station now stands, along with a system of watchtowers, and homes for around 10,000 samurai families and, further out in the castle grounds, the troop of ninja. It took around 10,000 people to build the castle – their labour was a kind of income tax – using pine and granite from the surrounding mountains. That granite base, combined with a highly flexible wooden structure, has helped Himeji sway when earthquakes have struck; apparently those pillars vibrate like a kind of seismic tuning fork.

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Moggies outnumber humans on Aoshima Island in Japan

There are only 22 humans on Aoshima in Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture, but more than 120 cats.

An army of feral cats rules a remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one.

Originally introduced to the mile-long island of Aoshima to deal with mice that plagued fishermen’s boats, the cats stayed on.

More than 120 cats swarm the island with only a handful of humans for company, mostly pensioners who did not join the waves of migrants seeking work in the cities after World War Two. Aoshima, a 30-minute ferry ride off the coast of Ehime prefecture, had been home to 900 people in 1945. The only sign of human activity now is the boatload of day-trippers from the mainland, visiting what is locally known as Cat Island. With no restaurants, cars, shops or kiosks selling snacks, Aoshima is no tourist haven. But cat lovers are not complaining.

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“There is a ton of cats here, then there was this sort of cat witch who came out to feed the cats which was quite fun,” said 27-year-old Makiko Yamasaki. “So I’d want to come again.”The allure of cats is not surprising in a country that gave the world Hello Kitty, a cartoon character considered the epitome of cuteness. Cat cafés have long been popular in Tokyo, catering to fans who can’t keep the animals at home because of strict housing regulations that often forbid pets.The cats of Aoshima are not too picky, surviving on the rice balls, energy bars or potatoes they cadge off tourists. In the absence of natural predators, they roam the island without fear.

Not all the residents are admirers, though.

One elderly woman shooed the animals away with a stick when they dug up her back garden. Locals are trying to keep the feline population in check – at least 10 cats have been neutered. Residents haven’t taken too kindly to the tourists either. They don’t mind them coming, but want to be left in peace. “If people coming to the island find the cats healing, then I think it’s a good thing,” said 65-year-old Hidenori Kamimoto, who ekes out a living as a fisherman. “I just hope that it’s done in a way that doesn’t become a burden on the people who live here.”

The cats were originally introduced to the mile-long island as a way to get rid of the mice on fishermen's boats because they ate the silkworms needed to make nets. But it looks like once the mice were gone, the cats stayed — and multiplied with a vengeance.

Reuters has a bunch of awesome recent photos taken on Aoshima that you need to check out. Though Aoshima Island has no stores, restaurants or cars, it does have this horde of cats, which has made it something of a tourist attraction over the years. Cat lovers take the island's one ferry to check out the feline fest.

Unfortunately, this notoriety has been a bit problematic for the few residents of Aoshima. With a lack of amenities, attractions and transportation, as previously mentioned, there's not much for visitors to do on this tiny island except for look at the cats, which is a problem because the one ferry in and out of Aoshima only runs twice a day. That means tourists sometimes end up wandering on residents' private properties, Rocket News 24 reported in November 2014, which would understandably not be too cool if you lived there.

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