After many weeks of procrastinating, I finally made the hour train ride from Osaka over to the city of Himeji. Himeji is home to the only castle in this part of Japan that has never been bombed, burned, or blown-up, although it has been besieged several times. So of all the castles that you'd (or I'd) be likely to see, its the one that is most like the way it was back when it was actually used, back in the 1300-1500's. So rather than a museum inside the shell of a castle like Osaka castle is, its a real castle keep with only one floor dedicated to museum-esqe stuff and the rest is pure, old-style castle.
Like the title of the post says, if you only go to one castle in Japan, go to Himeji. Not only are the castle keep and bailey intact, but the city itself was built up from the old castle town, so it has a similar general shape as it did back in the day. On the left is the view from the top floor of the castle looking out towards the main train station of Himeji.
The right is what the inside of one of the hallways in the western bailey looks like. They're not all this nice and bright, but this one had the windows open and the wood was relatively new, so it had a nice golden colour as opposed to the standard "old building brown" that is common in so many temples and such in Japan. 
Finally one last image of the castle from the outside. And a link to more pics here
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