An exciting Saturday with lots and lots of walking. First, it started with a trip to Nagoya Castle which is a very old part of town (circa 16th/17th century). The castle is situated in a large green area (which is pretty uncommon in the city) so it is easy to spot from a high observation point in the city. First I got off the Meijo Koen (Meijo park) train station:
It is not the closest train station to the castle, but I wanted to see the park as well. I walked to the park a little bit, near some kind of water treatment facility and a canal/river.
Pedestrian overpasses, make very good locations for taking pictures of the area :)
Ducks in Japan are roughly similar to their Canadian couterparts :P
Founds some turtles enjoying the 36C heat:
Here is a map of the park and the adjacent castle. The circumference around the whole visible map is around 4kms.
Nice palm trees:
View of Nagoya Castle from the park:
I walked over this small bridge on the little pond in the park and all of a sudden giant carp started to come to my location. After a while, a whole bunch of them were around me (plus a turtle on the right of the picture!). I guess they were hungry.
Around the castle is a large stone wall and a moat.
A Japanese crane!
In the park were quite a few of little houses made for cats and there were around 20 or so that I could see. People also seemed to come and lay down near them on benches.
Now I'm entering the castle grounds. The entrence fee is 500 yen (around $6). Surrounding the castle are very nice gardens with many different trees.
A Japanese tea house:
A dry lake (yes, it's meant to be dry):
A view of the moat and the Meijo park from the castle grounds:
An area of the park representing mountains:
I tried to capture a white crane but you don't really see it well on this photo - it's on the right:
One of the guard towers:
Statue of the person that supervised the building of the castle walls (basically by standing on large stones and yelling to people to pull harder!).
Old gate to the castle proper:
View of the castle from the courtyard (btw, the green tea soft ice cream from one of the vendors in the right side building was delicious!).
The castle has 7 floors. On the roof there are 2 gold dolphins.
Now visiting the inside of the castle:
Replica of one of the dolphins on the roof:
I can only assume that this was a bath or at least a place to heat up stones?
Old Japanese military insignia and armour:
This is how you build a house!
The last floor of the castle has windows so you can see the surrounding area:
I live somewhere near the middle of this picture in the far distance:
This was an interesting drink - basically jello in a bottle.
Now, I'm walking around the castle going towards the exit.
An old tea house with a collection of Japanese paper dolls:
To celebrate Nagoya's 400 years as a city, there are some performers at the castle - they seem to be very popular with the ladies!
The main entrance to the castle grounds:
to be continued...
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