Nagoya Castle, Sakae, and Osu Kannon

Last week I had planned on going to Sakae to get a Birthday gift, but a stupid typhoon threw off my plans. And although a bigger typhoon was scheduled for this weekend, the weather was good enough this morning that I made it to the subway. On my way to Sakae, I started thinking about how I hadn't really explored Nagoya much. I'd fallen into that hole we all fall into, where you don't think about visiting nearby places. So I decided to pass Sakae and go check out Nagoya Castle!

I entered through the Eastern Gate.  This is the walkway towards the Eastern Gate. One has quite a view of the tall and steep walls of the moat.

Once I got inside, I heard some awesome deep voiced shouting.  You know, the kind you would hear on a Japanese anime show. Turns out I was visiting during a special gallery and event designed to educate about the battles that helped Unify Japan. That red guy in the middle had the best job of hair sprayed hair I've ever seen. I wish I'd gotten a better pic!

"It is said that Kato Kiyomasa, a renowned samurai who was ordered to supervise the construction of the stone walls of the Castle Towers, issued commands atop this stone."

Inside of the Main Gate.

Ok one of the many things I liked about my trip today is that I got to FINALLY discover why this is on every key chain in Nagoya. They are "tiger dolphins". There are 2, a male and female, on the north and south tips of Nagoya Castle. They were used as talismans to prevent fires. (*didn't quite work. 1945 air raids burnt down Nagoya Castle)

This is a Torreya Nut Tree, famous for it's nuts being used by the first Lord of Nagoya Castle.

This sucker is over 600 years old. It was there before the castle was first constructed! It survived the air raids, miraculously.

Ok another thing I was fascinated with whilst exploring was the rock building.  I wish I'd taken a photo of the chart they had, showing the 6 ways one built up these walls.

The next 2 photos show a few interesting things. They show symbols that helped historians figure out which stones were laid by which feudal lords, and where the stones were obtained. On the edges of some of the rocks, you can see where the wedges were hammered in to separate them from the boulders.

After the 1945 fire, they laid the original foundation stones out in the moat. The Nagoya Castle grounds are still being restored and such, so I don't know if they're keeping them there for viewing's sake, or if they have plans to restore them to their original spots. I know the moat used to have water in it…I don't know what's going on exactly, but I do know the moat's waterless state was done on purpose. It's been diverted.

I loved looking at those walls. Nagoya Castle has a Dojon connected by that little walkway there. Back in the day it was lined with lots of spears.

One can but try to capture the imposing grandness of those blasted walls.

You have to walk through the small donjon to get to the entrance to the main castle. Once you go through these small, THICK iron gates, boom it's there, and it's huge, and you think, "Whoa."

5 floors of historical awesomeness. It had double staircases.

 Going into that castle is what turned this hour-long-detour into four hours. 5 stories of amazingness.

Pillow, anyone?

Ancient Library

That bottom gun is taller than me. My height is around the length of the two stools holding the gun up.

This is a sword scabbard. 

The first thing I thought of when I saw these were all the black beetles kids like to catch here. Those are the two kinds of horns you find of them, so can you blame me. Love it!

I looked up and found some evidence of what used to line the ceilings of the castle.

When I found myself walking through a section that displayed ancient artifacts half destroyed by the 1945 air raids, I felt really embarrassed and sad. Looking at Nagoya Castle in flames, and realizing that it's your country that did it, I felt kinda pissed. I did some research about it when I got home, and discovered that Nagoya Castle was being used as a military command post.  During WWII, Nagoya was targeted because it was the center of the Japanese Aircraft Industry. And Nagoya could hold up to 38 ships. Anyways, it was good to learn about the reasons why, although it still sucks that the castle got burn to a crisp.

There were logs under the rock. It's showing you how they transported the slabs.

 This amazed me. Honmaru Palace, a connecting part of the Castle, is currently being restored, so there were all these models around, showing you how much detail was going into duplicating the original.  Look at those shingles!!!

 Here's another one of the models. It has a mirror inside to show the artwork on the ceilings.

Another exhibition, showing a HUGE number of castles in Japan. Lots had similar architecture, but there were also many that had different designs.  Very beautiful!  I'd been to 3. Nagoya, Himeji, and Nijou.

There were many random acts on the grounds. Monkey…during it's break.

While walking back to the East Gate exit, I by chance found that you could walk in and see parts of the restored sections of Honmaru Palace. 

This was an amazing experience. I'd walked through so many gorgeous and old sites, that it was an eye-opening experience to see what one of these places would look like with fresh lumber, fresh colors…wow. Right when you walk in, There are plaques telling you that all the materials were obtained from the same place the originals were obtained, and everything was designed as accurately and true to the original as possible. 

These are copies of the original images. Many of them burned, but some were saved, and all of them had been illustrated in other works, so the restorers had something to copy for this.

Here is one of the original door panels.

Here is the copy of it restored.

The colors were GORGEOUS. I took so many photos of the art. 

This was really interesting. Even back in the day, artists show that fans depict the art of the simple beauties around you. In this image, there are fans spread out across a landscape. Where ever they are spread, they have an image of what would be on the landscape behind them. 

Some of my favorite art of this style deals with flowers or tigers.

 I looooove these trees. I swear I can't help taking photos of them whenever I come across one. 

Another ancient tree that clung to life after the fires.

 You know you've entered a garden when the trees fit like beautiful puzzle pieces.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what kind of shrubbery produces pear like fruit and red flowers?

Farewell Nagoya Castle, it was amazing!

On to Sakae to pickup Mom's gifts. I cannot tell you how many double takes I did today ha ha ha

Double-take #1: Walking out and up the subway stairs.  I heard some rock music, and found these 50's Elvis fans jiving away. They all have jackets with their group's name, I forget if it's Rumblers or something. The men were very big on having their hair all…Elvis-ish. 

As I got nearer to my destination, I realized the main street was closed. This is the same street where that massive parade was. It's some sort of celebratory "Sakae Card Walk" thing, dealing with helping kids. These plush-walk-around-characters are everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Got to the store of my choosing. They had a Halloween sale.

 Of course there were things like Dragon Ball Z, Sailer Moon, that Kenshin red headed guy, and the disney princesses….for adults.

And then there were these. It's all the rage to wear food on your head. And while it SAYS that it's a slab of salmon, my initial guess was quite different.

Another floor of my favorite store.  I'm told it gets verrrry dry here in the winter, so everyone has a humidifier. They had some really cool humidifier designs here. I may end up going back and getting a little mini one to put by my bed or something.

This photo is more of a reminder for me to eventually make a whole separate post about the GLORIOUSNESS of Matsuzaka Dept Store. The foods you can buy are so cooooool

Yet another double take. I planned on walking through Osu Kannon to get to the 2nd store I needed to get to. Osu Kannon is a big temple, I've taken a billion photos of it. Well, today in the courtyard I found a boxing ring with a crowd surrounding it. I decided to wait and see what kind of wrestling or boxing would occur, and then laughed when they came out with those mexican mystery masks on. I took a video when they finally started wrestling.  Honestly, if you thought WWF looked fake, this was sooo much faker, I was trying so hard not to laugh.  Everyone else was like, "wwwoooowww"

Anyone want to go to a Maid-themed tea spot?

Another double-take. Freakishly tall cosplay!  Cool stuff. The guy could easily move all the limbs, and fingers as well. Wow. Another double take I didn't get a photo of was about 20 fit behind this guy.  It was a man in black, carrying a big old white and yellow python, walking all….strangely.

Ah. For my last photo, I give you a drink I found. It had a ton of jello circles in it, and looked funny when you shook it. But I tried it and it wasn't too bad.

Anywho, there's the end of it. I got my mom some great stuff, and I actually found some good stuff for Jack's birthday too. I hope I can go check out Nagoya Port sometime this month!