So let’s back-track a little. I never got around to posting about my trip to Odawara Castle in Japan. I had planned another hike in the mountains to yet another ancient shrine, but the man I met the night before on the train (Hi, Ken!) told me about a castle that was just a few stops down the line, more-or-less. As I have never been in an actual castle before I altered my plans for the day and set a course for Odawara.
I will tell you up front that this is not the original castle. That was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again before being fairly recently rebuilt. But they did a really good job of restoring the building. Using, wherever possible, original materials and methods to restore the building as near as possible to one of its earlier configurations. I read a couple of on-line reviews where people panned the castle as a fake. All I can say is, how many 900 year old buildings do you know of that haven’t undergone enough restoration that they pretty much are a new, old-looking building? Especially after earthquakes and conquerors bringing down the walls.
That aside, I arrived at the train station and promptly left through the wrong side of the station. I say, “wrong side” because the castle couldn’t be seen from the side I was on and there were no obvious signs pointing to it. But I stopped someone on the street and said “Odawara Castle?”, they pointed in a direction and I headed out. After about a block I saw a sign for the castle showing me where to turn and shortly I could see the grounds and then the roof of the castle.
I found an path into the grounds, but couldn’t tell if it was exit or entrance, or if, indeed, it made any difference. But not wanting to go in the “out” gate, I walked around, following signs until I found the actual front entrance. The current bridge over the man-made lake in front of the castle was obviously of fairly recent construct. There was a much older bridge to one side but it was closed to any sort of traffic and my only picture of it turned out fuzzy. Bummer. After the bridge there were a lot of ancient cherry trees that appeared to have been around at least a couple hundred years. Their trunks were thick and gnarled–arthritic-looking wood that had rotted and regrown many times over the course of their lives. Their tenacity was truly impressive.
bridge to the castle grounds
ancient cherry tree trunk
I continued on around the grounds and viewed a reconstructed wall, copper-clad gate and also a section of wall that was broken down to show each of the layers/steps involved in building the castle walls. Then I climbed a stairway with a sign saying they were the original stairs to the castle and went over another bridge that spanned the remains of the moat. It’s dry now and planted with something that looked a lot like the rice I had seen from the train, planted in fields around the town. Then I went through another wall of massive, hewn stone and another metal-clad gate and was in the courtyard below the castle proper. Here, for some reason, there was a cage of very smelly monkeys with very red faces and butts to match. There was a sign by the cage, but it was only in Japanese. I’m just guessing, but it probably said “don’t feed the monkeys”. It didn’t seem to have enough characters to contain an explanation for why they were there.
Copper clad gate
wall construction
The grounds in that spot were lovely, peaceful and delightfully shady and cool. And they afforded a great view of the castle above. After a few photos I went up more stairs to the castle itself and paid the entry fee to go inside.
The inside of Odawara Castle is a museum. Unfortunately they don’t allow any kind of photography. It’s a shame because there were so many beautiful and interesting items inside. There are four floors filled with implements of farming, war and everyday life; clothing, books, swords, hats, tea sets and lunch boxes, etc. You name it, they have it. There is a lot to see. On the top floor is the requisite souvenir/gift shop, plus an outdoor terrace that goes all the way around the building affording views of the bay, the city and the surrounding mountains.
Like so very many places in Japan, the gift shop didn’t accept credit cards so my spending was kept mercifully light. I really had bought too many gifts for people back home already….at this point I will have to break out the extra collapsible suitcase I brought with me just to get everything home without an extra fee. The bag I check when I fly was almost four pounds overweight by the time I left Japan (but I’m allowed two checked bags, tee hee). Fortunately haven’t found much to tempt me in Taiwan. Unfortunately the couple of things I have found are somewhat fragile. Sigh. I hope they survive the trip to Beijing and then back home….but I digress…
After I exited the castle museum I wandered the grounds for awhile longer and found a tiny amusement park for small children and another shrine with a beautiful koi pond and lots of lovely trees and sculpture. As I went back towards the castle, I watched some gardeners hanging off the side of an almost vertical hill by their fingertips, trimming the plants that grew there. I think they must have been part mountain goat. They all wore hard-hats, but there wasn’t a safety line of any kind to keep them from falling should they lose their footing.
Fountain in koi pond
Koi
mountain goat gardeners
After my trip to the castle I meant to visit a nearby shrine that was reputed to be quite lovely, but it started to rain. So I changed my plans and made my way back to the train station and thus back to Isehara. Fortunately I boarded before the evening rush was fully underway and thus got an actual seat where I could view the scenery along the way which included several crossings of a lovely river.
river seen from train
By the time I reached Isehara, the rain was behind me so I had a nice, dry walk back to Natsuo and Mia’s apartment.
slipstreamserendipity 