For some reason I was really excited about the prospect of seeing a Japanese Castle. I don’t know why, but I think castles are just really cool. The castle is on top of a huge, mountain like hill, so we had to ride a chair lift up. This chair lift wasn’t like you imagine, you know, the sky lift style chair lift with a bar. It was just a chair attached to a cable, there was nothing to hold you in at all. Either way, it was still a lot of fun.
When we got the top we had to kind of jump out of the chairs. There were a lot of shops in the area where you get off the lift. One of which had like 6 different flavors of soft cream so we had to try a new one (generally they have only 3 flavors; green tea, strawberry and vanilla). Both of us decided to go with orange (oh by the way, I broke 20,000 words a bit ago, damn I am long winded), which was incredibly delicious. I mean, it was probably the best soft cream I’ve had in Japan.
And to add to it they had three Tanuki outside, which are what we got our dad for his birthday/father’s day. Aren’t they cool? I think so.
Since, you know, the castle was on a hill and all we had to walk a good ways up the hill to get to the castle even after getting off the lift. It was totally worth it though, and the castle just kept getting better and better.
First cool view of the castle walls.
As we went up and up we started having these excellent views of the city of Matsushima. But I guess it makes since because we were on top of a huge hill in the middle of a city.
Yay castle wall!
When we made it to entrance of the castle itself there was this enthusiastic old guard that waved at us.
We both got these cool postcards when we gave them our castle entrance ticket. This is the same picture that is on the post card, except I think that mine is better, naturally =P.
Erin and I had to take off our shoes when we entered the castle. The guard working inside gave me a big pair of slippers from behind the desk. He also told me that it was okay to take pictures. To that I replied, “I’m glad” in Japanese. I think it made him really happy because he just grinned at me after that.
There were a lot of cool exhibits inside.
Looks cool, but isn’t worn to battle.
Armor that is worn to battle.
These castles make me think of ninja video games where you run across the old roofs of the castles.
You could go into most of the castle towers. In some of them there were just arrow slits, but in some (like this one) they had big windows with great views.
Swords and spears.
How am I supposed to do both at the same time, I am not a chameleon, Mr. Sign.
These shots were from the highest tower in the castle. It was a big open room with huge windows and look out things.
Erin at a lookout thing.
These are the fish statue things that sit on every corner of every roof. The supposedly protect the building from fire.
I climbed down and took a picture of Erin in the big lookout room.
After we finished with the castle we made our way to the big shopping arcade in Matsuyama. In a lot of cities, in stead of malls they have big shopping arcades that are covered and car free.
This guy was outside a pachinko place, I don’t know why either.
Erin and I made our way into a huge building at the end of the Arcade and found some food.
It was actually an okonomiyaki place at the top (9th floor) of the building. It was a different style of okonimiyaki, but still good.
You could see the castle from the restaurant.
There was a Ferris wheel on top of the building as well. Erin suggested we ride it and I didn’t see a problem with the idea. I guess it was technically higher than the one we were in on Odaiba, but it was on top of a 9-story building so it doesn’t count.
Big cemetery.
I thought the dome was cool.
After we were done with the Ferris wheel we went and explored the shopping arcade. Erin went in some shops and then I found an arcade that had Initial D. I played for a little while and figured some stuff out that made me able to drive a lot faster in the game, so I schooled a few races and cleared another stage. I was happy with my achievement for the day.
We decided that we should go back to the hostel but since we were both hungry again we went to a place that was basically just a huge bento box store with hundreds of different vendors and meals. Erin and I both picked out what food we wanted and then headed back to the hostel. When we got back we ate and then relaxed a bit, then we did laundry. Unfortunately the dryers they had sucked, so we wasted some money on “drying” until we found a “high powered dryer” that actually dried our clothes. By that time it was really late at night, so after all of our clothes were dry we went to bed. We’re off to Osaka tomorrow. Only about a week left in Japan =(.
1 comment:
If you ask me, sticking a ferris wheel onto a building seems like a bad idea. But it seems to work well enough over there. The castle looks cool, yet it doesn't draw the eye like that creepy thing outside the pachinko place.
Seriously, what are they selling?
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