If you've been keeping up with my sporadic Japan posts,
1. You'd know that i've yet to talk about visiting a Japanese Castle and
2. THANK YOU. YOU'RE AWESOME.
When visiting Japan, one cannot miss the chance to visit a Japanese Castle.
On the 2nd last day I was in Japan, we drove up to the Kumamoto Castle, a castle that is said to have some insanely amazing view.
Compared to many of the European palaces and castles i've been to, this was so different. It wasn't as spruced up on the inside, it wasn't like an actual "castle" with displays of how the rooms looked like in the past. I guess people visit Japanese castles to admire the architecture and externals. There was so much area and land space around the main buildings I wonder what such spaces were used for in the past.
If you've ever watched olden day Chinese or Japanese dramas (those with kings and queens) you'd have seen their palaces, and it usually constitutes a main house / palace, and several other smaller "hut" looking ones for their concubines, advisors, etc etc. and you'd see the princesses going into the markets with their maids/servants/helpers.
Right beside the main palace was this market selling food and the architecture of the invidual stores reminded me so much of those you'd see in these olden day dramas.
After grabbing lunch at this little market, we went on to visit the main castle. There weren't many exhibitions in the main castle itself, and parts of it were cordoned off. Plus there were quite a number of tourists so instead of squeezing with everyone, we just headed up to the top of the castle for the view.
I just love the scenery in Japan, and I never pass up a good aerial view. Plus to get a view like this, we only had to climb up 6 stories, which was great (I mean compared to so many other high bell towers in Europe!)
We spent most of our time on the top of the castle admiring the view, and the rest of the other time exploring the region around the castle, taking pictures and admiring the architecture and being partially transported back in time!
Even though we got to witness such a beautiful view, and the architecture of the castle was great, my favourite part of the day was dinner. After visiting the castle, we drove into another city called Hakata, and went for dinner at one of their hipster-popular-with-the-japanese-youths areas. We went to this super cool fusion bar, and believe me when I said the food was ACE. The portions were a little small, but man the taste made up for everything.
I'm salivating/getting hungry just thinking about it. It was probably one of the best dinners I had in Japan!
If you're interested in my 2 Part Japan Travel Video, you can find them on my youtube channel here and here!
Post a Comment