Nagoya Castle is listed as one of the Three Great Castles of Japan and I wanted to see if for myself. And well, it is the most famous thing in Nagoya, so it won’t do to miss it! <– spoken like a true tourist lol
Unfortunately, almost all the structures are in fact a reconstruction of the original buildings as they were completely destroyed during air raids in the WWII. But it’s ok, better to be able to see the reconstructed buildings than nothing at all!
The first place we visited was Honmaru Palace.
HONMARU PALACE
As you can see, it looks spankin’ new. Reconstruction works are still ongoing and expected to be completed in 2018.
In fact, it was so new that while we were viewing the inside of the building, Fu commented, “I feel like I’m in a showroom and shopping for a new house!”
The paintings in the palace were miraculously salvaged in the fire and are originals! It’s quite amazing when you think about it… how did mere paper survive a fire that burned many buildings to ashes?
DONJON
The main structure that commands recognition is not the palace, but the donjon.
Which is this:
There were two donjons in Nagoya Castle:
We started from the top and explored our way down.
Lots of exhibits to view and history to read about on every floor.
And a random, but super adorable thing they were selling:
Oh, and there’s a hilarious incident that happened in Nagoya Castle. Thinking about it makes me lol :D
Inside the donjon, there was a kinshachi statue that visitors could take photos with.
Kinshachi 金鯱, which is a portmanteau of kin (gold) and shachihoko (fish with a tiger head) is a famous mascot in Nagoya. Shachihokos are said to be able to cause rain to fall, which is why they are placed on the top of many castles and temples to prevent fires. If you look carefully, there are two kinshachis on the roof of the donjon (although I suppose the fires of WWII were too much for just the two of them to handle and they were consumed alongside the rest of the building).
There was a queue to take photos with the statue, and at the head of the queue was this old man, directing people how to take photos, which is the best angle, etc. He wasn’t even a staff or anything! He was simply a super bossy old man lol.
So when our turn came, we asked him to take photos for us.
He snapped a couple of photos for us, then paused, frowned, and gestured with his hand.
I thought we were done taking photos and moved to stepped off, but he asked me to stop. But asked demanded Fu to go to him.
Confused, I sat down.
Then, with Fu out of the picture, he continued taking several photos of me… alone…
As he was taking the photos, he smiled and said “Ah, this is pretty!”
It took a few moments to register that he told Fu to get out of the photo because he felt Fu was spoiling the photo!!! LOL! Laugh die me!!! Where got people like that one?! Take photo halfway and ask someone in the photo to get out hahaha.
Ever since this incident, I keep teasing Fu by gesturing to him and saying “Aye, you come here, you come here” LOL.
I enjoyed this castle visit and learning about it, although I can’t say the same for Fu. He feels that there’s nothing interesting about the past, and said he would be far more excited in an “institute of future technology”. Btw, that’s a building in Universal Studios -_-
But well, the fact that he would accompany me to these places is more than sufficient :)
♜ Visited on 25 March 2015
NAGOYA CASTLE
Hours and how to access castle
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hahaha! the photo taking incident was hilaarious. poor fu…but good job old man!
Haha, right?! But lucky it didn’t happen to me. I think I’ll be quite depressed and in shock the rest of the day if someone told me to get out of the photo lol