Monday, May 14, 2007

Kakegawa Castle

The next day was a light day, only two destinations really but both were a little further out. We started the day by heading out to Kakegawa castle, which is about 30 kms or so from my home. To get out there we had to travel through Morimachi - yes that's right Forest town. The ladies had mentioned wanting to buy some tea and maybe even a tour of a tea farm. Well it wasn't quite season yet (very close) so I remembered seeing a nice tea store in Mori town and we stopped off there on the way. The store was great, there was one lady that could speak a little bit of English so tried her hardest to help us out (apologizing for her poor English- though I thought it wasn't bad). They sat us down and gave us a sample of the tea and of a nice tea jelly. The free tasters are a nice touch, but I did feel like I had to buy something now that we had tasted. Anyway, she gave us a bunch more samples and answered our questions and we all left with a little bit of tea in our hands.
Finally we found ourselves at Kakegawa castle. The castle looks quite large and is strategically located on the top of a hill, offering a great viewpoint for the surrounding area. The literature there said that Kakegawa castle is the largest all wood reconstruction of a castle in Japan. It is quite beautiful and has a nice courtyard.The castle was also quite easy to defend as you can see in the picture my mother defending the castle against marauding samurai.
There is also a nice little park located next to the castle that made it quite a peaceful setting and in my opinion a little bigger and nicer than Hamamatsu castle.

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