Nagoya Castle 名古屋城

Nagoya Castle, first a little bit of history…
In 1610, Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the daimyo 大名 to help with the building of a castle that was to be the new capital of the existing Owari Province. Construction was completed in 1612. During the Edo period, the Castle was the center of the important town, Nagoya-juku, from which modern Nagoya 名古屋 developed. Nagoya Castle was destroyed by fire in World War II, but the donjon has been rebuilt. That's the part that is now a museum, and which we visited today. It no longer has the internal structures of a castle, but instead has been entirely rebuilt with a central staircase and galleries on all the levels. One of the exhibits was a wonderful scale model of what the interior of a Japanese castle is like. Due to the destruction caused by the air raid, most of the Castle's artifacts were destroyed, but somehow many of the paintings survived and are displayed in the numerous galleries.

In front of the Castle are some other buildings that seemed to have to do with maintenance of the park that surrounds it. Here we are, armed with cameras, ready to shoot hundred of photos—which Taka did, about 900 to be exact, during our entire trip, of course!

In the plaza before the Castle there are souvenir stands and the ubiquitous beverage machines. Though vending machines may seem to be a nuisance at a historical site, they are a welcome relief to exhausted hikers.





No matter where we went in Nagoya and the surrounding provinces, beverage machines were everywhere, the drinks were tasty, various, and cheap, usually only 100 yen each.

On top of the Castle are two golden imaginary tiger-headed fish, called kinshachi 金鯱. They were used as talismans for fire prevention. They are also said to be a symbol of the feudal lord's authority.
There were copies of this fish—and by the way they come in male and female versions—in many places in the park and in the Castle, as well as on top of it. Behind us is a kind of booth that has a golden fish. Here we are making fools of ourselves at one of the many photo façades that one finds everywhere at tourist attractions. Oh, well.
The golden tiger-headed fish at the top of the Castle are said to be visible for miles around from the sunlight reflected off them.

This empty field is the site of Honmaru Palace 本丸御殿, which was destroyed in air raids, and has not been rebuilt. There are plans to rebuild it on the original site in the next four or five years. As you can
see, we spent a lot of time walking around the park before we actually went inside the Castle. What we didn't get to photograph were some things I wish we had—the moat, for example, that surrounds the
Castle. It was deep and on parts of it were dry and filled with soft grass, which a herd of deer were grazing. They kept staying far enough ahead of us, or around the corner of the Castle wall, so that we didn't photograph them, unless Brock got them with his camcorder.
In an odd sort of way, I liked being outside the Castle than in it. Here's another view through the trees.

Here we are, Brock and I, getting ready to enter the Castle. The plating on the doors was massive. Inside the Castle everything was modern and rebuilt like any contemporary museum, a little disappointing.
We really couldn't take many pictures in there, but we did get a few of us taking a rest on one of the benches. Here's one of them—Brock and Taka, sitting bolt upright like two warrior monks. It was pretty strenuous exercise climbing to the top of the Castle by stairs.
Taka took this picture of us as we were getting ready to leave Nagoya Castle through one of the exit gates leading out of the plaza.

What else can I say about the Castle? Well, it was pretty interesting in a museum sort of way. The collection of paintings that were saved from the bombing of Nagoya was splendid, as were the weapons, armor and other artifacts from samurai days. We bought a few excellent books about the Castle's collections, and at very reasonable prices. The top floor of the Castle was the funniest thing and unexpected to me—a rather gaudy and tinselly souvenir shop where you could buy all the weird doo-dads, imprinted with the symbol of Nagoya and its Castle, the tiger-headed fish, that you could want. "I'll buy some of these the next time I'm here," I thought to myself.

Here's some more photos chosen at random. Don't forget to click on them to zoom. You're welcome to download any you like.