Nagoya Castle

Yet another item on the long list of "Things Japan has but America Doesn't Let's Cry About It" is castles! Specifically actual, traditional castles dating back at least 3-4 hundred years would be nice for historical appreciation, but we wouldn't object to refurbished ones either. For better or worse, the local Nagoyajou (Nagoya Castle) was refurbished after being burned to the ground during WWII. For that purpose, my host parents made it clear that they weren't quite as wild about it as other castles, but it would still be a good experience.

For having been over a year ago, I can still remember the event as if it were yesterday. I remember passing the elementary school sports day, studying kanji cards on the drive into the city, and picking up my small Death Note bag out of the car to catch up with my host parents. The castle is surrounded by a large moat completely dry of water, and trees line the walking path that Mitsuko-san tells me is beautiful during Spring when the sakura (cherry blossoms) bloom. She then describes a field trip she went on in school that had the kids climb the moat walls - and I think she mentioned there was water then, too.


We finally got to the entrance, where my host parents paid my ticket fare despite my clear objections. I'm never good at that... The symbol of Nagoya Castle was a famous golden dolphin (that totally doesn't look like a dolphin), which sits at the top of the castle and is replicated throughout the castle grounds. The area around the castle was actually quite large and it took us a bit of a walk through gardens and paths to get there. When we got closer to a one side of the castle, there was an opening across the path where you could see part of the city, and the distinction it made felt rather surreal. We made a quick stop in a small hut with lots of figurines, in which I remember thinking "I'll never remember going in here at the end of the day." Take THAT, memory!


We made it to the castle at last, and the outside architecture alone was awesome. On the inside, however, the focus was less on traditional architecture than on models, pictures, paintings, and other forms of historical education that you might find in a museum. And that's essentially what it was. They even had a mock-up town on one floor that included a rest area, library, armor shop, and models of food you may find in feudal Japan, complete with lights that dimmed every once in a while to signify night time. Lastly, at the very top there was a small git shop that sold just about anything loosely related to Japan. It was fun, I learned a lot, but it just didn't feel authentic enough. For dinner, we ate on the castle grounds for some traditional Nagoya cuisine, including kishimen noodles (very thin), sweet miso dip that covered fried katsu, and an anko sweet. Delicious!


When we left Nagoya Castle, we still had one more stop - the Noh theater across the street. Once again, the outside architecture was beautiful; zen and simplistic, with clear water running under and around the building. We went inside and learned that a wedding was taking place in the main theater. My host parents talked a friend who worked there into letting us walk INTO the wedding, to take pictures and videos quietly from the back. To this day, this is the only wedding I've ever been to, and it was highly traditional in Shinto and Buddhist practices. And after all was finished, my host parents had me take pictures with the bride, groom, and guests. x_X What a gaijin! We played around with some masks in the hall and then headed home for the night.


Ahh, natsukasii...

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