Kumamoto Castle Trip
On Saturday, February 26th, I went on an MWR trip to Kumamoto Castle. Kumamoto City is about three hours away from Main Base, so a majority of my day was spent on the bus. I got to enjoy some delicious food today, as always, and then we had some fun on the bus learning about the history of the castle and the families who had reigned over the area, as well as making fun newspaper hats.
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| Dragon Dogs! |
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| My Lunch |
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| Our History Class |
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| My new hat. :-) |
The Castle grounds, and the castle itself, were beautiful! The tower was burned in a fire several years back, but the reconstruction is historically accurate, and some of the buildings within the walls date back to when the castle was originally built (and don’t ask me when that was). We had beautiful views of the city from the top, and also got to pose with some costumed characters back on the ground.
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| The Castle! |
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| Outside the castle walls! |
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| Even ninjas could not climb these walls! |
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| The family seals |
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| Beautiful Views! |
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| Downtown |
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| Me with a beautiful background. |
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| Posing! |
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| Blossoms |
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| The castle and blossoms |
Then we visited another building in the complex, a home for the lords, which was ornately decked out. And I have to say my feet appreciate being able to go barefoot every now and then during the day. The gold room was gorgeous and the views from that location were also spectacular.
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| Main Room |
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| Gold Room |
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| Gold Room Ceiling |
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| No Comment |
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| Ninja! |
The next stop on our trip was the samurai house that was just a few minutes away. This home housed a family along with ten girls who helped run the property and then several samurai who would lived there at various times. The gardens were beautiful, and I loved the bonsai trees and rock pathways that were raked to resemble water.
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| Inside the house |
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| Fountain |
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| A bathtub |
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| Courtyard |
Our last stop in Kumamoto City was another beautiful temple and gardens. These gardens were created to be a mini Japan (for lack of a better description) for people who were unable to travel. On of the hills is supposed to be modeled after Mt. Fuji, and the inclusion on hills, trees, water, rocks, and living animals is supposed to be a mini ecosystem with everything necessary to live. The temple itself was pretty, but it was the landscaping that I most admired. I also got a chance to drink for a fountain that is supposed to extend your life by day for every sip you take (I only took one…did not want to be greedy), and I bought an oracle.
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| In the gardens |
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| Cool Tree |
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| The fountain of youth. |
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| The temple |
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| Yes, the duck ate right out my hand! |
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| Beautiful gardens |
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| I could have spent hours there. |
I also enjoyed some soft serve ice cream flavored with honey (which was suggested to me by our tour guide and AMAZING) and then took some last photos by the other building where we had parked before boarding the bus to go home.
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| My yummy ice cream |
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| Water drop |
The sunset was a beautiful end to a great day!
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