Inuyama Castle

Yesterday Jeremy came to visit from Hiratsuka!! Today we went to Inuyama City. It is only about 15-20 minutes away by train. This was the first time I had been on a train since I came here! Inuyama is famous for its castle. It is one of only four original castles left in Japan and it is the oldest, built in 1537. It was a significant site of major battles between the major samurai leaders in the late 1500s that finally ended in Tokugawa Ieyasu being Shogun and establishing a 250 year perios of Japanese history. The castle is quite small but just beautiful. it is located on a sharp hill overlooking the Kiso river. We climbed to the top of it up very steep old worn staircases inside. On the top floor you go out on a small open air balcony and look out for miles. We were surrounded by mountains and rivers and we could even see the big city of Nagoya in the distance. The weather was beautiful and the cherry blossoms were out! Everywhere you looked was like a postcard. (please see pictures!)
As we were walking along the little old street lined with old wooden shops and houses we passed a small local radio station where we could see the woman in the studio right from the street talking on the radio. We waved and she said Hello and then we heard her in Japanese say that three foreigners just walked by and said hello. It was pretty funny.
We went to two little museums near the castle too. The first weekend in April is the towns biggest festival. (Damien and I are planning on going to it.) The festival's main attraction are 13 giant three-tiered wooden floats that are paraded through the town. We saw two of them in one of the museums and they are very impressive. During the day all of the floats have handmade wooden puppets about a third life size dancing and doing acrobatics. They are operated by people underneath on the second tier of the float. There will also be flute players and drummers. At night the floats are covered with hundreds of paper lanterns. Some of the floats and the puppets are hundreds of years old. We are very excited to go and see such an old and special festival next weekend.
After we ate lunch we found a large temple which had the same name as where I used to live, Narita-san. I don't know if there was any connection but this Narita-san was just founded in the 1950s.
It was a great time and it is always a treat to see an original piece of Japanese history and to see the fleeting cherry blossoms!
We are going to Nagoya tomorrow and are meeting up with a friend of Jeremy's who is an older woman who is making a plan for us. Should be interesting!