A Japanese castle, which is The Hikone Castle

Yesterday, I visited at "The Hikone castle", which is one of the Beautiful castle in Japan. And the Hikone castle locates very close the Biwa Lake, which is the biggest lake in Japan, so the location is truly wonderful.
In additionally, it's famous about autumn leaves and cherry blossoms, and it has the big Japanese Daimyo garden that is Genkyu-En.

When I visited the castle, I met some international travelers, it made me guess that the castle is one of the tourist attractions in Japan or it's easy to fined the castle on some international guidebooks.

The castle cost us 500 yen (almost 5 US dollars) to enter, it's not so expensive if I compare to other tourist attractions.
Anyway this time, I uploaded some pictures that were taken yesterday, and added some comments for them.




This picture is taken on the bridge that was built over the moat. I can guess that there was a gate long time ago.






Behind the bridge, there is a stairway to go Tenshukaku, which is a center building of the castle. And the stairway has an idea to protect the castle. The width of each steps are difference, so it makes soldiers rush into difficultly. At the time the defensive soldier can shoot on the hill easy, right?






After the stairway, there is a wood bridge that connects to the Tenbin-Yagura (it means Balance-Turret). And it's a one of the national important cultural properties.






This is a picture taken on the hill in front of Tenbin-Yagura. Maybe you can't guess the forma by the picture, the gate has two turret at both side and looks a balance. Please check one picture before this one, you can see the turret.






There is a more stairway to go Tenshukaku behind the Tenbin-Yagura, we can guess that there are many gates to protect the Tenshukaku.






This picture is the back of The Tenbin-Yagura. There is a small open space, surrounded by stonewall. I think defensive solders shoot on stonewall easy.






This is a bell to tell the time or war. I guess that a lot of solder were called by the bell when any war started.






This is a one of the café to enjoy the Japanese green tee that wee call Matcha. The price of one cup of Matcha is 500 yen (almost 5 US dollar). I didn't check the garden behind the café, but maybe it is maintained well and you can enjoy tee and the garden.






This is the final gate to go Tenshukaku. Can you see the really big pillar?






This is the back of the final gate. Some of the solders could shoot from second floor.






This is the Tenshukaku, which has three layers, in this castle that is standing on the backlight strongly! The Tenshukaku So, after this picture, I updated some pictures that were taken in the Tenshukaku.








These are Teppo-Zama and Ya-Zama. These are hole to shoot some offensive solders from inside. Usually it is hided by the board. So this is the reason that we can't see the Teppo-Zama and Ya-Zama from outside.






This is a stairs in the Tenshukaku. Can you guess the angle of inclination? The angle is super heavy slope, and very dangerous. I heard that it's also to protect from offensive solders, but before fight inside of the Tenshukaku, it was burned with a bright flame by offensive solders.






This beautiful view was taken on the top. There is the Biwa Lake at right side of the picture.






I took the picture at second floor in the Tenshukaku, the beams keep the Tenshukaku since it built up. So the size is so big and so burly, right?






This floor is called Musha-Damari, which is the place to have some conferences with officers and some solders. However, the room isn't so large.






This is the back of the Tenshukaku, the white wall is just noble.






I took the picture when I come out from Nishino-Maru. Because, we can see stonewall and it's easy to understand how high is it, and it's very difficult to clime it. In addition, the bottom has no water, because this is the inner moat same as Tenbin-Yagura.








These pictures are the outer moat of this castle. The moat has water. When I stopped at this moat, I felt calm by the moat, I think the reasons came from some birds and the moat is wide. Don't you think so?

These two pictures were taken at the Genkyu-En that is Japanese Daimyo garden. So, this is the exactly Japanese garden. Maybe you can guess the Japanese style from them. Japanese feature has few colors, green, brown and black. It's very simple.

This time, I updated some pictures and wrote some comments on this page. So if you watch some fake Japanese castles and gardens, you will see through it.