Pete and I leave for Tokyo today and will be there until Friday. Before we go we decide to see Osaka Palace. Built in 1583 to be a warlord's impenetrable fortress, the palace is perched atop a hill and is fully circumscribed by two sets of sets of moats and walls.
The first moat is massive and the walls rise thirty feet above it. Some of the stones set into the wall are over 30 feet long and 12 feet wide, weighing 130 tons.
You know you're living large when your house has two moats. Then inner walls are even taller still. As you approach the second moat you start to catch a glimpse of the actual palace which seems miniscule compared to the massive fortifications around it.
One final bridge takes you over the second moat and into the Palace area. A well near the Palace supplies water so that sieges could be outlasted almost indefinitely. In ancient times, the crazy people of the village were placed at the palace gate where they would taunt would-be intruders and bombard them with feces. Here Pete reenacts that role. [The author makes no claims about the validity of his information - i.e. mom don't go passing that part on to your class.]
So how successful were all these walls, moats, gates and hills? Not very. The palace was destroyed 32 years after it was erected. It is funny that no matter how many times history shows us that static defensive positions are not viable in war, people make the same blunders (eh Mr. Maginot). After storming the Palace, Pete and I went to the train station to board the bullet train for Tokyo.