Located at an altitude of 480 metres, Bitchu Matsuyama-jo is Japan's highest castle. The original castle was built on neighbouring Mount Gagyu in the 13th century. Today's donjon (keep) and yagura (storehouses) were built in 1683. Although it wasn't the most challenging climb I'd ever attempted by quite a long way, bear in mind that a bad knee, freezing weather and about three hours of sleep the previous night weren't really helping. By the time I got to the top, I could well believe that the castle must have been an absolute pain in the neck to ransack back in the day. When I got to the donjon, however, the sole guardian was a little old man in a booth who, when asked, solemnly informed me that I was the only visitor he'd had all day. I thought of bopping him on the head and burning the place to the ground, but I didn't have any matches, so I just paid him 500 yen (about £2.70) and watched some no doubt highly informative videos in Japanese about the castle. I took a few photographs to aid me in future arson, then headed back down into Takahashi to catch a train back to Okayama, where I'd already decided I was going to risk staying in a capsule hotel for the first time. I'll spare you the details of that. The next day, I visited Okayamas U-jo (crow castle), also called kin u-jo (gold crow castle.) The "crow" part is derived from its black colour scheme, the "gold" part from its gilded roof tiles. I took a number of pictures here also, but I lost my film rather unfortunately. I think alcohol may have been involved. I also got a few photos of Okayama's famous gardens, which I may stick up at some point in the future. It was a great weekend, although travelling with only one's own self for company can have its disadvantages (nobody to blame or ridicule when you end up on the train to Fukuyama but yourself. Guh!) |
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