Sightseeing in Inuyama
Almost one month ago, we had a long weekend. It was Japanese Golden Week. This means that practically the whole nation has a four day weekend. Many spend it traveling around Japan or short trips elsewhere. We decided to hop over to Inuyama. Inuyama is home to the oldest original wooden castle still in existance in Japan.
It took us a relatively short ride (40 minutes) on a local train to get to this city. The weather was great, so we were certainly lucky there. We got off the train and asked a local (well, she looked like a local to us) to point us in the direction of the castle. It's fortunate we asked, because right out of the gate, I think we would have gone the wrong direction. But anyway, we walked the 12 minutes or so over to the location of the castle. 500 yen got us tickets to the castle, a small but nice museum, and another small but nice Kabuki theater museum across the street.
The castle itself sits at the top of a rather large hill, and the stone path / stairs leading up to it are less than smooth. Before you can go inside, you have to take off your shoes and carry them around with you in a plastic grocery sack. Sacks provided. I have a theory that the city workers ask tourists to do this for 2 reasons. 1 - It's important to show respect for the construction that still stands, and 2 - To bet on how many tourists will fall down the polished and extremely steep wooden staircase inside. It was more like climbing a ladder with two-way traffic. At the uppermost staircase, people could not even go up and down at the same time. This led to a traffic jam or two.
The view from the top of the castle was really great. The top floor had a viewing platform around the outside of the building. While this area didn't scream safety, we still felt comfortable. I can't say so for the couple who were in front of us though. They were scooting around the outside of the building, backs to the wall.
After checking out the view, we headed over to the two small museums. Spending 5 minutes in each was totally enough time to get the scoop. I mean, the museums were super small. Really really small. In one were cool parade floats that are all lit up, and of course, wooden as well. Once checking out these, we decided to head back home. We'll have to go back to Inuyama again sometime. I hear that there is a nice Monkey Park to see. I'm assuming there are a lot of monkeys, but I'll withhold judgment for now.
