Our 70th entry in this blog is our trip to Odawara Castle in Odawara, Kanagawa, Japan.  It is everyone’s first time to Odawara Castle as I cannot recall visiting this castle, though I have visited several castles in Japan and for me they almost look the same. 🙂  Anyhooos… Ate Rei was so excited to finally see a castle.  I’m sure she imagined it to be a Disney Castle like the ones from her fairy tale books. hehehe. 🙂  Going there, we are greeted with several castle designed tiles telling the story or the history of Odawara.  Unfortunately, I just pictured a few.

Here is Ate Rei and Papa Dave going to the castle’s entrance somewhere.  I overheard Ate Rei saying “That’s not a castle!”.  hehehe…  Well, it is one Ate Rei, a Japanese one. 🙂

And here is the front area of the castle, a lot of people are taking selfies with samurai and geisha costumes 🙂 We also got a chance to witness their bonsai festival around the grounds of the castle.

“In 1703 the castle was destroyed by an earthquake but quickly rebuilt; yet in 1870, the castle keep and other buildings were dismantled and sold. The keep was rebuilt again in ferro-concrete in 1960 based on models and drawings from the Edo Period. Over the following years, the three major gates leading up to the castle were also restored. Today it is the closest castle keep to Tokyo.” –wiki

“Also located on the castle grounds is the Odawara Castle Historical Museum. It has further interactive displays on the history of the castle and Odawara to present day. Although there are some English translations, the interactive displays and movies are only in Japanese.” -https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5222.html
And some of the display area does not allow anyone to take pictures. These are just few ones I got from the inside.

Here is Ate Rei and Sai trying out some Samurai costumes.  hehehe…. it’s just a standee.  And one of our favorite area was the viewing deck on the most top level of the museum.  We can see Odawara and even Mt Fuji. 🙂

This is our first Japanese Castle visit, we are sure to add one or two more soon. Until then Odawara! 🙂