{"id":6945,"date":"2009-12-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=6945"},"modified":"2010-12-29T21:46:40","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T13:46:40","slug":"kumamoto-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/14\/kumamoto-castle\/","title":{"rendered":"Kumamoto Castle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had a couple of free hours on yesterday Sunday morning to check out the first of two sights I\u2019m interested in before meeting the college staff. Unfortunately, while Saturday \u2013 my day of arrival to Kumamoto City \u2013 was all bright and sunny, Sunday itself was cloudy with a fierce overcast, and a mild fog in the distance. The pictures all turned out greyish and quite devoid of vibrant colors \u2013 sigh.<\/p>\n<p>The castle itself sits on a small hill, with several of the key establishment and business hotels situated around it. My hotel \u2013 KKR Hotel Kumamoto \u2013 I think is one of the closest hotels to the castle and is practically at its door step. It takes just about a 5 minute walk to get to the attraction\u2019s main entrance. The adult entrance fee was 500\u5186 (SGD7.80).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4835-kumamoto-castle-hdr18\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4835kumamotocastlehdr18.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4835-kumamoto-castle-hdr18\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4849-kumamoto-castle-hdr20\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4849kumamotocastlehdr20.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4849-kumamoto-castle-hdr20\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This castle was originally completed in 1607. The castle here itself is a reconstruction from 1960, but several of the ancillary buildings \u2013 according to Wikipedia \u2013 are from the original olden times.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4707-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4707kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4707-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"451\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4712-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4712kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4712-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"451\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are two towers (above) in the main castle itself: one that\u2019s six floors, and the other comprises eight floors. Both towers are interconnected through common levels at the basement and also level two. Several floors of each tower hold a number of exhibits explaining the castle\u2019s history from the 1600s. I especially liked this one, which is a model replica of Kumamoto City from olden times, with the castle itself at the heart of the old city from hundreds of years ago:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4747-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4747kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4747-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Climbing the many levels of stair cases eventually leads one to each tower\u2019s top floor and viewing gallery, offering a great view of the city from up high from either two spots. Again, it was a pity the day was no good for photography:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4717-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4717kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4717-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"452\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4720-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4720kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4720-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"452\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4784-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4784kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4784-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Left picture below<\/em>: There was a full-dressed warrior in full battle armor and mask around the castle grounds. And one of my favorite comic pictures on the right, below:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4867-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4867kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4867-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4834-kumamoto-castle\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/blog2009kumamotoDSC_4834kumamotocastle.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4834-kumamoto-castle\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The ninja warrior had traded his blades for a compact digicam.:)<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorely tempted to return here on my very last day, time permitting, for a revisit if the weather\u2019s better than what I experienced today. Though if not, I took about several hundred pictures, half of which are panoramic and HDR pictures which when I\u2019ve finished processing will post it up here.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a couple of free hours on yesterday Sunday morning to check out the first of two sights I\u2019m interested in before meeting the college staff. Unfortunately, while Saturday \u2013 my day of arrival to Kumamoto City \u2013 was<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-read-more\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/14\/kumamoto-castle\/\">Read More<span class=\"cleanwp-sr-only\">  Kumamoto Castle<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[463,237],"class_list":["post-6945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-kumamoto-2009","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}