Stacy: Day 3 - My First Asian Castle!!!

I grew up in Germany. I have traveled throughout Europe, and have seen countless palaces, castles, and forts.

This is my first Asian Castle! We were all so excited. But, first. Walking not far from our hotel, towards the train station. (And my breakfast--hotel buffet, totally worth the $36-ish Dollars for both of us! So far I have only felt what I'm guessing is my form of anaphylactic shock(drop in blood pressure). But, I didn't eat 2 foods from yesterday that made me feel that way, and I was absolutely fine today!

Castle! We approached from the less common direction. It rose up slowly, unfurling its beauty.

There wasn't much to photograph inside since it's a reconstruction– uninteresting architecture. No photos allowed in the climate-controlled floors (3 & 4), where all the cool things you'd want to photograph are! Gorgeous room dividers with battle scenes, samurai armor, wall scroll portraits, letters from important people saying things like, "I don't like my brother. I'm going to send him over here... ((Far away))." 😂

But, when you reach the top, your 7 story climb paid off with a magnificent view from the area that used to be the living quarters of the Lord of the castle (in this case, Toyotomi Hideyoshi

SHRINE! This was on the castle grounds--within the largest moat.

And, just some random shots after the shrine. We wanted to go to Umeda Building to see some interesting modern architecture, but we were rained out (we're ok with that).

First. A light rain started. Then, the strongest guest of wind I've ever been in nearly now all of us away, and threatened our umbrellas! We hid behind the closest building, and waited 3-5 minutes for it to calm down with a young Japanese woman.

Hello cold front!

Short day!