After paying the 600 yen fee, you're granted access to the castle grounds, which include both Ninomaru and Honmaru palace, several gardens, some cherry and plum tree groves, as well as a souvenir gift shop.
Here is what Ninomaru palace looks like from the outside, near the public entrance to the palace. Tours and groups enter through a different area, they seemed pretty adamant on making sure you use the proper entrance.
They don't let you take any pictures of video inside of the palace, to preserve the artworks on the ceiling and walls, so it's hard to get an idea of what this place actually looks like. Here is a map of Ninomaru palace, the path just follows along the outside of the chambers and circles back around the other side.
An interesting feature about both palaces are the nightingale floors or uguisubari (鴬張り). The floors mimic the chirping sound of a bird when you walk on them. They were designed so that the nails in the floor rub against a clamp, creating a noise, and thereby alarming nearby people of approaching individuals.
Definitely a good way to stop ninja assassins from coming into your bedroom in killing you in the middle of the night. You can hear what is sounds like here.
Here is a picture of The Ōhiroma (Great Hall). It is the central core of the Ninomaru Palace and consists of four chambers:
Just try to imagine no people in the room, the walls a dark stained brown, and you pretty much get the idea of what it looks like nowadays. The artwork is still dimly visible on the walls, which remains completely withdrawn from any natural or artificial lighting.
All the outer walls of the palace are movable, so at one point in time they would just slide them all open for light; I can see torches and candles being a problem in a palace made almost entirely of wood.
I managed to get a quick video outside the Shiroshoin, the Shogun's chambers. He used the area as both his living room and bedroom; kind of like my own place, except I don't get served dinner by beautiful women. Not yet anyway.
Next is a video of Kara-mon, the old entrance to Nijo:
After taking a stroll around Ninomaru's garden, you come upon the Honmaru bridge and moat. One of the most scenic locales inside the castle grounds.
Nearby is Seiryu-en Garden, constructed in 1965, it has over 800 stones brought in from an early Edo-period villa as well as 300 some special stones collected from all across Japan.
One part is a large pond in traditional Japanese style, and the other a spacious lawn in Western style; particularly popular spot for large public tea parties and official receptions.
After picking up some beautifully hand-drawn postcards from the souvenir shop, it was time to leave.
Just a block down from the castle is this quaint small swords shop. Chock-full of katanas, I couldn't help but stop in to see if there was something I could afford.
Spotted some sweet shuriken that I couldn't turn down.
Having not eaten since early in the morning before the parade, I was in the mood for a good meal.
Checked out my Lonely Planet guide book and was led to a nearby conveyor belt sushi (回転寿司 kaiten-zushi) restaurant.
At this place all plates were 120 yen, but at most restaurants, including one I went to recently in Seoul, sushi is priced according to the color of the plate the sushi is on. Gold is usually the most expensive, followed by red, blue and green, for the most part.
You get as much miso soup and green tea as you can drink as well as all the wasabi and soya sauce you will need. It doesn't take long to build up a stack of plates. The sushi there was decent, but well worth it for the price.
Musashi Sushi is located right near the Sanjo covered shopping arcade, just a block up from the northern entrance on Kawaramachi-dori (street).
1 comment:
Great, tell us more about your trip.
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