Matsue Castle!

So after our week of study ended, Martin, Leonard, and myself stayed in Matsue until orientation began. We were kind of bored, so we decided to do some sightseeing over the weekend. The first day, we met up with a Matsue ALT, Shane (pictured in my last post) to go see the historic area around the castle, in the heart of Matsue. It was, needless to say, a great day.

The castle towers over the rest of the city, and can be seen for several miles, I first noticed it about a mile and a half away, close to the outer moat. It was built over a five year span from 1607-1611 at the beginning of the Edo period (1600-1868), and is one of only 12 original castles remaining in Japan. Of those 12, it is the third tallest at 30 meters high, and the sixth oldest.Interestingly, none of the stonework uses mortar. This is called the Gobozumi style.

The castle grounds were quite beautiful and sported great views of the city and Lake Shinji, as well as three restored turrets along the outer wall. Inside the castle, is one of the finest collections of Edo Period Samurai armor I've ever seen. Even better, unlike most other museums I've visited in Japan, this one allowed for pictures!

One of several suits of armor inside Matsue-jo's extensive collection.
There were close to a dozen suits, plus swords, bows, masks, and other samurai related material in the collection.

Matsue-jo (jo = castle in Japanese) also has an extensive moat network comprised of connected inner and outer moats that go out into the city for a mile or two. We took a sightseeing cruise along the moat after we saw the castle, and got even better views of both the castle and the surrounding town area, including the scenic Shiomi Nawate, a winding street that follows the northern shore of the inner moat and was at one time home to several important samurai families. The boat was small though, and some of the passages under the many bridges spanning the moat were so low that the canopy of the boat had to be lowered, forcing the passengers to lie down on the floor!

A crane along the banks of the inner moat. I snapped this shot during my boat ride.

After the boat ride, we decided to check out some of the sights along Shiomi Nawate, and wandered into the Buke Yashiki, a restored samurai residence, which was quite beautiful.

The Buke Yashiki samurai residence along Shiomi Nawate

Afterward, we walked on to the northeast corner of the castle district to hunt down a local microbrewery, and low and behold, if they didn't have one of the finest heffeweizen's I've ever had! All in all, a great Saturday, capped off with drinks and friends under the Red Umbrella.