Tour of Nagoya Castle

Hello again!  This update is all about a field trip the CJS (Center for Japanese Studies) group took on Wednesday.  Nagoya Castle was outstanding!  There were a lot of us and we were shown around by Japanese students that are English majors.  Our tour guide went by Sonny, and was also a little bit into history.  On the way there, he and I talked a bit about castles and U.S. Forts, since they're the closest things we have to castles in the U.S.

A little history:  Nagoya Castle was built by the Tokugawa family to protect an important stretch of road during a period of intense civil warfare in Japan.  This period spanned from the late 1460's until 1615, when one of the major factions' clans was destroyed in the Siege of Osaka.  The historical timeline that they hand out at the castle used the word "exterminated."  This was the period of history much of the western notion of romantic Bushido and the Samurai way of life is based on.

Unlike previous posts that were made up mostly of text with some pictures for examples, this one is going to be made up of mostly captioned pictures to tell the story and describe what it was like.

  

These are some of the sights as you would approach Nagoya Castle from the main gate.
The center picture is a statue of the castle's builder who's name I forgot to write down.
The picture to the left is the view of the main castle tower, and the right
is a tower on one of the main walls leading up to the castle itself.

  

These are taken in some of the sitting and sleeping rooms from the lower floor of the castle.  The middle
pic features the tour group I was with!  The others are selections from the sliding wall sections and
their art.  I have  more to say on those in a bit, but I really enjoyed this selection in particular.

 

One of the things pointed out to us was that each room's ceiling was different.  The more elaborate
and heavily decorated, the more important the room.  The room on the left was the local
government's bedroom, I believe.  The one on the right was in the Emperor's room for when
he was passing through and stayed the night.  Also interesting is that the floor (not pictured)
of the room on the right was a solid 6" or so higher than the rooms and hallways around it.
The feudal Japanese were all about class and hierarchy, and didn't want anyone to forget
just who was in charge.

  

These art selections are from the Emperor's bed/sitting room.  His wife was from Kyoto
(if I remember correctly), so he had the best artists he could find paint her the view
of her home in that city onto the walls of this room.  Romantic, right!?

  

These are a couple of scale models depicting the main castle tower's construction.
Being a model builder, I couldn't help but fall in love with the intricate detail
the builders put into these constructions.  The cutaway model shown on the left
was so detailed, you could see the foundation posts that ran all the way through
the entire structure sitting on their moorings under the raised floors.  These
aren't just detailed models, they're true scale models that used the same
materials and construction methods as the tower they depict.

  

So, anyone that knows me very well at all, or has talked to me about why I love Japanese
culture has probably heard me talk about their craftsmanship and their ancient weapons at
some point.  Well, they don't disappoint in real life.  These three pics show off some of their finest
work.  The hand guards (tsuba - つば) in the third pic are all three highly detailed originals, each bearing
heraldry and imagery all their own.  The swords themselves are shown for their engraving work.
I wish I could read kanji at all, because the story goes that the inscriptions such as those in the
second pic are often more than just an artisan's mark.  They often tell the history of the blade,
or include details of the crafting and testing of the blades.

  

These three swords were nothing short of breathtaking.  The aesthetic beauty of these weapons
is hard to describe.  Each is a work of art as much as a tool of warfare.  As the cliche goes,
the soul of a samurai resided in his katana.  The first two blades are katana, the one in
the third pic is a wakizashi, the companion short sword of the katana.

   

Continuing on with me espousing the beauty of these objects, here is a set of Great Armor,
as well as a better pic of my favorite of the three tsuba.  Japanese plate armor such as this
isn't all steel the way European armor would've been.  The heat and humidity of Japanese
armors made that kind of armor very impractical.   Instead, Japanese armor is made of
steel plates that are lacquered and reinforced by bamboo strips.  The whole thing is then bound
together using silk cords between the plates and to hold the armor in place.  Traditionally,
the armor also includes the Kubuto (くぶと) helmet with a devilish face guard 
(menpo - めんぽ) to inspire fear and awe in the samurai's enemies.

  

These two kubuto belonged to members of the Tokugawa family.  You can see the family
crest on the more black one as a small flower on the bits that would sit on the temple
of the warrior wearing the helm.  In the close up pic of the darker kubuto, you can see that the
crest was damaged and repaired at some point, the upper side of the crescent moon having
been reattached.

  

These are some random pics from the Castle.  The far left one is a pic down the stairwell
looking at the height of the seven floors from the top.  The center one is me and my friends Sara and Anna
(left and right) sitting on a replica of one of Nagoya Castle's famous "dolphins."  The pic on
the right almost got me in trouble.  You aren't supposed to use your flash in the castle,
but the level with the replica buildings from the old castle town are so dark, I had
to use flash to get even that bad pic.  The other pics of that level didn't turn out very
well, but I just had to have at least one of the armory and the smithy's work space!

That is a decent selection of some of the best and my favorite pics of the field trip.  I have tons more, but not all of them show much that would likely be of interest to anyone else.  Nagoya Castle is most definitely worth visiting, and I'm looking forward to taking a second trip back to it.  Because I was with a tour group, I didn't get to hover over some things as long as I might have liked.  As it was, I felt like they were waiting for me by the elevator and getting annoyed with me holding them up!  I"m also looking forward to getting out and seeing some more castles, as well as some shrines and temples!

Also, for the quick and dirty classroom update, my language classes are still pretty much a review, but my culture and art class is starting to touch on my favorite periods a little bit.  We've started learning about the earliest feudal period of Japan where the sun goddess and the Imperial family were interlinked.  In my religions class, we're talking about and learning about the Shinto, which has a great deal of interest for me, so it's very exciting.  That is still my favorite class, hands down.  

Maybe next time, I'll post some of my rough art from the two artistic classes I'm taking!  But that's all for now!  Hope you enjoyed reading and looking at all of the pictures of this amazing place!