Odawara castle

Here is a picture of me standing in front of Odawara castle in late November. I've heard of the name of the castle since I was little, but I'd never really seen it till the day I visited there last month with Brady. Haven't seen too many Japanese castles, but I thoght it was a quite modest smallish castle. It was burnt down a couple of times during battles by fire so it kept having to be rebuilt over the years until it reached it's present form. the inside of the four story castle is like an exhibition hall now. They show all the old stuff related to the castle and battles the castle had gone through such as swords, armour and arrows. It was kinda scary imagining thoses things were actually used in the batlles and possibly coverded with blood then.

The view from the top balcony of the castle was great! We could see beautiful layers of mountains and the sea. It was only about a 25 munite train ride from our local station. It's amazing how the place made me feel as if we traveled far to reach the old historical city surounded by rich nature. Surrounded by beautiful view is a busy motor road with many of modern buldings along side. Probablly the view of the sea was pretty much the same to the one the Shogun of the castle appreciated in the past. It was intersting wondering how he would react if he timetraveled to the present to see the modern developed and busy site around his castle.

Around the castle is a large park where we found a little zoo with a poor lonely elephant, monkeys and other little animals. It is a funny combination... the castle and the zoo, the latter being absolutely unneccessary to be there but we enjoyed walking around the park breathing in the fresh air filled with the beautifully coloured yellow, orange and red leaves on trees there and checking out the rather bored looking quiet animals.

All in all it was an interesting day out!

Yuki