Inuyama Castle - Part 2

Now I've been to castles in England before, and arriving here I was expecting something in roughly the same vein: a lot of old stones, somewhat restored, with kind of a crummy interior museum. That was mostly correct, but the way it's presented was unexpected.

What I wasn't counting on were the particulars of Japanese castle construction. Sure the outer walls and base are made of stone, but the rest of the thing is wood. As such, the castle interior is treated like a home: no shoes. Slippers are provided for visitors to use while inside, and as what I've determined to be a cruel joke (although I'm sure she'll disagree) A grabbed a pair for me to use. Unfortunately I don't think they were expecting these one-size-fits-all slippers to be used by size thirteen feet - the heel of the slipper stretched no further than the arch of my foot. "So I'll be scuffing around..." I think to myself "No big deal."

Again, I was unprepared for Japanese castle architecture: In order to make the castle difficult for invaders to enter, it's only possible to get inside via steep wooden stairs. Wooden stairs polished slippery smooth by the shuffling feet of thousands of slipper wearing visitors... Even in good shoes I would have been rather nervous about negotiating these stairs, and in my ill-fitting footwear I was downright unsettled. It ended up being simpler than I anticipated, with long legs making it much easier to take the high steps than it was for the locals. This kind of attraction isn't remotely handicap accessible.

The reward for braving the treacherous climb up several crowded flights of stairs to the top was an incredible view of the surrounding area. There was a narrow lookout platform around the top floor of the castle which was exhilaratingly unsafe - the railing around the edge only came up to my knee. Not exactly the kind of national historic site presentation that would fly in the US, but it seems to make perfect sense here.

I've been told that if you've seen one Japanese castle you've seen them all, and I'm inclined to agree with that for the interior. The exterior was by far my favorite part of the excursion, and I wouldn't be opposed to browsing the grounds of others during my stay here.