August 19 - Hikone Castle

Hikone Castle was the destination of the day. We eventually made it there after getting off the train one station too early and waiting another half an hour for the next train. The castle was beautiful, set high above stone fortress walls surrounded by a moat.





In what is becoming a trend, we almost enjoyed the castle museum more than the castle. It had an exhibition that illustrated how the Japanese observed the American fleet, led by Commodore Matthew Perry, arriving in Edo Bay in 1853 with their gunships and demanding that Japan open up for trade. The exhibition showed beautiful Japanese watercolour drawings, 1:1 drawings and scale models of the American cannons. In stereotypically Japanese fashion they were seeking to learn as much they could about foreign technology – and then make it better. 'Oitsuke, oikose' (catch up, overtake).

Moving around the exhibitions we looked at a traditional noh stage (a DVD was playing of noh theatre but we quickly moved on), sampled some green tea and cute sweets.



We marvelled at the armour of Hikone’s red soldiers. Well, Brendan marvelled, I just laughed at how the red armour of this heroically styled leader...



...became the exhibition’s logo.