Kishiwada Castle

This last week I went with James and Taylor to Kishiwada Castle - 岸和田城。The pictures above were added in a hurry, so check this post for more info on the pictures. I have been there a lot before (one of my favorite places), but I hadn't been on the inside. So, we payed our $3 (300yen) and walked around the museums inside. A lot of the stuff had signs that said not to take pictures, but one of my favorite pictures didn't. Tada! After looking around at the armor, ancient farming tools, calligraphy from famous generals, and so on, we went up to the roof. From up there, we had a great birds-eye view of the rock garden just outside the castle. We also could feel a bit of a breeze. It felt like heaven to be slightly less hot and sticky. We also could see the neighboring school - and the baseball game that was being played. I never thought I would spend part of my day watching baseball from on top of a castle, but I did. It was fun.

When we finally descended from the roof, we walked around the moat and counted the little turtles in the moat. That moat has fish, turtles, ducks, and some flowers. Combo plus!

Next we went to a nearby shrine and wandered around snapping pictures. Here are a few of them.


It was super hot, so we went and bought drinks at a vending machine. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but there are vending machines everywhere in Japan. If you were to walk down a small street, you would probably see two or three. I tried a new grapefruit sports drink. Ok, but not amazing. We had a little time to burn, so we walked over to the tree garden, laughed at pigeons and the monkey, and just chilled.

After that I went back to the Yukimoto's, had dinner, and went to class. Pretty average evening. I think I need to plan more little day trips/excursions. Even doing something simple like going to the castle is fun. I've heard that a new movie by Makoto Shinkai (did 5 centimeters per second - excellent film) is out, so maybe I will see if I can get someone to go with me, if it is playing near me. I also want to go to the ocean sometime soon.