Hiroshima Castle

Our first activity in Hiroshima was the Hiroshima Castle.

Hiroshima, its current population being a little over one million, started out as a castle town.  Hiroshima Castle was both the physical and economic center of the city. 

Like Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Hiroshima Castle was surrounded by a moat and castle walls.  Here we are at the gate.

A long storehouse, which used the castle wall as its foundation.

Within the castle walls, the first thing we found was a shrine.  We went over to pay our respects and throw in our coin.  The kids like doing the coin ritual.

The inside of the shrine was pretty, though a little plain.  But, we got excited when we noticed.....

....a hina doll set!  The whole set!  Oh, so pretty!

Hiroshima Castle was built in 1589 by powerful feudal lord Mori Terumoto, and it was an important seat of power in Western Japan.  While it was spared the demolishment that many other castles met during the Meiji Restoration (the restoration that opened Japan up to the rest of the world and was the end of the samurai period), like the rest of the city, Hiroshima Castle was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945. 

 

        

Inside the castle, we saw pictures of it after the bomb was dropped.  It was nothing but a huge pile of wood.  It was rebuilt in 1958 and is now appropriately a museum that teaches about samurai life and the role this castle played in the history of Hiroshima.

We were not allowed to take pictures throughout most of the museum, but there were a few places where pictures were allowed, such as the dress up area.  They had these great samurai armor that the kids could try on!

The kids said they were heavy, and the boys tried to pretend fight to check out how moveable they were.  The helmet made fighting a little difficult for them.

I think being able to feel the weight of the armor on their body and how difficult the helmet was to wear was a good learning experience for the kids.

 There were also some kimonos for the kids to try on.

Along with some wigs!  The kids had a blast in this area!

The entire museum is five floors of samurai and Hiroshima history.  There was a real samurai armor set on display, along with many displays that taught about the everyday life of a samurai.  There was a floor dedicated to samurai swords, including one that you could safely pick up to see how heavy they were.  We saw some samurai helmets that were amazing, one with metal horns that were probably four feet tall. 

The fourth floor was dedicated to the bathroom habits of the samurai.  Not kidding!  There were displays and some actual "toilets" that were at one time installed and used by samurai or feudal lords.  They were white with blue flowers on them, but they were in the design of the squatty potties that we often run into. 

Every time we would turn to climb up the narrow steps to the next floor, a little Japanese boy--maybe four years old--was always right ahead of us.  He was visiting the museum with his grandfather.  He would come to the top of the stairs and shake his finger at us.  It was so funny!  We got a big kick out of him.

The fifth floor was an observatory that opened up to views of the city.

We had a good view of the moat, the city, and of the mountains in the background.

As we made our way back down and walked down the pathway, there was a bunch of preschoolers and Kindergarteners eating their bento lunches on the lawn.  So cute, I couldn't help but take a picture of them!

These two trees survived the atomic bomb blast.  The one on the left looks to be in rough shape, but it had small buds on it. 

We touched both of them.  They both were very rough looking, but they were alive and if they could talk, would probably have quite the story to tell.

 

Some plum blossoms showing their color near the storehouse and the turret.

This place was way more than we thought it was going to be!  We had a ball here and learned a lot about samurai history.  We planned on spending about an hour here, but we were here for 2 1/2 hours.  Glad we came, it was really fun!