Nijo Castle

Our first stop in Kyoto was Nijo Castle.  The castle is located near the center of the city - an easy stop on the way to those sights farther afield.  The castle dates back to around the year 1600, when it was built by one of the Edo Shogun.   It's certainly not a castle in the European sense.  True, the castle grounds are surrounded by a moat and a substantial wall.  But the castle itself is a wooden structure.  And, where the castles of Himeji and Hiroshima towered five or six stories into the air, the Nijo castle was just a cluster of simple, one-story buildings.

But though not Cinderella's castle, the Nijo Castle still had a Disney like feel to it.  The castle was surrounded by Japanese gardens that were incredibly beautiful.  Every directly you looked, every angle, was a picture perfect moment made by Kodak.  (Or at least it was at the time of our visit...prior to Kodak's declaration of bankruptcy.) 

Inside the castle buildings, it was just as magical.  The castle was a series of rooms - very large rooms - that progressed from the reception halls for guests, to the grand hall of the imperial court, all the way to the living quarters for the Shogun.  The floors were covered in bamboo mats and the walls and ceilings were decorated with masterful paintings.  Unfortunately, there were no photo's allowed inside.  So you will have to take my word when I say it was impressive.

Ok...two things that struck me.   One is shown by the photo above....specifically, the Japanese use some really big stones to build their walls.   We've become used to seeing Chinese walls.  Though impressive, the Chinese walls are almost all built from bricks of modest size.  The walls of Nijo Castle are made with stones of Herculean size.   You can't  look at these walls without wondering...."how the heck did they do that? ".

A second thing that was really interesting:  what they call the "Nightingale Floors".  Nijo Castle is built with all the main rooms at the center of the structures.  All are tied together through a main hallway of wooden planks.  The hallway runs along the perimeter, with the outer wall on one side and the interior rooms on the other.  The floors of the hallway are purposely built to squeak....to chirp like nightingales.  This is the 9th century version of a burglar alarm.  It's impossible to walk the floors without creating a squeak.  These squeaks, or the chirping of the nightingales, provided warning of unwelcome visitors in the night.

The final photo, above, shows the New Year's decoration at the door of Nijo Castle.   Note the typical mixture of evergreen, and bamboo, and of cabbage flower.