[English／日本語]
A 15-minute walk from Hachioji Station, I bought a "Hachioji Castle Monaka" at the Japanese sweets shop Senshuen. In fact, there was a castle in Hachioji in the 16th century. This "Hachioji Castle Monaka" is a confectionary shaped like the castle that existed at that time. The monaka is filled with sweet bean paste and is very tasty ?By the way, Hachioji Castle is no longer there, but the place where the castle used to be is now a park. I would like to visit there with my students someday.
八王子駅から徒歩15分、和菓子屋の千松園さんで「八王子城もなか」を買いました。実は16世紀に八王子にはお城がありました。この「八王子城もなか」はその時にあったお城の形をしたお菓子です。もなかの中にはしっかりとあんこ（豆の甘いペースト）が入っていて、とてもおいしかったです?ちなみに、八王子城は今はありませんが、昔お城があった場所は公園になっています。いつか学生と行ってみたいです。

2022年9月10日の満月と姫路城です。
月の出は雲に覆われていましたが、その雲を抜けて美しい姿を見せてくれました。

2020年、岡山城前の庭園で行われていた「夏の烏城桃源郷」という和傘のライトアップイベントです。
和傘と城の組み合わせがとてもマッチしており、幻想的で美しい催しでした。

2022年8月30日の姫路城の朝焼けの瞬間です。
この日の空は空高くまでオレンジの色に染まりため息が出る程の美しさでした。

The last couple photos I wanted to post from our trip to Takamatsu.

The first one was at one of the stations by Ritsurin Park. It just tells you not to try and go past the railway crossing after the bar has come down but I thought the pictures on it were pretty funny lol.

The second was just one of the manholes that I thought looked nice. Snapped a photo of it outside of Takamatsu Castle

On the final day of our trip we were a bit tired but still wanted to see a few things and just casually enjoy our time.

We ended up going to Marugame Castle as our first destination. It was really cool as it's one of the 12 castles in Japan that still has an original castle keep. The castle itself isn't very large, but the area surrounding it is. From the bottom of the castle the keep is quite small so it's hard to get a good photo of it, but we got a photo of it with one of the turrets along the moat wall which was cool.

We reserved a rickshaw ride the previous night as well so when we got to the castle we did a little exploring and then we went on a guided tour around the lower area of the castle. The rickshaw guide was a really nice guy and quite funny as well. Apparently he was a comedian but he enjoyed doing this job as well. He told us a bunch of different things about the castle and it's construction while also telling some jokes occasionally.

After the rickshaw tour we climbed our way up to the top of the castle and there were saw really amazing views waiting for us at the top. You could see the entire city almost. We also entered the castle keep, but it was relatively small. It was still nice to see the architecture on the inside but the stairs were a bit scary. They were incredibly steep and I was holding the handrails the entire time going up or down them.

After checking out the castle we were pretty hungry and so we decided to get some lunch. Being Kagawa is the udon prefecture we went to an udon specialty restaurant. I haven't been to many udon restaurants so it was kind of a new experience for me. They had it set up kind of like a cafeteria and you go through and choose what you want and other toppings to go with your udon.
I didn't see the trays for the extra toppings so I just ended up putting the karaage on top of my udon lol.
I got niku udon and it tasted really good. The karaage was a nice touch as well. Not the usual tempura most people get but it went surprisingly well with the soup.

After eating we headed towards Nakazu Banshoen, a garden with art exhibits as well. Before getting there we decided to stop by a Lupin-themed cafe though. It was a really tiny shop but we were able to cool off for a bit and relax which was nice since we were walking quite a bit.

The garden was quite large and had a lot of different points of interest within it. The stepping stones were fun to cross and the row of torii gates was pretty cool as well. You can definitely take some nice photos with them.

And that concludes our trip to Takamatsu! Overall it was a really fun trip and I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't been to Shikoku or Kagawa before. We didn't even get to do everything we were looking at but we still had a blast!

I've got too many photos to post so I'm making another post today and at least 1-2 more in the next couple days.

After visiting Ritsurin Park we headed towards Takamatsu Castle.

The castle itself had no castle tower but it still had a really nice garden and the moat was pretty cool as well. They had a boat tour of the moat too, but we didn't think it was as extravagant as the one at Ritsurin Park and we were already tired so we decided to skip it and just tour the castle on foot.

There were a variety of different stone lanterns throughout the garden that I thought were pretty cool. I always enjoy seeing the different lantern designs for some reason.

Despite not having a castle tower, the turrets themselves were cool to see. After looking at the first castle tower we crossed a bridge that ran over the moat and headed up to the top. Once we got to the top, where the castle tower was previously located, we had a really awesome view of the area and I was able to get a photo of a boat passing through the moat. They were all wearing straw hats and special clothing, which I think was part of the experience.

After leaving the castle and heading toward our hotel, we arrived at the second turret and it had a nicer view than from inside the castle. I thought the clouds above it looked quite nice as well.

After that we headed to our hotel and rested for a bit and then headed over to a pizza place called PIZZERIA 18 for some dinner. The place had a nice atmosphere and the food was really good as well. We ordered pizza (obviously) and a variety platter as well. It all tasted great. They had Heartland as their nama-beer which I thought was nice. Don't see it very often.

滋賀県彦根城
満開の桜がリフレクションしています。

岐阜市金華山山頂にある岐阜城と月のコラボ
ここ数年人気の被写体でカメラマンも多く集まってきます。

桜の時期は好き♡

二条城のプロジェクションマッピング?｡:*
お洒落なお花見遊び?

新潟県上越市の高田城址公園にて撮影。
満開のソメイヨシノと雪に染まった妙高連山が絶景でしたので思わず撮った1枚です。雲一つない青空と絶景が水面にも映り、水面も素敵な景色となりました。

夜のお散歩にチラッと行く大阪城はいつも散りかけの桜の季節?

福岡市にある、福岡城跡と桜の写真です。城の濠に映る桜と城壁、ライトアップが日本の春を感じさせてくれます。

島根県安来市・月山富田城
紅葉の季節には、高低差が生み出す木々のグラデーションを楽しめます。
最近特に「秋」と感じる期間が短くなっているように感じますが、一番好きな季節です。

白鷺城として有名な世界遺産・姫路城を桜と共に撮影しました。構図の大部分を桜で埋めて白い壁が引き立つように意識しました。

白鷺城として有名な世界遺産・姫路城を桜と共に撮影しました。淡い色合いが見事に調和していてまさに日本らしい1枚です。

Decided to go back to Gyoda again this weekend.

We had such a good time last time we went we decided we wanted to check out the cherry blossoms this spring. Managed to visit some really nice places.

We originally wanted to use the rental bicycles that they have in front of the station but we got there past noon and all of them were taken unfortunately.
Fortunately for us, it ended up getting a bit colder later on so it actually worked out.

We got lucky as there was a really convenient sightseeing bus that rolled through the station to all of the major places in the city every 45 minutes or so.

We checked out the cherry blossoms at Gyoda Castle and they had the Hanachozu (花手水, pots of flowers floating in water). We were able to see a few of these throughout the city which was nice.
They also had traditional umbrellas on display in a few areas around the castle which was really pretty.

After Gyoda Castle we visited the Sakitama Burial Mounds which had some really beautiful views of the cherry blossoms.
There was also a flock of herons flying around the area but I wasn't able to get a very good photo of any of them.
Luckily we got some great photos of the cherry blossoms and the main mound and had a really enjoyable time.

We also stopped by Suijo Park and there were some food stalls in the area, but we got there when everything was just about closed so we only got to see a few of the vendors.
We managed to get a really tasty lemonade and a latte though. Both tasted really good.
Surprisingly there were a lot of cosplayers at the park.
We probably saw like 20-30 people cosplaying using the bridges and cherry blossoms in the area.

On the way back to the station we managed saw this river during the bus ride and so we backtracked a little bit after getting to the station (about 5 minutes walking) and got to enjoy some really phenomenal views of the cherry blossoms along the river.
There were hardly any people there as well, surprisingly.

Overall it was a really awesome time!

小田原城にて
天守と桜とヒヨドリ

大阪市の大阪城公園、西の丸庭園からみた大阪城です。庭園内は200円の入園料が必要ですが、大阪城が目の前に見え、季節の花々が咲き誇るのでとても美しいです。春は桜の名所です。白いユキヤナギが群生している姿も絶景。

名古屋城お堀夕景。
桜と菜の花、そして幻想的な夕陽があまりにも美しくて息を飲む光景でした。

日本百名城・佐倉城
佐倉城址公園の桜

琵琶湖のほとり東岸、長浜市に位置する長浜城跡。長浜城は豊臣秀吉によって建てられた城ですが、今は長浜城歴史博物館になっていて周辺には、沢山のモミジが植わっています。秋になると見事な紅葉を見る事が出来ます。

岐阜市を代表する金華山の麓の三重塔と雪景色を撮影しました。

明石城?Hyogo Prefecture Japan
2021/11 Canon Eos Kiss X10

本日登録致しました。皆様宜しくお願い致します?

お城のライトアップは初めて見たかも?
姫路城こと白鷺城めっちゃ照らされてましたw

秋の長浜城天守閣。モミジの中に吸い込まれている様でした。

秋の郡上八幡城を空撮
天守炎上と呼ばれる圧巻の秋の城です。

I thought this was a really nice article and video. I hadn't heard about Utase ships or Utase fishing before. I mentioned the other day in a post about the Edo-Tokyo Museum how I really liked seeing the architecture of the ships and just happened to come across this today. I love how you can see a full broadside view of the ship and its sails. Apparently there are a bunch of different varieties of sails and different numbers used depending on the size, etc. of the ship. I've never had the opportunity to go to Kumamoto sadly, but I'd like to see this in action if I get the chance. I've seen a lot of photos of Kumamoto Castle as well, so that's definitely something I'd be checking out if I visited. I'd like to do it in the spring to see the cherry blossoms as well.

Went canoeing in Hagure, Saitama and I managed to turn red thanks to a nice sunburn. Was super tired the next day after a ton of canoeing but still managed to get a good amount of sightseeing done in Gyoda. Visited Oshi Castle (忍城) and the nearby museum, bought some tabi shoes from a shop that’s been in business for more than 100 years (創作足袋千代の松), stopped by a couple of shrines and enjoyed some of Japan’s scenic beauty. Had a total blast, and one of the locals even gave us some incense as a gift for visiting Gyoda!