April 1 saw the fourth and final field trip for my Japanese Civilization class. Our destination: Hikone castle. I wasn’t especially thrilled to go there, mostly because I’ve already been there once and it was pretty disappointing the first time. I’ve since been to many other castles in this country, including Himeji Castle the largest and oldest in Japan, which makes Hikone castle look comparatively dinky. And, now that I knew that the sakura in Kyoto wasn’t quite open yet, I knew that the famous sakura trees at Hikone Castle would probably look the same. But, I decided not to skip the trip because my alternate plan was going to Kyoto for more hanami, but since that won’t be able to be accomplished for another 4 or 5 days, I decided to be a good student after all. Biking to the International Lounge at 1pm, Brian and I were the last ones to get there (oops). Once everyone was gathered, we got a spiel from Melville-sensei’s husband, who was going to be our tour guide for the day. From there we walked to the castle, passing by the moat where this very lonely looking black swan was living. I was told later via Brian’s ex-conversation partner who happened to be on the trip as a volunteer guide that the swan was a gift to the city of Hikone as compensation for several hundred years ago when the governor of the area was trying to open up the country to foreigners, but the people in Edo didn’t really like that so much so they had him assassinated. (”Sorry about killing your lord but please, accept this black swan instead.” I wonder how that went down…) In one of the outer moats for Hikone castle there are a number of swans (mostly white) living in segregated areas. They usually are living with other swans, but this black one was all alone. When our group stopped for a moment next to the moat, this guy booked on over as fast as he could paddle. No one really had any food though, but I think I might go back and visit him later with something……

Getting into the castle grounds, we first got to see a horse stable which apparently is never open for the public to view. From there we entered the museum, which housed a number of swords, suits of armor, Noh costumes and other treasures of the Ii family which built the castle. At one point we toured a replica of a wooden building that was once on the castle grounds, and came upon a garden area where someone had dropped/tossed a flyer directly into the small pond in the center of the garden. I made an attempt to rescue the flyer but couldn’t reach it without getting wet, but Keith braved the elements and rolled up his pants to protect the wa of the garden and retrieve the offensive flyer. Continuing on, we finished with the museum and then started climbing the steps to get into the main keep of the castle. All along the way there we would stop occasionally and be given an explanation of this or that, and once we got up to the very top we were told we could go into the castle or not, so I chose instead to enjoy some ice cream and wait for the group to move on. Brian and Scott decided to brave the castle, but I didn’t have any desire to go inside of it again. Once our group was collected again, we walked down an incredibly steep set of uneven stone steps (all the while comparing how in the US, people would fall and sue and the castle would be closed, or they would be fined because there was no handicapped access, and wondering how many people fell down the steps every year at the castle) and made our way into the main garden area of the castle. There were a few scattered cherry trees blooming around the large ponds and bridges, but nothing too spectacular. After a bit more of this, we concluded our tour of the castle and were told that we could leave or continue to explore if we wanted to. So, I took the opportunity to escape back to JCMU so that I could enjoy the rest of my Saturday relaxing and sitting around doing nothing.

The lonely looking black swan who lives in the castle’s moat, and some more nice moss:

A countdown to the 400th anniversary of the building of the castle, and a nice picture of the castle from its garden:

A suit of armor inside of the museum, and a stable on the castle grounds:

The garden area inside of the recreation of a wooden building from Hikone castle’s early days:

Views of Hikone from the overlook at Hikone castle:

Later on in the evening after I got back from the trip, I heard some music playing coming from down the hall from my room, so thinking it was coming from the TV room I went to investigate. But instead of the TV room, it turned out to be a fort built in the lobby out of the tables and chairs and blankets! Yes, this is what we do at JCMU to entertain ourselves. There were a bunch of people inside of the fort drinking and playing poker. I went out and visited them all a couple of times, and could hear their music going up until I went to bed around 2am so it sounds like they were having a fun time! (Hopefully they won’t take down the fort because its just so cool…)