Shiga Trip - pt 2 - no ninjas?!

I had originally planned on meeting up with an AnD friend on Saturday morning, but she had to work unexpectedly, so I had to go solo this day. 

先週末滋賀に居た時、甲賀の忍者マンションの予定したけど、行かなかった！とても田舎でしたから、駅から遠い！タクシとバスを見つけなかったから、行かなかった。

I had wanted to check out the 'Ninja Village' and/or the 'Ninja Mansion' in the small town of Kouka in southern Shiga.  I had heard about these places and tried to go a few months back but wasn't able to.

So I took the train out to there in the morning but I was a bit shocked as I arrived... this place was REALLY in the middle of nowhere.  When I got off the train at Konan station, I decided to use the bathroom (#1) before exiting the ticket gate... but by the time I got out of the bathroom everyone was gone including the station employee!  I quickly realized that the train only comes once an hour here, so he comes out and collects tickets and then goes somewhere and naps for an hour before coming back.

There also weren't any cabs or information about the ninja mansion (the village was supposed to be near the next stop down the line).  I finally found a local map outside that showed where the mansion was.  It was hard to tell how far it was though,  I decided to walk over towards it to see if it was nearby...  I took note that the trains only came once an hour each way so I had 45 minutes if I wanted to catch the next train back (otherwise I'd have to wait 1:45). 

I walked for about 15 minutes through the small town before getting to the main road...  nothing much here!   so I gave up on ninjas and walked back to the station...

とても田舎。。。

time for Plan B:  the town of Minakuchi.  It was also a pretty small town, but they had this:

それから予定を変わりました、近く小さ町’ 水口’へ行った。如何して？僕は日本のお城が大好きから、もちろんお城をみたかった。

The Minakuchi Castle Ruins...  (because as you guys know,  I like to visit Japanese Castles)

水口城址！

Hmm,  just one building?  Not really the main tower either.  It actually used to be the corner building where arrows and guns were stored.

This castle was actually kind of strange... in Japan there are generally three kinds of castles:

1) original castles (original castle tower + some walls, gates, etc. Very rare! )

2) castle ruins (usually just the walls/foundations, main buildings are all long gone)

3) modern rebuilds (since the 60's, the local governments have been replacing the castle towers to generate tourism, historical preservation, etc) Actually this one was somewhat of a hybrid of 2 and 3.   It was a pretty big castle back in the 1600-1700's, as it was a stop on the old road from Kyoto to Tokyo (the 'Route 66' of ancient Japan). 

But somewhere down the line,  most of Minnakuchi castle's former grounds have been turned into the sports field for the local high school, so they decided to rebuild one section that was off the side of the field, which was just the entrance gate to the old castle:

So 'all that is left' is just that part in the red circle... 今小さ部だけまだ在る。他の部今水口高校の運動場...

And if you go up to the 2nd floor you can see what its next to now:

Since it was saturday afternoon, there were students doing batting practice...    this is the interesting thing about Japan... juxtaposing ancient feudal castles and America's favorite sport -  baseball...

I was expecting to leave Minakuchi after this,  but it turned out I was there on the one weekend a year they do their big town festival... so I decided to stay a few more hours... you'll have to wait til the next blog for that....実はこの週末は水口町の祭りでした。。。それからここに何時間居ました。。。次のブログを待ってください！