Shibata Castle

Seeing as it is only a few days to spring and the snow is bound to melt soon, we thought it might be nice to visit Shibata castle for a bit of an explore. Shibata town is only 20mins or so away and it has a shopping centre and fast food, so really any excuse will do to drive down for the day. And I do love Japanese castles- they are absolutely stunning and there is something beautiful about seeing them all covered in pretty while snow.

So off we go in the negative temperature, bundled up and gumboots on for a bit of an adventure. All I can say is this castle must have done very very well against invaders in the good ol' days, as it was so hard to find no doubt potential raiders got lost and ended up in Siberia. It was a good 10 min or so winding around streets and ending up back where we started, and it wasn't until I followed the signs written in Japanese, not English, did we actually get there (possible conspiracy).  Maybe it's just me- but I wouldn't have expected a giant castle with a moat in the middle of a city that hard to find.... Eventually we made it and a pretty castle it was, or at least- the outside was very pretty.

You see, it seems that the castle was closed in the winter- something we didn't really figure on and it doesn't open to the end of March when the cherry blossoms are out. It was tempting to break in and scale the walls like Mongolians... However the icy moat would have been a little bit cold, and I doubt the layer of ice would be quite thick enough for me to run across. I felt very sorry for the geese, however they did make for some nice pictures ^-^