Nagoya Castle was built by Ieyasu Togukawa and because he was born in the rather modest castle of Okazaki he built a large and beautiful one in Nagoya. The Togukawa castle was destroyed in WW II but rebuild:
On top of the castle are the famous golden dolphins, the kinshachi, who were supposed to prevent fire. You can see them on either end of the castle's roof. This one is a dolphin for show only; for 100 Yen you can get on the stage and get good luck by stroking the dolphin. Since the dolphins didn't do their job very well 60 years ago, I thought I'll keep my 100 Yen piece for better purposes:
Everything is done with care in the castle garden, look at the pebbles around the tree:
I quite liked the fact that every lord contributed to the building of the castle by delivering stones. And every lord made clear what and how many stones he gave for Iseyasa's castle; a lot of stones are carrying the mark of the lords, like fans, circles, swastikas... it was a bit like looking for rock art ;) on the walls:
On my way back to the hotel I had a stop at Mos Burger's http://www.mos.co.jp/english/ and had one of their wonderful vegetarian rice patties with an obscure coloured melon soda:
Aha, im Körbchen werden die leckeren Burger serviert! Sieht gut aus, nur das Getränk sieht ein bisschen giftig aus ;) Mein Kinder hätten sich drauf gestürzt....hehheehe... Sie lieben blubbernde, bunte, süße Getränke :(
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