Our First Castle

On our second day off during Golden Week we went to Hirado. Hirado is an island just to the north of Sasebo. Located on Hirado Island is Hirado city with a population of about 25,000 people. We have a few students that live there so we knew it would be a long drive to get there, about 1 hour. The main attraction in the island is Hirado Castle. But first we stopped off at a park (still in Sasebo) on the way to get a scenic view of “99 islands”. Even though it’s referred to as “99 Islands” there are actually 208 islands.

There are castles all over Japan that are legacies of the Samurai, and 4 of these castles are in Kyushu. Japanese cities used to be guarded by a wall, with a castle in the center, from which the Samurai Lords could oversee their territory.

Hirado Castle is very small compared to others but since it’s the closest one to us we decided to start with that one. It was not overly impressive but it did give us a good view of Hirado.

The bridge that connects Sasebo and Hirado looked strangely familiar. Can you see the resemblance?

As we looked around the area there were lots of shrines and we found the ‘toilets’. It felt like Disney where they make everything themed. They even made the toilets look like the castle.

We are looking forward to visiting Kumamoto Castle which is supposed to be much larger and more impressive.