I took from this castle, and it took from me ❤︎ | Wakayama Castle

I went to Wakayama, Japan and wandered around Wakayama Castle (c. 1580s) and its associated park. The area is full of gorgeous little paths under the trees and beside ponds, where koi fish and ducks swim around and quaint wooden bridges span reconstructed stone moats full of green water. And of course you can go into the castle itself, as well. I paid the entrance fee and stepped inside. There I saw the surprising and fascinating little museum, featuring 16th century (and later) armor, weapons, personal carriages, written letters, and other implements of Japanese society at the time. And the views from the top of Wakayama Castle were truly arresting – after seeing nothing but trees and buildings down below, suddenly you’re looking all the way across Wakayama Bay to Awaji Island!

Oh, and the castle gave me one hundred yen, then took it away. How zen.

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Good afternoon I’m here at the ruins of wakayama Castle in wakayama Japan um I’m actually going to walk around the Castle Park today which surrounds the castle the castle itself is up on this big hill sort of in the middle the most important highest place around here this has been

A very important castle for a very long time and I don’t know much about it so I’m going to walk around the big grounds surrounding the castle and then go up to the castle today I’ll be wandering the grounds of wakayama Castle in the city of wakayama in the perfecture of

Wakayama in central Japan the castle has been rebuilt several times since it was first created in the 16th century I’ll explore the Park’s many winding paths its friendly wildlife and seen it Gardens and collections of curios should I leave it there or should I pick it up before

Finally ending up on the peak in the middle this is cool where the castle itself with its small but thoroughly enjoyable Museum stands proud and offers you the best views in the area I’ve just had a nice picnic in this kind of amazingly lovely little uh Courtyard

Area a little chilly it’s kind of cloudy today here in February usually it would be very very cold but we’re having kind of a warm spell here in February in this part of Japan so let’s see basically we’re just going to circle around until we get up to the big castle

So if you look at this old picture here a lot of people hanging around doing their thing over here you see this Red Gate very distinctive Red Gate and that Red Gate is right here this is one of the very few things around wakayama castle that’s actually

Original this Castle’s had a very long and sad and violent history for its buildings but if I’m correct this actually dates from the 1600s that’s pretty amazing anyway this is the entrance to the castle grounds wonder what we can see from up here The Castle Park of course is the site

Was chosen because it’s on High Ground originally in the 1500s what can we see cars so the origins of this Castle are actually in about the 1580s I think and it was actually originally called o OT castle and it was built somewhere near here but not actually at this spot so OT

Castle was a big thing for a while and then in 1600 it was decided to rebuild it here and at that time wakayama was not called wakayama it was called kishu just like the kishu railway if you saw that video I did recently where I

Met the uh local TV crew and ended up on TV that was the kishu railway because wakayama used to be called kishu with a little different borders the castle here kind of expanded over the years and it was a kind of important part of Japanese history CU that’s when

Japan had become unified finally into one one thing one country just to give you a sense of what was going on in the world when this Castle was built in the 16th century it was quite a century for one thing every country and every kind of uh state in

The world was attacking and killing each other invading each other because that’s just how it was that was the century in which Firearms were first used in battle in Japan it’s also when Portugal showed up in Japan and started trading with them even though it was kind of a closed

Society elsewhere in the world Shakespeare and Galileo were born right about the time this Castle was first built or when OTA Castle was built people were just starting to realize like cernic that the sun was the center of the solar system not the Earth uh Spain and Portugal were

Colonizing Central and South America and people were starting to really explore North America and the letter J was introduced into the English alphabet it was originally a a version of the letter I but then someone decided it should be its own letter with its own pronunciation hence Japan and Jeremy stuff like

That all right look at all this that thing which I think you can walk through and this little pagot I think we can get there if we go down this path for got to say this is very very well done a lot of the stuff isn’t really original but extremely pretty and peaceful

Here all right looks like this is the entrance to that kind of bridge that goes up sloped Bridge please hold your shoes in your hand when passing it’s cool walking in here but uh it hurts the feet CU all the boards are kind of at a little angle with each

Other so on every step the edge of the wood digs into your foot you up you up well that was cool and all this is cool and all but we have to go up there to see the actual castle so let’s find a path that goes way up this

Steep Hill to the castle itself I hear all these birds let’s go see if we can find some actual Birds maybe maybe get some video of birds flying off because I scared them no they just shut up when I come around hello pretty poly parrot well the birds have taken

Absolutely no notice of me whatsoever as it should be I suppose I’m not sad honestly I’m trying to get up to the castle itself but uh there’s so much to see here there’s so many little side roads and little parks and paths and stuff and I kind of want to check them all

Out I mean look at this what is this does anybody else know about this I think I’m the first person ever here wow see just just random little Al Co full of amazingness anyway I do see the castle itself still heading there I hope nothing else uh distracts me on my way

There mysterious staircase that’ll distract you I don’t want to brag that the Universe has intended me to come here and prosper today but I was just looking around just walking around and I look down on the ground and look what I found a 100 yen coin I do not see its owner

Should I leave it there or should I pick it up H tiger or hamster looks like one kind of steep walk here up these steps but I think it’s not too far like the sort of turquoise rocks too all right here we have seven stones representing seven deities for good luck

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and up here we have a rock which is the front of a ship and here the back of the ship so this is the boat that brought the seven good luck deities here my 100 yen coin and I heartily welcome them here to wakayama

Castle and here it is wakayama Castle but this is not the original exactly what happened to the original was in 1846 it was struck by lightning and burned down so they rebuilt it quickly cuz it was important and then just 20 years later the Magi government the new

Magi government in the 1860s they said castles are not a thing anymore we’re modern Japan so somebody go and destroy all the castles so a lot of the castle buildings were dismantled but over the decades people started to realize wait this is our heritage so they made it a

National Historic Site but then of course in World War II it got totally demolished by getting bombed so then in 1958 it was finally rebuilt the one you see here was rebuilt with Japan’s absolute favorite material concrete so this is a concrete Reconstruction from 1958 but it’s still nice and I see

People up on top so let’s go see if we can actually get in the castle all right 410 Yen and we’re in all right this is called do the right thing 100 yen 120 scale model of the original wakayama castle and here’s the suit of armor that used to belong to Wilford Brimley

Now be honest which would you rather get around in a modern car or this little carriage carried by servants sometimes when I walk around places and I make these videos for YouTube there’s actually glare on the top of my head and I don’t have the right filter on my camera so I can’t

Really do anything about it but I think I found the answer my problems are over guess this is what the castle looked like at its Heyday with all its original buildings okay this is the top top floor it is very small because the top of the

Castle is just a little square and they let you go outside to actually walk around the railing so let’s go boy you really can see very well that’s the that’s kind of Osaka Bay lots of mountains there to the south of town that big I don’t know if you can

See it that big kind of Island out there that’s aaji Island this is a river that goes goes down and what a view only from up here I’m impressed with this this is cool something my thing’s kind of cool that building right there that’s my hotel tonight smile hotel if I’m lucky

I’ll have one of these rooms facing this side and I’ll get a view of this Castle okay I’m going to end the video here really enjoyed this look at wakayama Castle and the park a lot of stuff to see here I’m sure I didn’t see

At all but hey that’s how it goes so thanks for coming along with me I will see you in the next adventure which is actually near here many thanks to my patreon supporters who helped make these videos possible and who for his little a dollar a month can watch new videos at

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Links to both are in the video description and thanks for wandering around with me