18 November 2024
Castle delays
Odawara castle
Japan is famous for its punctual trains. On this trip this has not been my experience. I have frequently been on delayed trains, delayed local trains, delayed bullet trains, lots of delays. Today was king of delays.
First no train came at all on the platform in the direction I was going for about 40 minutes, then the train I got on slowly moved to the next station about 1km away over the course of about 45 minutes. I think it still went slowly after that too, making me more than 2 hours delayed.
Fortunately, it was not a hiking day, such a delay could actually cancel a hiking day entirely, instead I was going to see the closest castle to Tokyo, which is actually 72 km away at the seaside sizeable town / small city of Odawara.
The castle was good, the views were great, the clouds made for a lot of silver and black looking photos, and the ocean view was... interesting.
Although it was a bit rainy when I woke up, by the time I took this photo while I was standing on a platform with no trains coming (behind me, they were coming in the opposite direction), the rain had almost stopped. The possibility of rain is why today was not a hiking day. The mountains near Odawara, which is where I will go hiking tomorrow, were covered in cloud all day.
Many hours after starting my journey, I was in Odawara, and exited the station on the wrong side.. which lead to me going through the castle backwards.
I was on the wrong side of the tracks, but since I like these photos, that was a good thing.
Here is the castle. Just kidding. It is castle ruins under excavation, and probably future extension to the recently re-created Odawara castle.
There is an actual castle. It is fairly modest, but they have found a measure that puts it in the top 10, stay tuned.
The flower festival was packing up. Time to pay the $6 fee to go in, they take credit card.
Look! Odawara castle is the 7th highest in the country. I have been to most of these. Osaka is actually number 1? Himeji at number 5 seems wrong, and where is the excellent Matsuyama? I have doubts about how they are measuring this.
The inside of the castle was pretty boring. They had big tv's with ads for things like bike hiring and a local video game tournament, so instead I will focus on the view with 4 x view shots. That is Hakone over there, a place I have never actually been to.
The ocean. I shall head over to the ocean once I am done with the castle.
Odawara city. As you can see, it is an actual city, too big to be called a town.
Over there, in the cloud, are the mountains I climbed the day before yesterday including Mount Tanzawa. The one about 2/3 to the right is where I will go tomorrow, Mount Oyama. It looks to be just out of the cloud. I am hoping for clear skies tomorrow.
I paid the extra $1 on the castle admission to get me into the tiny Samurai museum. Here is the whole museum. Could have saved a dollar.
The inner moat has been de-moated. But it has a red bridge.
I thought there might not be a moat, but it turns out the outer moat is extensive.
The outer moat also has a red bridge.
Time to hit the beach. Ahhh, here is a typical Japanese bridge, under a freeway overpass. This is the main beach in this area! It is advertised as a tourist feature of Odawara, known as Miyuki beach.
I declare this to be photo of the day.
Tsunmai watch. This area is listed as one most likely to be destroyed by a Tsunami! Not joking, I read that when researching where to go in Odawara.
Whoever teaches all these activities at this gym is very skilled.
There are quite a lot of shopping streets around Odawara station. Also a lot of new construction going on.
And here is the station, from the grander side where the bullet train stops. Quite grand.
Final shot for today, some more silvery clouds creating an almost twilight effect.