Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Hiroshima Castle

Hiroshima Castle was established in 1589 century by Mori Terumoto, a governor of nine provinces that today comprise Hiroshima, Shimane, Yamaguchi, and part of Tottori and Okayama prefectures. It is also called "Carp Castle" since the area where the castle was built was then called Koi-no-ura (Koi Sea Shore). Koi means carp in Japanese.

The original castle was destroyed by the atomic bomb blast on August 6th 1945, which its epicenter was less than a kilometer from the castle. The present tower was reconstructed in 1958 and is now used to exhibits historic artifacts. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed in the castle except on the 1st and 5th floor which serves as observation platform.

As seen in the first photo, the castle is surrounded by moat whose original purpose was to prevent from enemies' attacks, now from high rise apartments and mansions.
For a complete cyber tour, please visit http://www.jcastle.info/castle/profile/44-Hiroshima-Castle

8 comments:

Babzy.B said...

I like the first one so mysterious ... beautiful architecture !

VP said...

The second image is perfect, but the first one is so creative...
Beautiful post!

joo said...

Looks fantastic and I agree with VP that the first one is really creative:)
Have a nice day:)

Tall Gary said...

“Is that a shadow on a wall?” I was thinking. “Hmm. Interesting. But what is that texture?” Then, when I realized, I exclaimed, “Oh, wow! It’s a lake! The shadow is on a lake!”

If I titled the photos maybe the first one would be:
DREAM

The second:
MEMORY

The third:
HERE AND NOW

Tall Gary said...

This is a nice site about Japanese castles

Tall Gary said...

I made another mistake (not so unusual). It’s a moat in Henny’s top photo, not a lake.

Kaori said...

Great shot of the shadow! I've actually never seen the hiroshima castle! Had no idea it was close enough to see the city apartments! Beautiful, henny ;)

henny said...

I'm glad that you all like these pictures.

Kaori, how long did you stay in Hiroshima? Or was it in Mihara?

Gary, thank you for the link, I didn't even think to check its website. There are some leaflets and brochures we can take for free in the castle. I was going to use it as reference but I had a bad cold last week, I put it off until today. I'll paste the link as well. Doumo arigatou.