Shachi bling
The relationship between the golden shachi of Nagoya castle and the silver ones of Aizu Wakamatsu are seen by some as akin to that of the Go....
28 Sep 2:34 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Castle, in Japanese
One particular Chinese character that tends to catch my eye is 城. To anyone seeing this collection of squiggles for the first time, I trus....
25 Sep 9:03 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Tsukushi clan Mansion
Literally just down the road from where I live in Tosu, Saga Prefecture, sit the ruins of the Tsukushi clan mansion. Just as it would imply,....
23 Sep 4:30 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
A journey of a thousand miles…
…begins with one step. This journey may well end up with me being completely out-of-shape and borderline obese. I was thinking how good it....
16 Sep 10:33 am  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Stamp rally – #1 Matsumoto Castle
Back in June 2007, the Nihon Jōkaku Kyōkai (Japan Castle Foundation) launched a stamp rally to promote their list of the top 100 Japanese ....
5 Sep 3:03 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
WWII – Tachiarai Airfield museum
Well, between procrastination and not having a means to visit, I finally checked out the Tachiarai Peace Hall. You may well imagine it to be....
11 Jul 9:40 am  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
JCE on Gaijinpot
Just a quick note guys. A story has been done about the JCE website and in particular the map and it appears on the Gaijinpot website. Here....
19 Jun 2:43 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Travel bug
This is the very bus I took from Fukuoka to Kyoto. It wasn't as confortable as it looks. Choose your own adventure I have got to say tha....
18 Jun 10:21 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Shogun 2: Totally Awesome
Apologies for what is a massive ego posting plain and simple. First, a bit of backstory. There was a game released for the PC about 10 years....
13 Jun 12:18 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Apologies for what is a massive ego posting plain and simple.
Apologies for what is a massive ego posting plain and simple. First, a bit of backstory. There was a game released for the PC about 10 years....
13 Jun 12:13 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Rate my castle
Early this year I added a function that allowed people to rate the castles they'd visited. It's not a perfect system but it has allowed fo....
6 Jun 11:21 am  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Show and tell – Tsuba II
Earlier this year I introduced to you all my interest in Tsuba, the hand guards of Japanese swords (link). Well, here is another in my coll....
27 May 8:58 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Japanese Manhole Cover (part II)
I was going through some of my photos from earlier this year and came across this one. Recognise it? That's right, it's from Hitoyoshi castl....
21 Apr 9:24 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Daimyo of 1867
A while back I got an email from out of the blue from someone requesting use of one of my castle photos for a book. How cool is that? Fast-....
6 Apr 9:47 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
The new Originals
Original ... is a term often seen in books and on websites (including this one) to describe just twelve of the thousands of Japanese castle....
29 Mar 9:16 am  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Yatsushiro’s teahouse
Today we are going to take a walk to the Shōhin-ken(松浜軒). This is an old two-story tea house which was built in 1688 (way before Star....
17 Mar 12:04 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Show and tell – Tsuba
Tsuba I'm no expert when it comes to tsuba. What I can tell you with some level of confidence is that a tsuba is a hand guard on Japanese sw....
2 Mar 9:17 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Wallpapers – JCE
Japanese Castle Wallpapers Here are some wallpapers with which to adorn your operating system of choice. There are three choices & three....
17 Feb 4:27 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
Reocation, relocation, relocation.
Have castle, will travel One thing that perpetually amazes me is the number of castle buildings that were first built, then pulled-down &....
16 Feb 4:40 pm  from     [Profile]  [Recent] 
Directions and the Chinese zodiac.
10 points to anyone who can explain what's wrong with the photo in this post! Year of the Tiger. Tomorrow will be the first day of the year ....
13 Feb 1:40 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
The next level
Click me for a larger image. For something a bit different I thought I'd write about why the Japanese Castle Explorer website was made &....
20 Jan 3:13 pm  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
I’m still alive
Hello, I hope the new year has been good to you all. This'll be just a quick post to let you know what's happening. To be honest, news of my....
10 Jan 11:54 am  from  Japanese Castle Explorer   [Profile]  [Recent] 
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