Nihongo-a-Go-Go :: Mandy's Journal

Castle day!

Thanks for everyone's good wishes and prayers. I feel much much better today, though I'm terrified of eating now. I had some chicken and veggies that Aimee made for dinner, and I'm still doing okay. *knocks on wood* We'll work on from there. I'm actually feeling a little hungry right now, yay! And I may have some juice. Blood orange juice...mm....

Anyway, today we played tourist with Danielle and went to Nagoya Castle. The castle was actually much closer than we thought it was, only about ten minutes away by subway. It was 500 yen to get in, and now that we've gone once we can't wait to go back in other seasons to see how it looks. It's more of a castle complex, walled in, with towers and gardens and then the huge donjon in the center. It dates from the early 1600's and was actually destroyed in in WWII in 1945, and was rebuilt in the mid-50's. We only had an hour before it closed, but here are some pics. The main attraction of the castle are the two huge dolphins, syachi, made of gold that are on the roof of the castle. These golden ferocious, meat-eating, apparently gendered fish creatures are have become the symbol of Nagoya and are on everything, including special Nagoya Hello Kitty merchandise (Mom and Dad, your pen/keychain have Kitty dressed up as the dolphin). Anyway, some pics.

First you have some towers, for the first and second pics. Then you have big ol' Nagoya Castle itself. Finally, my camera's zoom outdid itself, and you have the two dolphins on the roof. Heh, and don't ask me which one's the boy and which one's the girl.

Also, I saw this the other day and didn't have my camera. Here ya go. Enjoy, Boog!

Back to work tomorrow, blah. But at least my stomach's a little happier, if a little emptier. My jeans are loose! *cheers* See, there is a silver lining to everything, even food poisoning, hehehehe.

Oh, and here's something for Becky. It's not a lion...but make of it what you will.

Posted by Mandy at January 21, 2005 11:00 PM