Kitakyushu

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Japanese Tea Garden

By going to Japan in the spring, we thought we would see the cherry blossoms in bloom.  Well, we missed it by a few weeks.  The next best thing was the Wisteria blooming in Fukuoka.  When we arrived at the train station in Kitakyushu it was late, rainy, and cold.  We just really weren’t motivated to travel to the Kawachi Wisteria Gardens so we ended up staying in Kitakyushu and touring the Kokura Castle.

This one was built around the same time as the Hiroshima Castle, 1600, by Samurai Hosokawa Tadaoki.  It also has a moat like Hiroshima but is a much more substantial structure.  There is a museum and tea garden on the Castle property.

Japanese Mobile Bakery

An interesting thing that we learned was that the Shogun (chief of the clan)  had a physician whose job was to go through the Shogun's poo from his Chamber Pot and examine it daily.  What a crappy job.

The grounds of Kokura Castle

Kokura Castle and Moat

Dave Deakyne
David Deakyne
David J. Deakyne
Dave Deakyne
Wallingford