Rollin' Across Japan Part 3: Inuyama

After the epic train journey of two days before, it seemed strange - cheating, almost - that my next destination was a mere half-an-hour out from Nagoya.  The urban landscape doesn't even falter on the way from one to the other.

For me, Inuyama had an extra draw: the big attraction of the town is the castle, the oldest in Japan, but it is also featured heavily in a series of books that I am rather found of: The Tales of the Otori, by Lian Hearn.  It takes place in a semi-fictional, feudal Japan, and Inuyama is basically this series' answer to Mordor, where all the bad guys fester and the antagonist broods in the castle keep.

It was quite jarring, then, to find the castle was surprisingly small and cheerful, with a sunny, leafy courtyard and beautiful views to the Kiso river below.  The view was especially impressive, because the balcony was nothing more than a warped wooden platform and the original wooden barrier than came barely higher than the knees.  The wooden balcony had been pounded smooth from years of tourists' feet, and it seemed so easy to take a slip and topple over the edge.  Authentic, terrifying...fantastic.  This is what I travel Japan for: for the real-ness of it, not through perspex glass and metal bars.

On the way back to the station, I was accosted by a pair of...how shall I put it?  Well, in the UK, there are Charity Muggers; overly cheerful people with clipboards who try to guilt-trip their way into your card details.  Well, here in Japan, it's the opposite: Charity Loaders, if you will, who are desperate to shove leaflets and booklets and other bits of spam into your hands.  They're almost inevitably a pair of prissy old deers, who try and fail miserably at chitchat because a) the Language barrier is a problem, and b) at this point you just know they're not interested in talking really, so you just close up in the hope they'll just hurry up and leave you alone.

Well, I escaped soon enough, and luckily there was a trashcan close by, so it worked out well.  I would have liked to have stayed to see 'ukai' on the Kiso River, which is the use of cormorant birds on leashes by fishermen to catch fish.  But that was a night-time activity, and alas, I was on a tight schedule.  Still, it's always nice to leave something on the agenda, so you'll always have a reason to go back there.

Next stop, Okayama...