Old Takatori House, Karatsu

On February 2, we had decided to take a drive to Karatsu and Nagasaki. As usual, we bought some "Monkey" Chinese New year goods at Min-min boutique shop in Nagasaki Chinatown.

Before going to Nagasaki, we want to visit the Old Takatori Family Residence (旧高取邸 kyu-takatori-tei), a traditional Japanese-style house and garden near the Karatsu Castle. Facing the Karatsu Bay, there is about 2300 square meters which was build by Koreyoshi Takatori (高取伊好), the owner of Kishima coal mine in Saga prefecture. It's a valuable building that is the pursuit of style of modern architecture which is a mixture of western and Japanese styles.

Let's take a tour to the main house. A worth seeing is the Noh stage, located in the tatami room. Note that taking photograph is strictly prohibited in the room.

Going up to the second floor, you'll see wonderful views of the Karatsu Bay from there.

After the tour, we moved to Karatsu Castle. We don't have enough time, so we only took pictures of the castle seen from Jonai Bridge.