Visitng Kokura Castle

After plane spotting at Kitakyushu Airport, we went up to the keep tower of Kokura Castle (小倉城 -jo) which was chosen as the 200 best castle in Japan in this April.

The castle was first built in 1602 by Hosokawa Tadatoshi, the head of Kumamoto Domain. The present keep tower was rebuilt at the end of 1959. 

We stopped our car in the parking lot of Katsuyama Park (勝山公園 -koen). It's a convenient place, located just next to the Nishinokuchi-mon (西の口門) gate of the castle. There is an information board which tells you how to get from here to the keep tower.

While checking with a board, the castle tower is right in front of us. We had decided to go into the castle from here. When entering from this gate, there are stone walls and steps on the left. It is inscribed as at the ruin of Kurogane-mon (鉄門) gate in the stone monument.

Passing through the old gate and going further, there's another side of stairs called Keyaki-mon (槻門). This is a special entrance gate, it is only allowed to use for the lord and the cheif retainer. Going up some steps of Keyaki-mon, finally we've seen to the castle tower.

Inside the castle, we saw a couple of animated images that introduced Kokura's history. We also visited the corner introducing the life of Miyamoto Musashi.

Panorama views of the central Kokura from the observation zone on the 5th floor. From here, you can see a magnificent view of the center of Kitakyushu.

I saw the Kitakyushu City Hall in front of my eyes.

The north side is the Riverwalk Kitakyushu shopping complex opened in 2003.

The east side is the Kokura Castle Garden and Central Kokura. And Kokura Station is visible in the upper left.

The blue building is Kitakyushu City Central Library and Literature Museum. Mount Sarakura, famous for a great view of the city, is also can be seen.