Inuyama Castle

Yesterday my host mom was kind enough to take me to Inuyama castle. It was pretty small, but still beautiful. Of course we had to take off our shoes before we went inside. What surprised me were the very, very steep stair cases which were a little scary to walk up and down. My little host brother actually refused to walk up them. It would seem to me that having such steep stairs would make getting around the castle in a kimono or samurai suit very difficult. From the top level there was a great panoramic view.

While looking at the view, I saw this little chapel. You can see it in the picture below, to my right side. "Oh look!" I said to my host mom. "A Christian church!" "Huh? Where?" She said. Then she laughed, "Oh no, that's not a church. That's a wedding chapel. Most Japanese aren't Christians but they like the western church weddings. See, it's right next to that hotel. The ceremony is in the chapel and the reception in the hotel."

The castle was built on a very steep hill with the river at it's back- a very strategic position, no? But I still saw a very big flaw: the castle, like all old Japanese buildings, was made of wood and paper.
Wood.
And paper.
To me it seems like all you would need to defeat the mighty castle would be a ninja with a lighter. It's amazing it's survived as long as it has.
Later that day my host mom asked me to wait in the car while they picked up something at their grandparents' house really quick. I ended up waiting in the car for a good while. When they finally came back, my host mom said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Kelley! There were a lot of mosquitoes!"
I sat there wondering how mosquitoes could have possibly hindered their return to the car. Maybe huge godzilla-size mosquitoes, or sudden swarms of mosquitoes sucked the blood out of their legs so they were unable to walk for several minutes. Most likely it was the innate Japanese impulse to drop everything in order to hunt down and kill every mosquito in sight. After looking at the puffy little mosquito bites on my legs, I guess it's not such a bad thing. Apparently it's pretty time-consuming, though.