Day trip to Kururi Castle

Activity > Other Cities and Areas > Sightseeing > Chiba

I'm a castle lover.  When I was a kid my mom and dad took me to Europe and we visited a couple castles in Germany (my dad's brother lived there as he was in the military). Being a "kid", I was fascinated with those things!  Standing at the base of the walls and just imagining a siege going on, I was in awe. Through my high school years I used to draw and map out (on hex or graph paper) all kinds of castles because I used them in D&D (do you know what that is?:). I also fell in love with history class in high school and college... I guess I'm a history buff too.

It wasn't until my early college years that I "happened upon" Japanese castles though.  I don't know why... I guess I just never assumed feudal Japan built castles.  I mean... I knew about Samurai, Ninja and Geishas but for some reason just never considered Japan had castles, strange.  Anyways, I was at a D&D club at college and this strange new guy showed up.  He was going off on how great his Ninja character was and that he could easily slip into Japanese Castles and take out a Shogun.  "What?" I thought... "a Japanese... castle?"

Immediately I rushed home and put "Japanese Castles" into DuckDuckGo.com (no, no google for me!... data miners and trackers).  I couldn't believe what showed up... I was hooked.  At first I thought, "well, they are pretty but don't look half as 'tough' as say... a German or Spanish castle."  But, after doing some research I realized that although Japanese Castles ARE, 'weaker' (I guess I would say), they employ tricky and difficult strategies to keep attackers at bay.

So, I have been living in Japan a while and one of my main goals is to go and visit as many Japanese Castles as I can.  I'm in Tokyo so most the "famous" castles are quite far but there are a few in the Kantou Region.  My last visit was to Kururi Castle in Chiba. Kururi Castle kind of sits right in the middle of the "boot" of Chiba. I know the castle is a bit of a walk from the station (Kururi Station), so I left early and planned to make a day of it.  A couple times a month I get a couple weekdays off so I planned my trip on a Wednesday... nice!  Yeah... I hit the early morning rush but at least I wasn't in a suit!  By the time I caught the Uchibo Sen to Chiba I was going the opposite direction of rush hour so the train was almost empty and I found a nice seat to sit down, eat my Onigiris (rice balls) and read up on some history of Chiba and Kururi Castle.

A couple changes, an hour... or more? (I don't remember I was into my book) and there I was at Kururi Station... man, I was so excited! I strolled from the station to the Kururi Castle parking lot (took... 30 min. plus?) and then headed up the hill to the castle.  Kururi Castle sits on top a hill as many Japanese Castles did. Walking up the hill I could see and checked out some mounds, old walls... and could just imagine being a foot soldier trying to get up this forested hill and over these walls all the while arrows rained downed on me.

The castle itself is not the 'real deal' but at least they put something together (an actual castle was here but destroyed so they built a mock up).