Just a short walk up the hill, we reached Inuyama Castle, the oldest still-standing castle in Japan. The original castle was completed in 1537, but it has been repaired several times since, due to earthquake damage. Inuyama means “dog mountain”, so they had cool dog statues leading up to the entrance, along with red banners and wood railings.
This was clearly a good spot for a castle because the hill that it sat on top of was visible from everywhere else in the city. More historical information here, here, here and here.
We headed up into the castle, which was built all out of wood. It was dark inside, with only small shuttered windows. To go from level to level, you had to climb steep ladders or stairs and the wooden steps were worn down to a treacherous smoothness from years of tourists. At the top level was a small room with portraits of all the past lords of the castle (mostly paintings, but a couple of photographs for the most recent ones).
Outside, a narrow walkway went all the way around the upper level, with amazing views in every direction. Across a river, you could see Gifu, the next prefecture over. Fishermen still use cormorants as fishing birds in that river, but we didn't see any of them.
Jenn made faces.
After all that sightseeing, we went and got lunch at a really small and authentic noodle place. I had soba noodles in broth with grated yam. Across the street from the noodle shop was this crazy building that looked like a spaceship hanger.
It turned out to be a community museum for the city of Inuyama. Inside, they had some elaborate floats that get used for the yearly Inuyama festival. The floats are several stories tall (hence the hanger shape of the building) and are carried by dozens of people. Each float has hundreds of paper lanterns with candles inside. During the parade, the lanterns will sometimes catch fire and then someone needs to cut them burning ones off the float before the whole thing goes up in flames. Other floats had complicated puppets that would perform various actions as their operators pulled on different levers and ropes.