Monday Morning Star Count - Four More

 

Tanaka Castle

After leaving the Wisteria Festival, I decided to visit Tanaka Castle, even though I had visited it in 2023. By chance, I came across the second moat of Tanaka Castle, which I hadn’t seen last time.

I also came across Tanaka Castle Ruins on the grounds of a school, that I hadn’t seen last time.

This is the place I wanted to visit, which shows up as “Villa of Tanaka Castle”, on Google Maps.

From the JCastle website:

The history of Tanaka Castle begins with a fortification built by the Isshiki family under the orders of the Imagawa around 1537. The moats and modern castle fortifications were built after Takeda Shingen conquered the area in 1570. After the fall of the Takeda, the castle came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu liked to use Tanaka Castle as a getaway when he was in nearby Sunpu castle. In particular, he used it for hawking. Through the Edo Period, Tanaka Castle saw a succession of of fudai daimyo (hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa) move into the castle. The castle was mostly dismantled and destroyed during the Meiji Restoration. Some of the buildings were sold to individuals and survived until the villa garden and park were restored in 1992.

Tokugawa Ieyasu with his hawk greeted guests.

There are several displays in the two story castle.

There is a view of the grounds from the top.

Two buildings - a footman’s house with stable and tea house are on display.

Inside Tea House

The grounds are very pretty.

The walk back to Nishiyaizu Station is about 20 minutes.

Fujieda Wisteria Festival 2026

This festival takes place at Rengeji-ike Park in Fujieda, April 17 - May 5, where there are 250 wisteria trees in 20 varieties. The festival has been running for 40 years. When I attended this year, most of the wisteria were past their prime. It was still a fun time.

These fish were begging for food, but I had none.

There were many flowers in gardens around the pond.

These fish wind socks are hung all over Japan during Golden Week, in honor of Children’s Day.

I attended this festival in 2024 and posted about it here.