Kumamoto Castle

I must say this is one of the best maintained castles I have been to in Japan. Despite some of the challenges with recent earthquakes, the exhibitions inside look updated and very new. The thing I was more grateful for was that there is AC inside, making the visit way more pleasant. The exhibitions, although only in Japanese, were very well built and explicative. Ended up spending more than an hour there.

Visited this castle in the late hot August week. Castle looks majestic from the outside. However, there's really nothing inside to see and the non working air conditioning made the visit tedious. You got to climb staircase inside and all panels are written in Japanese only. You should visit this castle once if you're here but not more than once.. 😀

SKIP THE WAKUWAKUZA, don’t get the set ticket for the both, and save your time and money. Kumamoto Castle itself was a lot more informative and interesting. This castle was amazing. Although the information in the museum in the castle is all in Japanese, the graphics were great. The walk at the end to the observatory was nice and air conditioned. There is step free access throughout the castle.

The entrance fee was JPY800 per person. Quite a bit of walking, and it was another very hot day, but elevators were installed whenever possible, so that saved us from climbing some of the stairs. The castle is quite photogenic, and the exhibits tell the history of the castle. However most of the explanation was in Japanese, so foreigners need to download an app to understand the explanation better. We didn't bother to do that as we were just there to enjoy the atmosphere. For history lessons we can always rely on Google afterwards if we want to. The top floor (6F) offers a view of Kumamoto City. The most amazing thing for me was how the pillars corner stones could hold up the entire structure when other stones crumbled during the earthquake. How important it is to have a good foundation! We went out and took some jump shots in front of the castle. We enjoyed our visit to Kumamoto Castle, highly recommended, though it would probably be better to go in spring or autumn.

A must visit castle when you are at Kumamoto. We went on a day when it was unbearably hot!! They set up an area with water mist to cool down, which I'm very thankful for.