SeanyTravels (Japan-Fukuoka) #19 Our (Mis)adventure to the Fukuoka Castle... or so I thought!

We have finally finished the Huis Ten Bosch series! It took about 7 posts to fully complete!

After looking through my photo sets again, I realised I might have missed out on a few interesting photos. I will think about how to showcase them again, most probably in a review or miscellaneous post at the end of my series!

Now, I'll bring you on a short trip to Fukuoka Castle (or so I thought it was). Why so? Finish reading to find out! :D

It was a really scenic route on our stroll towards the Castle, so I'll show you some places we passed by. It was a quiet day and not many people around, but when we did see anyone, they were walking their dogs.

At one point we had to walk stealthily because we spotted many big crows around. Actually I am not so sure if they are crows or ravens, but they were really enormous. It's quite interesting as big black birds circling around Japanese shrines seems like something out of an anime/manga.

They were much bigger than the dogs being walked, but their owners did not seem to be too worried. The dogs were barking at the birds quite constantly though.

Many crows/ravens flying around before this shot was taken

one of the smaller shrines we passed by

We also stumbled upon this really nice and scenic spot en route to the castle! The scenery here made us stop in our tracks and we spent the next 20 minutes taking photos and walking around.

The name of this Shrine is the Fukuoka-Ken Gokoku Shrine (福岡縣護國神社).

The area here is wide and because there's not many people that day, the space to wander around seemed much bigger. It was nice that we came here just before sunset, and we could see some spots receiving the orange sunset glow.

behind me, there's a visible sunlight divide

We took some time to walk the grounds, and enjoy the tranquility in this shrine. It felt quiet and peaceful here and we took a short break, as we checked our current location to map the directions to the Castle.

There was some difficulty in routing to the castle and we actually walked the wrong direction. I had to check my phone numerous times as the GPS was quite quite iffy. We almost walked through an area that was cordoned off.

One really odd thing was that it seemed that we were getting nearer to the castle, but I still see no structure in sight. The sun was setting quickly as well, so we were afraid we could not reach there in time.

We however did manage to capture some nice photos on the way.

a small pond near castle grounds

spotted a tortoise

So eventually, after hiking up quite a little, we reached what we thought was castle grounds. But I still saw no castle around, no crowds as well. So that was a little peculiar, because normally you would expect more people/tourists to be around taking pictures of a castle.

I did another google search again and checked our location, and everything was correct. There was supposed to be a castle here!

Well, as I found out later. There would have been a castle here, in 1868.

So what happened was that with a simple google search, you would see in the small thumbnails what looked like a castle, which in fact was just one of the remaining turrets/buildings in the area. And some other photos were artist impressions which looked really real, which I got bamboozled.

In 1957, most of the castle structures in the inner castle had decayed, been demolished, or burnt down, so what is left are the Castle Ruins that we have today.

So this place is actually now known as the Fukuoka Castle Ruins. Structures that remain are the stone walls, some turrets, viewing area, and some parts of the gates.

Some parts of the compounds did not have lighting, so as it got dark, I decided not to venture in too deep.

But because the area overlooked the city, and it was sunset, so the area made for a really nice photo.

As the sun sets.

Here is a panoramic view of the City skyline from Fukuoka Castle Ruins. Please enjoy :D

!steemitworldmap 33.584999 lat 130.383095 long fukuoka castle ruins d3scr

Check out my previous post in this series!
SeanyTravels (Japan-Fukuoka) #18 The Magnificent Huis Ten Bosch Part 7 - Night Lights & Goodbye~

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For my introduction post please check here!
Where else have I travelled to?
Check Seanytan's SteemitWorldMap!