Missile warning and Lockheart Castle!

Today started with the usual awakening at 6:00 thanks to the town's speaker system, however, today another announcement was added to which I could only understand the "do not exit the buildings" part. I checked the news to see if anything had been reported but everything seemed fine, apart from the flooding in Texas, so I went to the main house for breakfast. As I came in Sawami asked if I was alright because the announcement which was being repeated every couple of minutes or so was to announce that North Korea had fired a missile right over us and to get into your basements and not leave any buildings. We don't have a basement. Most Japanese houses aren't equipped with basements. As such, there was a bit of panic in the air as I thought of what the best course of action would be if we were hit to which I couldn't come up with anything practical so resigned to eating breakfast. While eating breakfast, it was announced the missile had landed in the sea by Hokkaido which was far away enough to qualm the immediate flight instinct I was trying to suppress but not enough to completely relax. I spent the morning fretting and decided to calm myself down by watching some soothing game of thrones. At about 12:30, me and Sawami went to collect my friend from Numata station and she dropped us both off at Takayama-mura's main (and only) tourist attraction, Lockheart castle!

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly from a Scottish castle in rural Japan but it certainly delivered an experience I'm not likely to forget anytime soon. Firstly, it took us a while to find the entrance as it's a bit further down from the bridal studio, the exit and some toilets but eventually we found it, got our tickets and entered the somewhat unassuming, if not a bit strange, starting point of the small park (if it can be called that). We went up the hill, passing by a 'southern European-style restaurant' which proudly served scones with coffee and waffles, an extensive gift shop, and underneath a climbable tower.

As we looked at the main attraction, as it were, we noticed there was quite a lot of princesses about, some with princes, which I had somewhat anticipated as I'd seen that they offer a 'princess experience' on their website, that didn't lessen the surreal feeling of walking around a European-style castle (more of a country estate), with princesses and princes at every corner.

¥1,620 for a box of shortbread!

As we made our way through the house and up the stairs (to find another extensive gift shop selling unreasonably-priced shortbread) we found ourselves in a room which can only be described as horrifically magical.

Please excuse my laughing, I was feeling quite disorientated at the time.

After departing these two rooms, we made saw another couple of fairly average rooms, by comparison, and then came across a strange collection of perfume (of perfume bottles?) in glass cabinets, another room presented us with a collection of Chanel products, various ancient Egyptian artifacts, and items that had been owned by Marilyn Monroe.

There were a couple of other areas that were only accessible to 'princesses', so we made our way out to find out where to the princess information could be found. On the way, we decided to take a look at the church and climb the tower which had placks along the walls with couple's names on and the date (we assumed) they'd gotten married in here, as well as little signs saying "hug here!!" (and at the top) "kiss here!!".

 Saint Lawrence Church

"hug here!!"

"kiss here!!"

After admiring the view from the top, we made our way down and followed the sign that said "teddy house", which, as expected, led to a house devoted to teddy bears.

 a terrifying army

 a straircase that abruptly ends

We quickly popped into the 'signature house and giftshop to check out the wares on offer.

a poster in the signature house with a few dead wasps on it

 why is the second to left one's upper half so ripped?

"Welcome to Hyde Park" bus, apologies for the blurriness

Making our way closer to the exit, we spotted the, suitably named, 'stone museum' which was, as you might expect, a small museum devoted to stones and fossils.

 "Stone Academy"

absorbing the stone powers

At that point, we decided to make move as we had a bus to catch but we'll definitely be returning to try out the princess experience and the Lockheart Labyrinth!

Lockheart Labyrinth, opening spring 2018!

We spent the rest of the afternoon by the main shop/Onsen for Takayama and ate some Yakimanju (a local specialty). After saying goodbye, I had a pleasant stroll back to the house, had dinner and went to bed, free day well spent!

2017年8月29日