Tohoku Castle Tour Part II - Samurai Residences

2018/10/03

One of the main purposes of this trip was to revisit the Samurai Homes of Kakunodate to update my Samurai Residence pages and to visit some of the others I found around Tohoku.

Kubota Castle (Akita)

This National Heritage Site is probably the best samurai home I've seen. It's unfortunate that it was moved away outside the city but it may be the only complete upper class samurai home I know of.

Kurosawa Residence

Shiroishi Castle (Miyagi)

There is only one samurai residence in Shiroishi but it is one of the best I've visited. I love the front gate just across the waterway.

Koseki Residence

Kakunodate is well known as one of the best castle towns in Japan. There are 6 original homes open to the public and 1 reconstructed home. They have done a great job preserving the castle town atmosphere with wooden walls down the lanes. There are also some old merchant homes and other homes that appear to be old but there is no good information about them.

Kanegasaki Castle (Iwate)

This is an interesting little castle town. The castle itself is mostly gone but about a dozen homes still exist in various states. 2 are readily open to the public, 3 are cafes, but the rest are private residences or have been abandoned. The samurai homes here typically had a hedgerow instead of wooden walls around their homes which adds a very rustic and neat aspect to the houses. Some of these are preserved even though the original homes are now gone. The town also has a great little museum.