Tohoku Castle Tour Part II - Samurai Residences
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.
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.
Kakunodate Castle (Akita)
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.
- Aoyagi Residence
- Ishiguro Residence (Kakunodate)
- Iwahashi Residence
- Kawarada Residence
- Odano Residence
- Matsumoto Residence
- Onozaki Residence
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.
- Katahira Ohnuma Residence (public)
- Doai Ohnuma Residence (public)
- Sakamoto Residence (cafe)
- Soeda Residence (private)
- Sasai Residence (private)
- Ito Residence (cafe)
- Ohmatsuzawa Residence (cafe)
- Sugawara Residence (private)
- Miyoshi Residence (private)
- Ohnuma Residence (private)
- Sato Residence (private)
- Takahashi Residence (civic center)
- Hosome Residence (hedgerow only)
- Omotekoji Sakamoto Residence (private)
Recent News
Jan 14, 2023
4 new castles, 2 updates and new videos
Jan 2, 2023
Shiga Prefecture: 4 new castles, 1 update
Dec 28, 2022
Hikone Castle Town in-depth article
Dec 27, 2022
Castles of Koka - 28 New Castle Profiles from Shiga Prefecture
Oct 14, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 6
Oct 10, 2022
New Samurai Homes by ART(2022)
Sep 27, 2022
New castle contributions from ChrisG
Sep 13, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 5
Sep 9, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 4
Sep 8, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 3
Sep 5, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 2
Sep 4, 2022
ART Update 2022 Part 1
Jun 26, 2022
Kyoto Castles Update
Jun 11, 2022
Minowa Castle and Ina Yashiki
Jun 4, 2022
Okinawa Castle contributions from RaymondW
May 30, 2022
13 new castle contributions from ChrisG
Apr 2, 2022
31 new contributions from ART
Mar 30, 2022
Nagano Castle Update from ART Part III
Mar 19, 2022
Nagano Castle Update from ART Part II
Feb 28, 2022
Nagano Castle Update Part I from ART
Enable comment auto-refresher