Hirado City

A few weekends ago Russell and I made our way to find a new city and to explore new things! We heard about a bridge that looked just like the Golden Gate bridge and decided it might be worth checking out. Once we were there we ended up finding many more fun things!

We didn't end up getting a great photo of us, but this one will do just fine.

We found this big toy store!

 

Next thing we found was the Insect Park! Russell was in his little bug heaven!

 

When we went we even got our own tour guide! He spoke pretty decent English. However, when you asked a question about something other then bugs, he didn't know what you were saying.

Looking for bugs!

Our tour guide would go around the outside part and show us a bunch of hidden creatures.

 

We finally made it to the bridge!

Next up was Hirado Castle!

 

Standing at the base of the castle. It doesn't look that big when you get up to it. Although there was a bunch of other buildings around the castle that made it actually be bigger.

 

They let you go outside of the very top of the castle! It was very cold up there but it had an awesome view!

A view of a temple from the top of the castle window. It was beautiful! I would love to see all this on a clear day.

After we were done with the castle we decided to go explore a part of the old city. When we were there we found a shop that sold these desserts that were only made in Hirado (or so we are told). It was a sugary outside with a sweet cake/bean paste middle. It was very yummy for this big sweet toothed lady!

This is the old part of the city. The buildings are very old and very traditional Japanese. All of the doors are sliders and once inside many had the rice paper doors. You can't find many buildings in Japan like this anymore.

In the middle of the city they had a hand and foot hot spring bath for the public to use. Once you put your hands in the piping hot water your skin instantly gets all tight it feels as if you have just put lotion on your hands. It was amazing! We would have put our feet in as well, but we both had big hiking boots on and no towel to dry our toes off once we were finished.

I have to add one more little story that I didn't get pictures of. When we were on our way there our wind shield was very dirty and we desperately needed it to be cleaned off. Well we very seldom get gas out in town (in fact I have yet to do it!) and so we weren't sure how this would work. We pulled into a gas station and man comes running out to help us. Trying our hardest to explain that we needed just to have our windows clean, the man understands and starts cleaning away! I try to get out of the car to help and he says no, no, no...  Once he is finished, we try to pay him 200Y but he shakes his head no once again. We bow very deeply to show our great amount of gratitude. Everyone is so nice in this country! Most people are so willing to help with no expectations of being rewarded for their time and effort. It's amazing!