A long time coming

Well, once again life has gotten in the way of gaming :-(

Too much work and a back injury has put me out for longer than I hoped but with any luck that is going to change. My back is well on the way to recovery and our holiday in Japan is filling me with inspiration for new Oshiro releases and projects.

To keep you going I've got a few photos from Goryokaku which is the star fort on Hokkaido, Japan's northern most main island.

It's not the only star fort in Japan but it is certainly the best preserved...

This is the main bridge into the compound. It's difficult to imagine what it would look like without all the foliage but there is a model in the small exhibition centre that helps to realise it that way.

This is a view from the observatory showing the whole layout (official photos must use a wide angle lense as the window mullions are rather close together).

The first photo was taken from the open area to the bottom left.

This is the model in the observatory, I took plenty of close ups for reference but this is probably the best one to the show the fort as a whole.

The only unfortunate thing is the lack of mounted guns and garrison.

This is the magistrates building in the centre of the fort. It has only been complete for three years but it has been built from the original plans, the original having been burnt down. According to the chap we spoke to all the materials used in the construction were the same as the original with the wood for example coming all the way from the Osaka area. The tower on the top is the drum tower.

I'll post another history post in the next few days about the type of buildings found in 

Hakodate (Hakodate is the town where Goryokaku was built and was a principle harbour town for Japan towards the latter half of the 19th century) but I'll leave you with a view from the top Hakodate-yama which is reputed to be one of the best in the world.

ttfn