Odawara Castle and Kinjiro Ninomiya

Odawara City is situated in the south west corner of Kanagawa Prefecture. It takes only 35 minutes from Tokyo Station to Odawara station by a bullet train, shinkansen. If  you take a local train, it takes an hour and 24 minutes. The reason why I introduce Odawara Castle is that it is the nearest castle from Tokyo which has a long history. 

Odawara Castle was built in 1417. This castle is famous as a stronghold of the Late Hojo Clan. Historians call them the Late Hojo Clan because they were different from the Hojo Clan during the Kamakura Era(1192-1333).

This is a picture of Sagami Bay which I took from the observatory of the castle. I saw foreign tourists enjoying the view.

In the precinct of Hotoku Ninomiya-jinja Shrine near Odawara Castle, there is a statue of Kinjoro Ninomiya(1787-1856). Kinjiro was born to a poor peasant family, but he studied hard on his own.

 After Kinjoro grew up, he named himself  as 'Sontoku Ninomiya'. Sontoku became a prominent agricultural leader, philosopher, moralist and economist.