Gero Gassho mura, Inuyama castle, and becoming love masters at Sankou Inari Jinja

The day after Gujou Hachiman and sample food making on our study trip with Osaka University, we went to Gero Hachiman Gassho mura (which is a style of traditional houses which supposedly look like hands clapped together) and Inuyama castle near Nagoya. Gero Hachiman Gasshoumura was pretty interesting. I'd never seen this style of building before, but the village at Shirakawa-go is pretty famous and I'd wanted to go there. Sadly I ran out of time, so I'm glad we got to see Gero Hachiman. The weather was gorgeous when we went, and it's pretty far in the countryside, so it looked amazing.

Emily looking cute as ever :)

There was also a huge roller slide, bonus! I had a great time, but some of my mates got a little battle scarred...

The next place we went was Inuyama castle. It was a cute small ish castle, and I think it's one of only a few castles that has the original keep intact. We went up inside and saw the view out of the top:

Me and Emily also got shaved ice and it was blue and v tasty. Also the most important thing: The mascot is amazing! A puppy samurai called Wan-maru kun <3 Definitely up there with Hikonyan and Yuzuru kun as my fave mascot. My favourite souvenir I got from Inuyama castle was definitely some wan-maru kun socks I bought for my sister.

Next up was Sankou Inari Jinja. As it's an Inari Shrine, (like Fushimi Inari Taisha) it has a series of brightly coloured Torii gates, which made it really photogenic. 

The shrine's Ema (like mini boards that you write prayers on) were heart shaped! Most of the prayers were about Love <3

This one is wishing to become a 'love master'. I also wrote one, but it's a secret ;)

After that, we got lunch and wandered round the castle area. The architecture was old-fashioned and really cute!

Inuyama castle isn't too far from Nagoya city, so if you're in that area it's definitely worth a visit. Also Gifu and Nagano prefectures are so gorgeous and a little more 'off the beaten track' in terms of foreign tourists, but there's tonnes of beautiful places to go.

Thanks for reading~ -Amy xoxo

Also if you want to see more of Gifu and Nagano prefectures, check out the posts from when I went to some of the Nakasendo towns earlier in the year: Magomejuku, Tsumagoshuku, Naraijuku and mihara no yu onsen