The Search for the Lost Castle

It started as just a suggestion after an already rather busy day. "What should we do this afternoon?" "I dont know.....lets go to Kasama!"

Last time we were in Kasama, which is known for its pottery, we went with Leah and we tried to find some castle ruins that we saw on the map. We ended up finding Azaleah Mountain and we ran out of time to continue our search.

Soo, Derrick and I made a second attempt at the castle ruin search today.
We took off on our scooters (which is our new and awesome mode of transportation...I will post some pictures of them soon) and got to kasama after 20 minutes. We took some side streets and started our search in the direction that we remembered it being......we didn't have a map today because the map we used last time was Leah's. We figured if we got lost, we would find a kombini (one of those little snack stop/ convenient stores like the one Derrick finally went to for his Western Toilet) and buy one...

So, we're riding down one of the streets and I notice a shrine to my left and immediately notice Derrick coming to a rather abrupt halt.....I quickly decided I should stop too so as not to hit him. Well, it wasn't part of the castle ruins that we were searching for, but it was a shrine, and as soon as we got off the scooters two men who were standing by the shrine motioned us over.
Before the shrine entrance there was a stone marking with words chiseled into it. What was odd about this stone marking was that it also had a melody chiseled in it. One of the men had a big Japanese flute and they asked us if we knew the melody. Obviously we had no idea what it was and he played it for us. Then he randomly started to play some more songs; some that we knew and some that were Japanese. We had a nice conversation with these men and he gave us his website where we could watch him play more songs on his flute.
Here he is playing for us:

Here's a picture of us with him:

Here's the shrine we stopped to see:

After that we continued our search. We got a little sidetracked here and there and found a few random things. First we tried following these blue pegs along a path up a foresty hill along the road...we gave up though and still have no idea what these pegs are for....maybe the waterline or something.

We also found this cool little shrine back behind some houses:

As we continued our search we found a parking lot and two entrances to a path through the forest that made a circle back to the parking lot. We chose one entrance and started walking...and walking. We found nothing so we turned around and went back. We almost gave up and left, but we looked at some maps that were standing there, didn't understand any of the Japanese and decided to try the other entrance. We walked for not even a minute and found some steps. Then we kept finding more and more steps, so we just followed them up higher and higher. What a workout!

And what did we find.....and empty field with random stone landmarkers and a big map showing you what used to be there! Oh and a picnic table and a little bungalow like building. I was so disappointed!

But....as we were taking a closer look at one of the land markers, low and behold, we saw stairs a little farther away! We followed these stairs up even higher...and a few more flights.

I think I see something!

Sure Enough! We found a big wooden shrine-like house:

Here I am resting on the rock with the sink by the entrance:

We went home tired but satisfied.