A chat about Ogi Domain

Article posted on Tuesday, July, 10th, 2012 at 9:37 pm

I found myself driving through Ogi City (小城市) in Saga Prefecture on the weekend. It sounds like I was there by accident, and actually I was. I had been aware of Ogi Domain for some time, but without any actual trace of the former Jin’ya‘s structures, I’d just always put it off. Until now, of course.

Today, all there is to be found at the site of the former domain headquarters is large and very green park. Dotted around the park several shrines can be found. The largest shrine is the Okayama Jinja, and it was there that I spied a particularly old-looking gate bearing the heraldic crest (Kamon – 家紋) of the Ogi branch of the Nabeshima clan.

Up a mountain

Article posted on Sunday, April, 29th, 2012 at 10:06 am

Kiizan (基肄山) is located in Kiyama (基山) at Saga Prefecture’s eastern tip. I wrote about it in the post, A path less travelled. In this video, which you should just watch instead of reading this, I touch on two of the “Old-style Korean mountain fortresses” of Kyūshū, Dazaifu, the Mongol invasion and “Kamikaze”. I touch on them, nothing too deep. Enjoy!

A journey of a thousand miles…

Article posted on Thursday, September, 16th, 2010 at 10:33 am

…begins with one step. This journey may well end up with me being completely out-of-shape and borderline obese.

I was thinking how good it would be to have images of each province to better give the castles context. The first thing I did was track down an old map of Kyushu I’d made and went to work on it (using GIMP.)

Added some layers, some drop-shadow effects, messed around with the colouring and came up with this. *unveiling* TA-DA! Pictured is Hizen Province. Hizen existed for just over 1,000 years before being was split into Nagasaki & Saga Prefectures.

Relating to the names of these provinces, there are several that have suffixes of -zen, -chu or -go. -Zen meaning “before”, -chu meaning “middle” and -go meaning “after”. So leaving Edo, Hizen (Nagasaki, Saga) was reached before Higo (Kumamoto). On the way, you’d've passed through Bizen, Bitchu then Bingo. ♫ And, Bingo was his name-o.

Right! One down, 60+ to go.

All roads lead to Edo

Article posted on Saturday, June, 12th, 2010 at 1:09 pm

Finally, another post. And, finally another video. Does this video actually answer any questions? I’m not really sure. It’s just me driving around the neighbourhood.

Despite the relative newness of the area I live in, there does seem to be a lot of historically notable things. This is in stark contrast from where I grew up in Australia. Anyway, one of the backstreets has a rather interesting past indeed.