During my internship at Dokkyo Medical University in 2011, we went to Yamanashi to collect Oncomelania snails needed for their research on schistosomiasis. It was after collecting a thousand snails when my professor brought me to the Kofu Castle Ruins. Also called as Maizuru Castle Park, it is located at the Kofu City, the capital of the Yamanashi prefecture. Kofu was known to be strongly held by the Takeda Shingen during the Sengoku period.

The construction of the 400 years old Kofu Castle was ordered by the general and politician Toyotomi Hideyoshi after the fall of the feudal Takeda clan beginning in 1583. After the Battle of Sekigahara which established the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Kofu Castle was then controlled by the Tokugawa family.

A large fire destroyed the central compound (honmaru) of the palace and the Akagenemnon gate during the Kyoho period. The castle was eventually abandoned during the Meiji period and its major buildings were destroyed in 1877.

What I visited at that time was the reconstructed two towers. It currently contains museum displays about the castle and some original artifacts. It was great to know parts of Japanese history bit by bit as I wandered around the land of the rising sun.