Japanese at a Japanese Garden and Castle: Tickets, Signs and the Tea House

Tickets, hours and audio guides

The ticket window is the kippu uriba or chiketto uriba, and the ticket itself is a nyūjōken, an entry ticket. Many castles sit inside a park with a paid inner area, and many gardens sit next to a castle, so a kyōtsūken, a combined ticket, is often available and slightly cheaper than two separate ones. Ask for it by name. Adults are otona, children kodomo, and reduced tickets for students and seniors exist at some sites but require ID.

Two times matter: heikan, closing, and saishū nyūjō, last entry, which is usually thirty minutes to an hour before closing. Audio guides, onsei gaido, are rented at the window or a nearby counter, sometimes for a fee and sometimes as a free app you download at the gate. Prices, languages and closing times all vary by site and season, so read the board beside the window or ask.

Reading the castle signs

A castle is a set of enclosures, each called a maru or kuruwa. The honmaru is the innermost, where the keep stands; the ninomaru and sannomaru are the second and third enclosures, now often lawns or museums. The keep itself is the tenshu or tenshukaku, and a smaller attached tower is a ko-tenshu. Walls of fitted stone are ishigaki, and the moat is a hori: mizubori if it holds water, karabori if dry.

Gates are mon, and a masugata is the square courtyard between two gates designed to trap attackers. Along the walls stand yagura, corner turrets, and the plaster wall on top is a dobei. Signs also tell you what is genuine: genzon means original and surviving, saiken means rebuilt, and fukugen means reconstructed following old plans. A castle described as a genzon tenshu is one of the handful with an original keep, which is why its stairs are so steep.

Castle and garden vocabulary

The explanation boards, setsumei-ban, use the same few dozen words at every site. The ones below cover most of what you will read on a castle map and a garden map.

Two more useful signs: junro, the recommended route, marked with arrows so that visitors flow one way through a keep; and tachiiri kinshi, no entry, on ropes across moss and gravel.

Walking the garden

Most large gardens attached to castles are chisen kaiyū-shiki teien, stroll gardens around a pond, designed so the view changes at every turn of the path. The pond is the ike, islands are shima, and the bridges are hashi, often a stone slab or an arched red taikobashi. Paths of tobiishi, stepping stones, set the pace: you walk slowly because the stones make you. Lanterns, tōrō, and a small waterfall, taki, mark the viewpoints.

A karesansui garden is different. It is viewed from a veranda, the engawa, and never entered. The gravel, shirakawa-suna, is raked into patterns representing water, and the rocks stand for mountains or islands. Sit, look, and keep your voice low; these gardens usually belong to a temple and the rooms behind you may be in use. Moss, koke, is fragile everywhere, and the ropes and small signs are there to protect it.

Guided tours and asking questions

Many castles have volunteer guides, borantia gaido, waiting near the entrance with a sash or a badge, and some offer tours in English. A tour in Japanese is still worth joining if you know the vocabulary above, because guides point as they speak. They tend to use a few fixed patterns: kore wa X to iimasu, this is called X; X wa Y no tame ni tsukuraremashita, X was built for Y; and a date in the form sen-roppyaku-nen goro, around 1600.

To ask a question, catch the pause after an explanation and use sumimasen, shitsumon ga arimasu, excuse me, I have a question. Questions about purpose, nan no tame desu ka, and age, itsu no mono desu ka, are the easiest and most welcome. If the explanation is too fast, ask mō sukoshi yukkuri onegai shimasu. Guides will often slow down and simplify without being asked once they notice a learner.

Photography and other rules

Rules differ from site to site, so treat these as the common patterns rather than a fixed list. Grounds and views are almost always free to photograph. Inside a keep or a museum room, look for the pictogram and the words below.

• Satsuei kinshi: no photography, usually where original artefacts are displayed
• Furasshu kinshi: no flash, common in wooden keeps and painted rooms
• Sankyaku kinshi: no tripods, and jidori-bō kinshi, no selfie sticks
• Dosoku kinshi: no outdoor shoes, take them off at the entrance
• Inshoku kinshi: no eating or drinking, typical inside buildings
• Dorōn kinshi: no drones, standard at nearly every castle and garden
• Shōgyō satsuei wa yoyaku ga hitsuyō: commercial photography requires prior permission

When in doubt, ask a member of staff: koko de shashin o tottemo ii desu ka, may I take a photo here? A wedding party in kimono having pictures taken in the garden is a common sight; give them room and do not photograph them without asking.

The tea house in the garden

Many stroll gardens have a chashitsu or a chaya, a tea house, where you can sit with a bowl of matcha and a seasonal sweet. It is a relaxed version of a tea ceremony rather than the formal event itself. You order at the entrance or from a server, choose a seat inside on tatami or outside on a red-covered bench, and the tea arrives with the sweet on a small plate. Eat the sweet first, then drink the tea in a few sips. Whether tea is included in your garden ticket, and what it costs if not, varies by garden.

Staff may explain the sweet, the season and the view, so a few questions go a long way. A formal tea ceremony has its own phrases and manners, which are covered in a separate guide; here, simply being quiet and unhurried is enough.

When something goes wrong

The usual problems are timing and access. If you arrive after last entry, the staff will say honjitsu no nyūjō wa shūryō shimashita, entry has finished for today; ask what time it opens tomorrow rather than arguing. Steep stairs in original keeps are difficult for some visitors, and lifts are rare in historic buildings, so ask at the window whether a step-free route exists. Lost items go to the office, jimusho, and large sites have a lost property desk.

If you have left something on the audio guide counter, forgotten to return the guide, or cannot find the exit because the one-way route has closed a path, any staff member in a uniform or with an armband will help. A calm sumimasen and a short sentence is enough.