Lockheart Castle

We had a great time camping, we picked a new campsite to try out, one of the main reasons was that it was near Lockheart castle. This is an actual Scottish castle that was disassembled and shipped via the Siberian railway all the way to Gunma where is was re-built. It was quite odd for me to wander around the grounds, I felt like I was at a National trust place, even the shop inside the castle had that National Trust feel about, they even sold tea-towels with the kings and queens of Scotland on it!

Ebi-kun enjoyed most of it, with his current obsession of knights, there was a lot of role playing going on, I wish I had packed his knight outfit for him to wear.

The castle is a popular wedding location and there are these little heart hung all over the place in and around the castle.

There were a couple of odd things, there was Teddy's House which was basically a house with a couple of rooms filled with teddy bears, and inside the castle there were 3 rooms filled with Santa's. I found out later that a famous actor (sorry, can't remember his name) funded the castle move and the Santa's and bears are part of his private collection. I suppose building somewhere in the wilds of Gunma was a good idea, I can't imagine there would be much room for them in a small Tokyo apartment.

The best thing though, was Ebi-kun meeting a knight, the entrance fee alone was worth this expression on his face - one very happy little chappie. Shhh don't tell him it was actually a suit of armour!

As you can see, we are back, I am just trying catch up, clean up and generally get myself organised. Today is another national holiday so daddy-ebi has taken Sir ebi-kun to the park for a few hours and I am trying to decided what to do first, put the kettle on, that's a start....