After I paid the admission and went in, there was a rack of pamphlets about the castle in various languages. As usual, I picked up the English and Japanese versions.

Then this Japanese lady suddenly came up to me and said in English, "Hello, are you going to visit the castle?" I said, "Yes." She offered to be my volunteer guide. I told her that I could understand Japanese, but would be glad to have a guide anyway. So she guided me through the new palace and the castle tower for about 90 min. She serves as a volunteer guide once a week. I have to give my thumbs up to her and her volunteer group for being so hospitable to foreign visitors.