Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Okazaki Castle in 1543. From this starting point, he navigated the chaos of the Sengoku period to become the founder of the Edo shogunate — the political settlement that brought Japan two and a half centuries of relative peace. The castle where this life began still stands in the city center, surrounded by cherry trees and anchored in the particular pride that birthplace cities develop for their famous sons. The April festival sends a historical procession around the castle: samurai armor, banners, the visual rhetoric of the Sengoku period that produced the founder. For visitors who have already encountered Ieyasu at Nikko's Toshogu shrine — his mausoleum, built by his grandson with the elaborate gratitude of a dynasty — Okazaki offers the beginning of the story rather than its culmination. Okazaki is thirty minutes east of Nagoya and makes a logical day trip from there. The castle itself is a reconstruction, as most Japanese castle keeps are, but the grounds and the surrounding Okazaki Park in cherry blossom season are genuinely beautiful. The festival adds the historical dimension to what would otherwise be a pleasant park visit.