Kumamoto Castle

Embark with me now upon an incredible journey to medieval Japan, when men were real men, women were real women, beheadings were real beheadings and topknots were real topknots. Back in those days, you were either a rice farmer, a gangster, a fisherman, a merchant, a gambler, a mendicant, a geisha, an innkeeper, a courtesan, a hunter, a musician, a lord, a lady, a soldier or a samurai (and quite a lot of other things, too). It was a time of war, strife, lawlessness, new orders, new beginnings. Japan had just been unified under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the Warring States Period had just come to a close. Now the eyes of unified Japan looked westward to new horizons...and conquests.

When Hideyoshi invaded Korea in 1592 (and Miyamoto Musashi was just ten years old), one of the daimyo's three senior commanders was a fellow named Katō Kiyomasa. By all accounts an über-manly and warlike fellow who forbade his men to recite poetry and hunted tigers with a spear for kicks, Kiyomasa was a brilliant general who helped capture Busan, Seoul and other major Korean cities. He was also a rather gifted architect who built many impregnable Japanese-style castles in the conquered lands, such as the one at Ulsan that withstood an assault by a vastly superior Sino-Korean force.

Kiyomasa brought his martial sensibilities and architectural prowess to bear again when he became the lord of Higo—present-day Kumamoto Prefecture. The hilltop fortress there was already over a hundred years old, but Kiyomasa expanded and upgraded it into a redoubtable keep with wells, towers, and no less than 49 turrets. Overkill is underrated, they say.

The castle survived Kiyomasa and a great many lords and owners that came after. The main, iconic part of the keep burned down in 1877 during the Satsuma Rebellion, but it was lovingly restored (albeit with concrete) in 1960. Kumamoto Castle is now listed as one of the 100 Fine Castles of Japan and is generally thought to be one of the top three in the nation (along with Himeji Castle in Hyōgo Prefecture and and Matsumoto Castle in Nagano Prefecture).

Got all that? Good, 'cause there'll be a quiz later. For now, just enjoy the pics I took as I wandered around in a stupefied haze:

A statue near the moat of Kiyomasa (wearing his special butter-cutting hat).

Past the ticket booth and the main gate. Anybody who got past the main gate would have had to fight their way up this sloping Z-shaped passageway while under fire from above. Oh, Kiyomasa, you sly dog, you!

The main keep, which radio-carbon dating tells us was constructed sometime in 1960.

 

The Uto Turret, one of the largest and best-preserved of the castle's 49 fighting turrets.

Inside Uto Turret.

The Hall of Darkness. No, that isn't poetic license. That's its actual name. It was dark all the time, so the castle defenders gave it that nickname. It was intended, I believe, to further confound any invaders. Kiyomasa's men could just plug up the tiny windows at the top of the walls and leave the attackers in total darkness, and then do what they liked with them.

Center foreground: a total dweeb who photo-bombed this lovely shot of the castle.

I was quite relieved to find that my ninja-versus-samurai LEGO sets were architecturally correct.

This was the best (and most unexpected) part: after climbing all the way to the top of the castle, this was the view that greeted me. That's Mount Kinpo there in the background, on the other side of which is Reigandō, or Spirit Rock Cave, where Miyamoto Musashi spent his final days. But you'll hear about my trip there later.

What I wouldn't have given for a Remington 1858 New Army or a Colt Dragoon right about then. I could have shot out every one of those big floodlights on the ground.

It was a sight both gratifying and sobering: the sun was setting over Kumamoto and its towers and spires, and likewise on my time in Japan. I'd have one more day of sightseeing and then I'd have to get myself to Hakata and the hydrofoil ferry back to Korea. But as I stood there, in the tower, my face kissed by the warm breeze and the glory of a thousand sunsets past flowing through my embroiled mind, I felt...I felt...

...ah, screw it. You know how I felt. You'd have felt the same way.

This rather bored-looking actor was "guarding" the exit to the Hall of Darkness. He didn't mind having his picture taken. Probably the most exciting that happened to him all day.

And just like that, my time at the castle was over. I could insert some trite hogwash here about how I wish I could have seen 'er back in the day, when Kiyomasa was keeping court in the castle's highest room and his vassals pledged their blood-loyalty to him below in the courtyard and dissidents hefted 1800-kilogram rocks and tried to assassinate him and were thrown down wells as punishment, but hey...that's been said before, by better men. So I'll just leave you with this: if I had a castle, Kumamoto is probably what it would look like.

Tomorrow: I try something that Kumamoto is famous for: horse sashimi. Tune in if you want to see your humble Vaunter EATING BASASHI (RAW HORSE MEAT). Not for the faint of heart...

Suizen-ji Jōju-en (or, how to pet a carp)

"Now," says the venerable Vaunter, hitching up his trousers, "I've seen my share of gardens."

And he's not lying. I love gardens. I go to 'em wherever I can. Wherever they are, I'll find them. Parks and gardens are as high as museums and towers on my list of must-see things to judge a culture by. They're quiet, peaceful, naturally beautiful places where you can recharge your travel batteries. It's absurdly easy to get a good photograph, and you can get an idea of the importance the local culture puts on landscaping and botanical beauty. I've been to the extensive gardens at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; looked down upon the Royal Botanic Gardens from my remote perch atop Edinburgh Castle, Scotland; strolled through Yeomiji Botanical Garden on Jeju Island, South Korea; and, of course, photographed the eastern portion of the Imperial Palace Gardens in Tokyo, and the grounds of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, Japan.

But out of all of them, Suizen-ji Jōju-en in Kumamoto was my favorite. Take a gander:

Ain't it beautiful? I'm starting to see why Lafcadio Hearn put down roots in this town.

As you may have noticed from that one pic up there, this pond was absolutely bursting with carp so huge that they looked like they'd been mutated by nuclear radiation (sorry, too soon?). I could tell they were accustomed to being fed by passersby, 'cause they swarmed wherever my shadow touched the water, mouths agape.

I took advantage of that fact to cop a feel:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I felt up a carp. In the Suizen-ji Gardens. In Kumamoto. On Kyushu. That's the kind of person your Vaunter is.

Then I kept walking, snapping the prettiest pics I knew how, making a languorous circuit of the reflecting pool:

 

It was on the home stretch that I came to understand how the carp in this pond got so freaking fat. A couple of little old ladies, one of whom looked to be a hundred and two with hardly a tooth in her head, were selling stale breadsticks to park-goers. I bought one and spent a happy five minutes goading the greedy fish into a feeding frenzy.

And then I waltzed out of there, content as a carp with a mouthful of soggy bread. Back to the tram station and a few stops toward the town center brought me to the last item on my to-do list:

KUMAMOTO CASTLE.

You'll notice that's a tad larger than the other post previews have been. That's because Kumamoto Castle is

GINORMOUSLY

FREAKISHLY

HUGE.

You'll see for yourself, if you have the gumption to tune in tomorrow. C'mon and storm a castle with me.