Reigandō...a failed attempt

I've been hyping the heck out of my pilgrimage to Spirit Rock Cave, the penultimate home for Miyamoto Musashi in his old age, building matters up to a heck of a show for you readers...but the simple truth of the matter is, I didn't make it. Well, I did. Sort of. It's complicated.

Let me explain. I said earlier in my post about Musashizuka Park that I got out the door of my hotel rather late on the morning of August 7th. Well, here's where it came to bite me in the butt. By the time I got around to finding a bus out of Kumamoto Terminal, and managed to make it clear to the ticket agent where I was going (Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was the nearest stop), I bought a ticket and went out to wait at platform 23. Bus No. 6 was the one I was waiting for. It didn't come but once every 40 minutes or so, and it was already late in the afternoon: 4:40 or some-such.

Well, here's the hell of it: I was on the platform when the No. 6 bus came. However, there was another bus at the platform already. Instead of waiting until that bus pulled out and then pulling up behind it, the lazy-ass No. 6 bus driver stopped at Platform 24 for about five seconds, didn't see anyone who looked like they wanted to ride with him, and then took off. All I could do was stand there, open-mouthed and dejected (like Jonathan Winters in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) while my ride cruised off into the sunset without me.

So then it was another interminable wait for the 5:20 bus.

It never came.

It was well after six o'clock when what must have been the last No. 6 bus pulled up to the platform. I leaped on. I was beginning to panic. Iwato Kannon Iriguchi was in the middle of nowhere. Should I take too long in getting out to Reigandō, getting back to the bus stop and catching the last No. 6 bus back to town, I'd be stuck without food, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, or a roof over my head, on a dark one-lane road in rural Kyushu overnight. That was not a prospect I relished.

I did my best to enjoy the spectacular views of the city and Mount Kinpo as the bus gradually left the city limits and climbed into the wild, leafy vastness of the mountains. The lane was sinuous and narrow, and often the bus had to slow down to squeeze past a car or a minivan coming in the opposite direction. Houses were few and far between and rice paddies dominated the hillsides. I had to listen very carefully to the scratchy female voice on the loudspeaker announcing the stops. Even as it was, I very nearly missed my stop. Against my better judgment, I leaped off the bus and found myself on a sunlit road at the foot of Mount Kinpo, with rice paddies all around and the charming village of Iwato Kannon Iriguchi behind.

So I hiked a kilometer uphill, and found myself in a little parking lot with a rather lumpy and crude statue of Musashi overlooking it (the first picture in this post, up above there). A kindly young Japanese woman, impressed that I had climbed the hill on foot, gave me a few pieces of candy. At this point, with the sun getting low and my journey far from over, I considered asking her for a ride back to town, but thought better of it.

After a bit of waffling about which way to go, I went: down a hill (after all that climbing!) and then a hard right turn down a slight slope, with another village (or an extension of Iriguchi) nearby.

And lo and behold! There was the ticket office!

...closed.

Closed.

I was too late.

I'd missed my chance.

All my ambitions about seeing Musashi's final haven went up in smoke, just like that.

This was as close to the cave as I ever got.

For a brief moment, I dithered at the turnstile, considering the leap and the unknowable distance to the cave thereafter. But my worries about missing the bus back to Kumamoto and spending the night by the side of the road, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and deafened by cicadas, won out. As fast as I could I scrambled back up the narrow road, up the forest-clad hill, and down the twisting kilometer driveway back to Iwato Kannon Iriguchi. On the way down, I chatted (again, in pidgin Japanese) with a local who was busily jogging up and down the first few hundred meters of this hilly driveway, who made me think that I'd missed the last bus. I wound up waiting for about 20 minutes before (thank God!) the ol' No. 6 came chugging around the corner. I hopped on and was back at Kumamoto Station before the last rays of the sun had faded from the sky.

Okay, so Reigandō was a bust. Oh well. At least I know the way out there now, and I can budget time appropriately whenever I find my way back to Kyushu. But at the time I felt rather crushed. I was so blue I went and bought a Freshness Burger to console myself:

Then it was back to the APA Hotel for my last night in Japan. I had a celebration of sorts: an assortment of canned beers from the convenience store. I had a jolly night of it and slept pretty well on that rock-hard mattress.

What more is there to tell? Only one thing: the journey by high-speed ferry from Japan to Korea. Tomorrow: THE JR BEETLE TO BUSAN. I didn't know Boeing made boats, did you?

Musashizuka Park

Miyamoto Musashi. I've spoken about him at length before. I reviewed his life's work, The Book of Five Rings, on this here blog a while back. I have alluded to him at relevant points concerning Korean/Japanese history, seeing as Musashi was alive and all when the Japanese invasions of Korea were happening. He figured into some of the civil conflicts that ripped through Japan shortly thereafter, too.

He features prominently in my big sci-fi novel series, too. One of my protagonists is reincarnated from him. Why? Well, Musashi was probably the greatest swordsman Japan has ever known. Famous for fighting in the Battle of Sekigahara and winning over 60 private duels (and never losing once), Musashi is renowned for inventing and promulgating the Niten Ichi-ryu (Two Heavens, One Style) school of swordsmanship—using two blades in combat. Seriously, it doesn't get much more badass than that. Watch this documentary on the man's life. It's incredible. 

What I haven't told you yet is that Musashi, the man, the myth, the legend, is a big part of the reason why I chose Kumamoto as the third Japanese city I'd visit. See, the city used to be his stomping grounds—or rather, his retirement home. After he got over wandering around Japan kicking the daylights out of any strong fighters he could find, he entered into the service of the Hosokawa Tadatoshi, the daimyo of Kumamoto Castle, and became one of his retainers. In return Musashi received 17 servants of his own, 300 koku of rice, a rank and title, and Chiba Castle for his residence. Being the utter badass he was, he still found time to indulge in some duels, all of which he won. But mostly he painted, wrote poetry, and worked to compile his techniques and philosophy in writing. He walked many times to a sacred cave on the far side of Mount Kinpo (called Reigandō, which you shall hear about later) to meditate and write. These memoirs became The Book of Five Rings mentioned at the beginning of this post.

When he finally became too infirm to live in solitude upon the mountain, he was brought down to die (probably of thoracic cancer) at the estate of his beloved lord. The legends say that when the venerable old kenshi felt death's veil falling over him, he asked to be propped up one knee, leaning on his sword. He died that way, and in his final will asked to be buried so he could always watch over his master's lands.

To that end, Musashi's remains were interred in full armor in the village of Yuge at the foot of Mount Iwato, near the road which the Hosokawa clan would take whenever they traveled to Edo (now Tokyo). Musashi's hair was interred upon Mount Iwato itself. His grave marker and tombstone, however, were set elsewhere: in a place appropriately called Musashizuka, in a park erected in Musashi's name. It was there that I headed on the morning of August 7th.

To my everlasting shame and chagrin, I dawdled and lollygagged a bit too much that morning; it was my last full day in Japan and I was feeling lazy. I didn't even get out the door until about 10:30, about three hours later than all the previous days. This would cost me greatly later that evening. 

I had purchased a Japanese headband, or hachimaki, with a red sun and an inspirational saying on it in Japanese, at the Suizen-ji Gardens a few days earlier. It was time to use it. Japanese people often wear these headbands when embarking upon a worthy enterprise, be it a late-night cram session or an election campaign. The headband symbolizes perseverance and success. I would not quit until I had knocked off the two great journeys on that day's to-do list, and to help remind me of my vow I donned the hachimaki and departed my hotel room.

I took the Kumamoto tram to the Shinsuizenji stop, and then I walked up the stairs to the JR commuter rail station and bought a ticket for Musashizuka, four stops and 4-5 kilometers northeast. After an uninteresting ride, I found myself on a hot, humid, sun-swept platform in the middle of nowhere.

I crossed the tracks, headed down a paved road...

...crossed a bridge, hung a U-turn, and walked another 200 yards or so before encountering the park. I entered and beheld these sights:
 

Looks like the venerable kenshi is still keeping watch over his charges.

Some of Musashi's classic moves. Illustrated on a rock. Peachy.

As you can see, the park itself was quite lovely: flowing water, knurled rocks, shady trees and buzzing insects. I bet it must be quite a quiet and reverent sort of place in the hush of winter snow, too.

But the killer-diller was waiting for me a few yards past Musashi's statue. This was his grave-marker:

 

I had this whole paying-tribute-to-someone-or-something-in-the-Japanese-way thing down by now. I flipped a coin into the offering box, folded my hands, and said a little prayer for Musashi's spirit. I had no doubt that he would have scoffed at this scruffy, flabby gaijin, who'd never taken a single kendo lesson in his life, come to pray over him. Nonetheless I hope he heard me.

While I was standing reverently before the marker, an old man in a bucket hat (seen off to the right in the picture below) noticed me and my unusual headgear. He spoke no English and I no Japanese, but nonetheless we managed a sort of conversation. He divined that I was vacationing here and a big fan of Musashi. So, naturally, he asked if I'd taken any kendo lessons. Chagrined, I answered no. It was then a third man joined our conversation: a sweaty, short-haired, middle-aged man in a polo shirt, who'd just walked in the main entrance. Through my pidgin Japanese, I guessed that he was the owner and headmaster of a notable kendo school in Kumamoto, and was here at Musashizuka Park to pay tribute to the great master. The three of us passed twenty minutes in awkward but happy conversation. It was a strange and nerve-wracking discourse, but I walked away feeling more edified by it than anything. It was good to reassure someone Japanese that Musashi lives on in the hearts and minds of the world, even if it was just a sweaty, sticky, flabby, scruffy foreigner like yours truly.

And then I waltzed out of there, taking as many nice photos as I could.

I walked around behind the park on my way out and took one last photo of Musashi's grave marker, from the rear perspective seen below. As I stood there, a cooling breeze on my face, the sun trickling through the leaves in golden droplets, and the peaceful hum of bugs and the songs of birds brushing my eardrums, I was overcome by a great and all-consuming sense of satisfaction. It was something akin to what I'd felt at Lafcadio Hearn's house, but a thousand times more pervasive. I felt calm, at peace, radiating contentment and quiet joy. I had achieved something of which I'd only dared to dream. I had knocked an item off my life's bucket list. I had fulfilled a goal that I'd set for myself years prior. I had paid my respects to a man who had a great influence on my writings. Each of those personal fulfillments made my heart and soul belt out an operatic number.

I wallowed in the feeling for some moments, and then turned and departed. I could feel Musashi rolling his eyes at me from the spiritual planes, but I didn't give a darn.

Next up: REIGANDŌ. Wanna hear how I utterly failed to reach the goals I'd set for myself this morning? Stay tuned.

eating basashi (raw horse meat)

I hear you yammering out there.

"Why?"

"Why do it?"

"Why eat raw horse?"

I didn't know whether putting the phrase "raw horse meat" in the title of this post was a good idea or not. It might make you interested enough to read more, or it might turn you completely off and make you quit following this blog in disgust. Guess I'll take the chance. 

As for your question ("Why?"), all I can say is, Because it was there.

In Kumamoto, that is. Where I was  between August 6th and 8th. And you know me: if there's a weird food around, I'm going to try it. I've had pig intestines, alligator nuggets, ostrich burgers, live octopus, canned snails, squid jerky, lamb spleen, buffalo steak, beetle larvae, dried scorpion and cricket lollipops. I'm not about to quit now. When I heard that Kumamoto was famous for basashi, or horse sushi, I knew I just had to try it.

It was something of a family betrayal. My parents and (maternal) grandparents are all horse people. My grandfather, between fighting in the Korean War, raising four children and being a traveling veterinary supply salesman, had a humongous and gorgeous ranch in Grass Valley, about 30 minutes north of Sacramento in Placer County—the same county I was born in, actually. He raised Shetland ponies and later Clydesdale horses.

Please tell me you know what a Clydesdale is. You've seen them before. They're the Budweiser horses—and in fact, some of the ones Grandpa raised wound up being part of that famous Budweiser hitch in years past.

Clydesdales in New Zealand. From Wikimedia Commons.

My parents raised mustangs on their two-acre property in the Mojave Desert. Mustangs, just so you know, are feral horses descended from the Iberian breeds that escaped from the Spanish explorers hundreds of years ago. There are herds of 'em roaming around the wilds of Oklahoma, Nevada and Utah, hardy and wild. My folks would adopt them from the Bureau of Land Management's facility up in Ridgecrest and then truck them back to our spread in California: breaking them, training them and riding them around the desert.

Free-roaming mustangs in Arizona. From Wikimedia Commons.

So, naturally, when I told the folks back home that I was going to eat horse meat, their reaction was mixed. Mum has generally been quite supportive of me in my adventures (half-baked or no), but I understood why this would give her pause. I felt worse about the effect this knowledge would have on Gramp 'n' Gran, but I steeled myself. I knew I wouldn't rest until I'd sampled this stuff. I wasn't going to be disinherited, for Pete's sake. And you're only young once.

So, after getting back from Kumamoto Castle, I went to a big, well-lit shōtengai (shopping arcade) just west of the Shirakawa River, south of Ginza Street. I poked around, asking locals where the nearest basashi place was. After a few minutes, I found what seemed like a likely spot. I should have taken a picture of the façade before I went in, but I didn't. Trying to get one after I left only made the lens fog up. So you'll just have to imagine a tiny storefront with a customer service window, the plate-glass in the door, the red lanterns (the standard, well, standard for an after-work hangout that serves beer and snacks, known as an izakaya) and gaudy signs with curvy Japanese letters.

The interior was essentially the size of a walk-in closet. It might even have been smaller (I've been in some crazy walk-in closets). There was a long wooden counter where about seven or eight customers could rest comfortably, and a line of huge sake bottles arranged along the top. A tough, lean, competent-looking fellow lurked behind them, bustling about. After a brief look at the menu, during which it became apparent that I'd be forking over 1,500 yen for this, I ordered and settled in to wait. To give me something to do while he sliced up my horse meat, the owner gave me this to munch on:

I sipped beer, nibbled on bean-pods and watched TV, trying to look and feel like a competent, street-savvy world traveler. I lamented the fact that I couldn't see what the owner was doing; my view of his hands and his work was obscured by the counter and the plenitude of signage in front of me. I'd have loved to see my basashi take shape under the knife.

After a few more minutes, this cornucopia of buttery goodness appeared before me:

C'est pas vrai! Succulent slices of horse meat (two different cuts, no less), plus various condiments! What a feast!

I could have ordered another beer, but I thought I'd keep my palate—and my head—clear. And so I dug in. It was just as I had read: horse meat, particularly raw horse meat, is a great deal sweeter than other meats. It was firm as well, easy to chew and swallow. I don't think even a single piece became lodged between my teeth. It was downright delectable when dipped in soy sauce. I must say, I could have munched on the stuff for hours.

I even took a video. All it shows is my frizzy hair, blurry shots of the meat, and the TV blaring in the background. And me eating. I think you can imagine that without outside assistance.

Though satisfied in the most epistemological sense, I was still a bit peckish. So after I paid the bill and left the basashi shop, I sought out this restaurant back in the main arcade, a few hundred feet away:

Curry is something I know the Japanese are obsessed with (as they are with other things Indian in origin, such as Buddhism), and I wanted to see how well they did it. This place had about a thousand different varieties, some uniquely Japanese in flavor. I sat down, ordered up a plate of thin-sliced beef curry, and dug in. In a word: satisfying.

Then I returned to the hotel and slept like the dead. I usually do when I'm stuffed to the gills.

Tomorrow: the last day in Kumamoto. There's only two things on my to-do list: MUSASHIZUKA PARK and REIGANDŌ. We'll talk about the park (and more about my hero, Miyamoto Musashi) then.

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...