Kumamoto

Kumamoto

Yesterday was great. We decided to have a relaxed day without so much travel, so we just went to Kumamoto to see the castle. The trip took around half an hour, and shortly after, we arrived by tram at the castle.

Kumamoto Castle was originally built during 1601—1607, but most of the buildings today are a reconstruction from the 1960's, since the castle was burned down during the siege in 1878, in the Satsuma Rebellion following the Meiji Restoration.

These are the events on which the movie The last Samurai was based, although loosely: In the actual historical events, the rebels had no problems with modern military equipment and only resorted to swords and arrows when they finally ran out of ammunition. In fact, the rebel leader, Saigō Takamori, was instrumental in shaping the Imperial forces, which he would later fight. The samurai did however have a problem with what they saw as an erosion of traditional values and the Samurai honor code, as well as a loss of their privileges in the modern, non-feudal society.

After visiting the castle we took a stroll through the Botanical Garden and finally, somewhat unplanned, ended up at a baseball game. It was really fun, although "our" team finally lost by 8–6.

We tried to find the Shimada Art Museum, which keeps Miyamoto Musashi-related art, but failed and instead asked for directions to Honmyoji, a big shrine, close to which the museum is supposed to be located. We took a look at the shrine and then tried anew to find the museum. We ended up asking for directions at a 7-11, where they told us that the museum actually is closed until October.

Consulting our map, we tried to find our way to a cool pub we read about in our guide book, but by confusing our position and directions we finally ended up close to the railway station. We took the chance to go home early and get our laundry done, so we could sleep early before our continued journey the next day.

As it would turn out, the extra time was well needed. We put in our laundry and went for a walk and a dinner. When we came back, the machines were full with water and hadn't used any of the detergent. Consulting the wwwjdic, we concluded that our guesses about the workings of the machine's settings had indeed been correct and
Erik tried the exact same settings again, which worked perfectly. I altered some of the settings, and ended up having to choose "empty machine of water" mode manually. To be on the safe side, I put the dry tumbler on for three hours.

We went to sleep really worried about what kind of a sight would meet us at the dry tumbler in the morning, but actually everything was ok, and after breakfast we could get packing and check out. On our way to the train station I only had to go back to the room once, to get the papers with all our bookings and maps. :-)

Now we're on the train to Fukuoka. We couldn't book any seats for the trip, and the non-booked car is full, but that's ok, it's just a one-hour trip. We made sure to book seats for the longer trip to Ōsaka tonight, though.