Visiting
Kumamoto, Japan/Carlos Pueblo
It takes
more than four hours from Osaka to Kumamoto on Shinkansen, yet I
enjoy the
ride very much. After boarding to the high speed train, I tried to
see Fukuyama
Castle once more through the window, yet again I was unable
due to fall
asleep immediately. I selected Kumamoto city to be visited because
of the Castle;
the hometown of Ishikawa Sayuri, my favorite Enka singer; and
also the
hometown of former longtime premier, Sato Eisaku in between late
60’ and 70’s.Kumamoto
Castle was damaged by the earthquake of 2016 and I
was still
anxious to visit this top three Castles in Japan.
I have been a fan of Ishikawa for a longtime
and I try to follow her nostalgia
songs of places in Japan such as Aomori, Noto
Peninsula in Ishikawa
Prefecture,
and Amagigoe, somewhere in the southwest of Tokyo.
Sato was a
Premier at that time I was at the senior high and college in Taiwan.
I did pay
attention to the international political affairs and remembered this
distinguished
Japanese politician. One day I read an article of his Kanji
calligraphy writing
for a piece of the famous Mencius philosophy
about the
valor, “ If,
on self-examination, I find that I am upright, I will go forward against
thousands and
tens of thousands.” He is a grand uncle of the current Premier,
Abe Shinzo
and his elder brother is also a famous Premier after the War, Kishi
Nobusuke,
three Premiers in the family.
During this
5 nights stay at Kumamoto, we visited the Castle one day, visited
Kagoshima on
the bottom south of Kyushu one day, visited Hakata/Fukuoka
One day, Suizenji
Garden across the street from our hotel one day, and we
had had
wonderful time.
I like to
mention something about the raw horse meat sashimi, Basashi, was
original developed
from here by a hard fight at the Castle. I have seen many
restaurants
in the city; however, we don’t dare to try; however, a piece of
raw red meat
sneaked on a sashimi plate in the first dinner in Tokyo with
the Otanis might
be Basashi and I had one piece.
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