Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Visiting Kumamoto, Japan/Carlos Pueblo


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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