The Black Castle
Visting Kumamoto
Kumamoto is situated in the centre of Kyushu, Japan’s southern main island. It is a place I’ve wanted to visit for a number of years but missed on my 2017/2018 trip because it was still dealing with a 2016 earthquake that rocked the city. The earthquake caused severe damage to the city, most notably the Kumamoto castle which was closed for a number of years while restorations were completed.
My first stop was the Suizenji Garden. It is suppose to look like the 53 stations that would have been located on the ancient road from Tokyo to Kyoto but I had a hard time seeing it. Although it is a stroll garden organized around a central pond, I found the views quite awkward. The majority of the rock formations and earth mounds were at the north end but there wasn’t a strong series of views while the south end, which had a walkward along the edge of the pond had nothing.
From the otherside of the pond there was a nice glimpse of the tea house and some stepping stones across the pond but it just wasn’t quite a framed view. I suspect in the past these stepping stones were accessible but not anymore.
I did however, find a nice rock garden in the back corner. This is a larger version of bonseki which is the art of creating minature landscapes on black lacquered trays using natural stones and white sand. I looked up bonseki afterwards and like the table top rock gardening I was doing before, I might try and get into this artform once I have an actual home.
The best view of the garden is considered to be from Kokindenju-no-ma, a tea house along the west edge of the pond. The room is famous as the actual place where the secret interpretations of “Kokin Wakashu” was actually passed down between royalty occured prior to being moved and placed in the Suizenji Jojuen Garden.
Once I’d walked the garden I headed to Kumamoto Castle which I was very excited to see. The castle still isn’t fully restored but enough has been fixed that it was reopened to the public. Notably, they’ve added a long bridge and walkway system to leap over the walls and funnel visitors to the main keep. All of the walls show evidence of damage and the restored stones have been replaced in some areas. You can tell by the different colour of stone. Using historic images, they actually identify each stone so that they can put it back in the exact same spot.
The castle Keep itself is a large museum. The original keep dates back to 1607 but burned down in 1877. After world war 2, it was rebuilt from reinforced concrete but the 2016 earthquake damaged a lot of roof tiles. It is now fully restored and there is an extensive museum inside. Unfortunately it is mostly in Japanese.
While in Kumamoto I also visited a few museums and on one day stumbled through a bamboo grove. I’d been trying to get to another garden but it was closed. It was a little breezy so the rustling of the leaves and knocking of the bamboo stalks made for a wonderful sound. It’s always a joy to be walking among bamboo and this grove was interesting because it was a natural one with fallen stalks and a forest floor covered in leaves.
These were the main highlights of Kumamoto. I know of some other interesting places outside of the city but it’s a little hard to get to without a car so that’ll have to wait until another trip.
