Winter Vacation Part III

Traveling from Kagoshima to Kumamoto was really quite easy, since Yoichi-san was so kind enough to buy me a shinkansen (bullet-train) ticket. So an otherwise 3-hour bus ride was reduced to 40 minutes or so on the bullet train. It was really quite cool to ride, but the tickets are a little-bit expensive (so thank you so much Arima family!). Overall, my trip to Kumamoto was a little shorter than going to Kagoshima. There, I was able to meet my grandmother's youngest sister Yoko. Yoko is married to a photographer, and her two daughters Mari and Mami are both excellent at speaking English. I was lucky to be able to visit with them, and had a great time.

The first day, after meeting  Mari, Aunt Yoko, Mami and her children (Ken and Yuri), we went to  the most famous location in Kumamoto: Kumamoto Castle.

Kumamoto Castle (熊本城 Kumamoto-jō) is a hilltop Japanese castle located in Chūō-ku, Kumamoto in Kumamoto Prefecture. It was a large and extremely well fortified castle. The castle keep (天守閣 tenshukaku) is a concrete reconstruction built in 1960, but several ancillary wooden buildings remain of the original castle. Kumamoto Castle is considered one of the three premier castles in Japan, along with Himeji Castle and Matsumoto Castle. Thirteen structures in the castle complex are designated Important Cultural Property

We had to walk there from the bus-parking since that day the tram was not running due to the holidays. However, there are lots of cool places around the castle to buy things and look at souvenirs, so no one really minded it. The castle, itself, is not all that large, but is extremely tall due to being about 40 feet off the ground. However, if you include all the surrounding buildings and the entire structure, it was a fairly large place to visit. They had a tour of the inside of some of the buildings, and of course, there were lots of places to stop and take photos. If you were lucky, you got to see the historical re-en-actors in the castle courtyard (they were more like armored power-rangers, handing out trading cards and taking photos, but they were pretty cool to see in person). Ken and Yuri managed to get most of their trading cards, but not all of the actors work on the same day, so you have to come another time in the week to see them all.

After touring the castle, most everyone was fairly tired and hungry, so we went back to Aunt Yoko's house for a brief break. That night, we had a great dinner together at Mami's house where I was able to meet Yoko's husband (Yamamoto-san) and Mami's husband. (Because Yamamoto-san is a photographer he took most of the photos, so I don't have a whole lot for Kumamoto.)

The next day was a long day of mostly scenic driving. We went into the mountains nearby, including Mt. Aso which is suppose to be a very famous place with a famous shrine. We never made it to the intended shrine, but we did however, go to the shrine of the White Snake (Shiro-hebi sama). If you go to the shrine and touch the white snake, it's suppose to bring you money later in the future (lord knows I need the scholarships). Sadly you were not allowed to take a photo with the snake, but I did manage to get a few of the mountains and of the snake's shrine.

For dinner, everyone met again for a tasty treat of yaki-neku. These types of restaurants are a lot of fun, because you are able to grill your own food at your table. It's something probably way too risky to have in America, but it's fun in Japan. However, you have to be careful not to drop anything into the built-in grill, otherwise it will catch on fire. Later that evening I walked around downtown Kumamoto with Mari, and we talked about life in Japan over coffee. Kumamoto is the size of a city I am accustomed too, so I was much more comfortable there than in a large place like Fukuoka's Tenjin district.

Sadly, on my last day there was not much to do. Mari, Mami, Aunt Yoko, and Yuri took me in the morning to do some shopping. We had lunch at a nice cafe in a mall, and after that it was already time for me to go! Somehow, I managed to receive just as many souvenirs as I had brought with me to give away, so I was carrying quite a bit of luggage back home with me on the train. It was so sad to leave, but I know I can always come visit them another time.

Maybe in spring I will have another exciting vacation? At this point who knows, but I will look forward to seeing my family, no matter the circumstance.

Winter Vacation Part II

After a long time waiting, I finally managed to meet the remainder of my family living here in Japan over the past winter vacation. Of course, this is more of my Grandmother's family than my own. In Kagoshima, which is the first place I went to visit, I stayed with my Great Aunt Shizuko's family. Sadly, she passed away a few years before I came to Japan, but her husband (Arima-san) and her children and grandchildren visited with me. I had so much fun there, and everyone was such a wonderful host towards me. Even though almost no one outside of my cousin was a fluent English-speaker, they all made an effort to talk with me in English. It was also nice to try out what little Japanese I know.

The first day in Kagoshima was more of a traveling day than a visiting day. My cousins were nice enough to pick me up in Fukuoka as they were driving from Osaka to Kagoshima. I could tell they were exhausted, but they somehow managed to keep active and talk to me the whole way to Kagoshima. We only stopped for Kumamoto ramen in Kumamoto, and then drove through probably a dozen mountain-tunnels. It surprised me how much the scenery reminded me of driving through Tennessee, but Tennessee doesn't have nearly as many tunnels to pass through (at least not near Nashville). After we finally arrived in Kagoshima, I was introduced to the family and looked around their driving school. The houses of Arima-san and  Kimitoshi are only a few feet away from the family's driving school. This was a little surprising for me, but I think it is typical in Japan. I met almost all of the family members that night, here are their photos respectively:

The second day in Kagoshima Yoichi-san took me to a museum to learn about the history of the area. It was a nice museum where they had a historical reenactment  of various Meiji era famous leaders done by robots (only in Japan). The most notable was Saigo Takamori, who supposedly played a big role in the establishment of the modern-day Japanese government system. The Arima family has a piece of caligraphy done by Saigo Takamori, and it's considered their family treasure.

 I was also driven around town to learn about the various historical places, and see the volcanic ash in the street. Mt. Sakurajima, which overlooks the city of Kagoshima, is an active volcano which blows ash into city up to seven times a day. It's a cool thing to see, but maybe a little unnerving to know there is an active volcano near your family's hometown.

That night was the big family event. All the Arima's gathered for the New Years, so I managed to meet most of my family. We had a huge feast at a traditional Japanese hotel where we ate nabe, sashimi, onigiri, and so many other things I didn't know the name of. It was such a nice dinner, and everyone spoke to me about how they remembered my grandmother, Midori. Everyone brought photos of her, and I know that my grandmother would have been so happy to be there with me. I got a photo with each of the families there.

The next day was probably the busiest. We left early to go drive to the top of a mountain range where there were various famous places to visit. These included Lake Ikeda (The Japanese equivalent of Loch Ness), a historical samurai village, fresh somen, hot springs, and Cape Nagasakibana.

Lake Ikeda was at one point a volcano, which died and then was filled with water to form a lake. The lake is famous for giant eels, and supposedly a giant lake monster. The eels were present that day, but sadly I didn't see any giant creatures that day. It's probably for the best, as the weather at that point was not the greatest.

For lunch we stopped at a string of restaurants famous for serving somen in a unique manner. There is a hexagon of fresh running water around your table (it makes more sense with the photo) and you drop the somen into the water and catch it on your chopsticks and it flushes by. I was really hesitant to try this as I had no idea whether the water was being recycled or not, but my cousins assured me, there was constant new water running in, so it was sanitary to eat that way. Lunch was delicious, and we moved to the next stop.

Cape Nagasakibana is the southernmost point in the Satsuma peninsula and is a really beautiful place to visit. This was probably my favorite stop on the trip. Not only could you oversee the ocean and the rocks below, but also see Mt. Kaimondake, also know as Satsuma's Mt. Fuji.

We also stopped at a special onsen (hot spring) which was famous for sand baths. The sand is geothermic-ly heated from the underground hot water seeping into the beaches. This was something I did not participate in, but I did manage to get some really nice pictures of rainbows. For some reason, there were a lot of rainbows that day. I even saw one on our last stop at a historical samurai village. This place was really a cool neighborhood, with homes that had been around for hundreds of years. Some of the homes you could visit, but others were private property and you couldn't enter. I forget the name of this place, but if I remember, I will post the name.

That night, we were really tired but it was New Years! Everyone gathered for a very tasty dinner of chirashi sushi and unagi (my favorite, that Miyuki-san was so kind to make). All that night until midnight, we watched the Japanese New Year's special on television. It was actually interesting to learn a little bit more about the celebrities popular here in Japan, but maybe I didn't know too much what was going on.

The last day in Kagoshima was a day just to relax, so nothing too interesting happened that day. I did, however, go visit my Great Aunt Shizuko's grave. I think it was important to thank her and her family for being such gracious hosts, and I know she and my grandmother are probably quite happy somewhere. Following tradition of New Years, I also went to visit a local shrine with Kimitoshi and his wife. We prayed, bought a few fortunes, and walked up and down a million stairs. Nitta Shrine was at a top of a mountain, so I was really surprised to see so many people making it up and down these stairs.This just goes to show you how the Japanese stay in shape. If going to church meant climbing that many stairs in the USA, I'm pretty sure quite a few more  people would sleep in on Sundays.

 Finally, it was time to say goodbye and head out to Kumamoto (in the next post). I had a lot of fun, but it was a little sad that my vacation was more than half over. I really wish I could say thank you to all my family members, over and over, but I don't know if that would ever be enough to balance out all the kind things they did for me.