金大生: Adventures of a Kanazawa student

The next place on my route (and the only one where I went by train instead of by coach, as usual – woo-hoo, fancy me!) was Kumamoto (熊本). And although the city itself is lovely (so far all of Kyushu is making its way to the top of my list of favourite places in Japan), as a tourist I expected a little bit more.

On the train journey there one station had this vending machine... with frozen food! You can't see very well, but it has hot dogs, takoyaki and other treats. I can only guess that the food came out already cooked and not still frozen.

As far as Kumamoto’s concerned, it’s famous for two things: Kumamoto Castle, one of the three prime castles in Japan, and Kumamon (くまモン), the city’s mascot.

Let me start with the latter. Japan is simply obsessed with its mascots, known here as yuru-kyara (ゆるキャラ), which means “laid-back characters”. Pretty much everything has its own yuru-kyara: cities (like Kumamoto and Kumamon), companies (like the broadcasting company NHK and Domo-kun), districts (like Yokohama’s China Town and Nikuman), tourist spots (like the Kumamoto Castle and Higomaru), just everything. And they are not just images drawn on posters or souvenirs – they are “live” characters (as in people dressed up as them) who meet with fans, take part in promotional events and even have their very own annual grand prix!

I first stumbled upon Kumamon through Internet memes, before I fully understood what the whole yuru-kyara thing was about. One day I found this picture:

After seeing it I can’t look at Kumamon and, like the Japanese, call him kawaii (cute), he’s a bit creepy more like… but in a weird way I’m amused by him. So once I learnt that this creepy bear is the mascot of Kumamoto City (“kuma” in Japanese means “bear”), I decided that I have to go there and take a picture with Kumamon, in exactly the same pose as on the picture above.

A great plan, but sadly, it didn’t work out. Kumamon appears twice a day in his HQ, which is also his official shop. I missed the first slot by not being able to find the place, and didn’t get to the second one because I was too busy admiring a samurai performance at the castle. So I don’t have a picture with Kumamon – but since the city lets anyone use Kumamon’s image for free (it’s advertising, they can only gain by doing that), Kumamon is literally everywhere!

Kumamon taxi!
http://ameblo.jp/enjoy-h-design/entry-10853458302.html

But for the most part of the day I was at or around Kumamoto Castle. And it has to be said, it’s pretty damn impressive! Not just massive – both the castle and the castle park, for the less fit/more lazy people there’s even a free shuttle bus going between two of its gates – but impressive from the architectural point of view. Ok, an ignorant like me won’t know much about that unless it’s obviously pointed out in a pamphlet, but apparently in a few pots you can see that the construction techniques developed very rapidly, so much so that they couldn’t quite keep up when constructing Kumamoto Castle. And because it was lucky enough to be destroyed only once (during a rebellion in 1877), places like that are still there and quite easy to spot – that is, if you want to take notice of them.

But I won’t lie, I spent most of my time there not sightseeing, but watching the samurai display. They are also twice a day and other than a couple of fancy and impressive tricks (which you can see on video), the actors also did a sort of game show – one of them had to answer a bunch of questions about the castle in order to get his birthday present, and a few times when he got stuck he had help very much like in “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”. And they did all that while still in character, talking like samurai in the old days, being slightly mesmerised by iPhones etc., which came out incredibly funny. And it’s also there where, sitting in the full mid-day sun, I sort of cemented my tan lines on my legs and back – they’re still pretty clear nearly a month later!

Kumamoto Daijingu Shrine (熊本大神宮)

One of the towers on the wall...

Kumamoto Castle in all of its glory!

The castle's plan in 1:10 scale!

View from the top.

I think I'm in love... :P

Higomaru, the mascot of Kumamoto Castle.

Despite the name, this was not cider. It was watermelon flavoured fizzy lemonade. Very sweet, but quite nice. Because Kumamoto is apparently known for its watermelons.

My souvenir stamp.

Other than that I strolled a little around the city and also wandered into Fujisaki Hachiman-gū shrine (藤崎八幡宮), which is possibly the oldest shrine in Kumamoto, but which, surprisingly, doesn’t really feature on the recommendation lists. On the one hand I sort of get it, other than a pretty building and one information board, which says that the shrine was erected in 935, there’s nothing there, the shrine is still a religious place, but on the other it’s just a little odd that a shrine this old and this nice is not being in any way more actively promoted as a tourist spot, especially given that in Japan the weirdest things can be considered tourist attractions.

But as I said before, from the point of view of a tourist the city doesn’t have that much more to offer. There may be a few other shrines and temples, I saw a few ads for nearby hot springs and for trips to Mount Aso (which is in Kumamoto Prefecture), but nothing beyond that, really. But Kumamoto City itself is really lovely, I again had some adventures (this time in the form of some friendly Mormon missionaries whom I briefly talked with and who gave me, as a farewell present sort of thing, “The Book of Mormon” – in Japanese, because that’s the only version they had at that time), another one of those places where, depending on what you’d like to do, anything seems possible. So as a tourist spot I’m a tiny bit disappointed, but I do not regret going and if I had a chance, it’d be nice to go back to Kumamoto, just like that, because it just is a nice place.