Aizu Wakamatsu Castle was originally constructed in 1384 by Ashina Naomori and called Kurokawa Castle. It remained in the Ashina family until the late 16th Century, when it was first seized by Date Masamune and then surrendered to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Tsurugajo
The castle remained a stronghold of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Tohoku region until the Battle of Aizu during the Boshin war in 1868. During the month-long siege, the castle was damaged beyond repair and was razed.
The current castle tenshu is a replica of the castle as it was in 1868, a concrete structure built in 1965. It houses a museum with many artifacts and documents related to the Boshin war.
The restored Rinkaku tea room on the castle grounds is an Important Cultural Property.
Oyakuen was founded in the 14th Century and soon, with the encouragement of Ashina Morihisa, the local lord, became a medicinal herb garden for the community. The current landscape, meant to show nature in miniature, was designed by Meguro Jotei during the Edo period.
Rakujutei tea ceremony cottage
The garden surrounds a pond, Shinji no Ike, in the shape of the character 心 kokoro (heart), in the center of which sits the Rakujutei tea ceremony cottage. A larger tea house, Ochayagoten, adorns the near end of the pond and it was here that visiting nobles were formerly entertained.
Ochayagoten
Oyakuen was left in ruins after the Boshin war of 1868-9, but was restored to the point that it was named a nationally renowned garden in 1932.
Aizu Bukeyashiki is a reconstruction of the 38 rooms of the residence of Tanomo Saigo, the last Edo-period samurai of Aizu. Included at the site are the bailiff’s office, an Important Cultural Asset, and the Reinan an Rinkaku tea house that originally stood on the grounds of Tsurugajo castle.
Garden on Bukeyashiki grounds
Among the scenes depicted is the collective suicide of the women of the household during the attack of the imperial forces during the Boshin war, in order that they would not be a burden to their fighting husbands, fathers and relatives.
Aizu Sazaedo is a three-story wooden pagoda constructed in 1796 to house 33 statues of Kannon and featuring double-spiral internal wooden ramps which wind around from the entrance to the top of the 16.5m structure and back down again. Visitors who reach the top, cross the taiko bridge inside and return down the opposite ramp are said to have completed the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage to 33 Buddhist temples.
Sazaedo
The signature double-spiral ramp structure about a central core gives the structure its name (“Sazae” is a horned turban sea snail) and causes many to wonder if the design was influenced by Leonardo da Vinci’s Château de Chambord in France, but there is no evidence this is the case.
Sazaedo, an Important Cultural Property, can be found on the flank of Iimoriyama, famed burial ground of the Byakkotai.
Iimoriyama is a cemetery and memorial for the Byakkotai soldiers who committed ritual suicide at this spot overlooking Aizu during the Boshin civil war. These 20 soldiers, all 16-17 years old and sons of samurai, had regrouped at Iimoriyama after becoming separated from the main body of their troop. Seeing flames and columns of smoke engulfing Aizu during the siege of Tsurugajo castle, the boys believed that the castle itself had been torched and that all was lost. (In fact, the castle held out another month before Matsudaira Katamori surrendered to the imperial forces.)
Cemetery of the Byakkotai
While the imperial government initially ordered that the bodies of the young men remain exposed where they fell, locals secretly retrieved and buried their remains. Later, the government relented, and the remains were reinterred where they had fallen. In later years, the young warriors came to be upheld as an example of Japanese spirit for their sacrifice for their lord’s honor.
Pompeii column from Benito Mussolini
While the hilltop memorial is now a peaceful place for contemplation, some will take away a different impression than others from visiting the site. This is exemplified by the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” present to one side of the cemetery, just a few paces from the Roman column surmounted by a statue of an eagle. This latter is a gift from Benito Mussolini, who found the tale of the Byakkotai’s sacrifice to be an inspiration for fascism. It is also uncertain what message is intended by the manga-fied representation of children as soldiers (as seen at the Iimoriyama website) and the vendors at the site hawking toy katana, apart from one of sanitizing this message of “Japanese spirit” for a new generation.
When I got home tonight, the smart door lock at the building entrance recognized my key and beeped. As the door was opening, it announced, “A package has been delivered.”
That’s a new one,I thought. The announcement had been in Japanese previously.
I went to the mailbox and — sure enough — not one, but two delivery slips. Since I don’t carry the delivery box IC card, I went to the elevator hall.
“A package has been delivered,” announced the elevator hall smart lock.
Mystified, I waited for the elevator. Why would someone in the building management take it on themselves to assign my key to an English announcement? And what about Nana — the same for her key? Or had someone changed the language setting for everyone and forgot to set it back?
Whatever the cause of the change, at least I didn’t have any more announcements between the elevator and the apartment door. (Come to think of it, the door also has a speaker — they could blast me again there if they really wanted to.)
Too-smart key
I let myself in and called out to Nana that I was home. After removing my shoes I entered the hallway to the living-dining room. And there on the wall was the interphone, with its little blue light flashing to let me know there was a message.
And I finally understood: The last time the blue light was flashing with a message, it was bothering me so much I changed the interphone into English so that I could find out where to cancel the message light. (And, having done so, finally realized there’s a button on the face of the interphone just for that.) So the change in the message language was self-inflicted …
I woke up yesterday prepared to bike to work, seeing as it was pretty much the only sunny day of the week and we’re expecting a typhoon on the weekend. But then Nana reminded me we had a reservation for a tempura restaurant in the evening.
We got to the restaurant in plenty of time, despite my having missed an express train at the first transfer. While it was just a few steps from Roppongi crossing, it was a small, old building, a bit run-down, and we were the only guests. The waiter showed us our seats at the counter and invited us to leave our bags in the washitsu「和室」, a sign they weren’t expecting many guests.
We ordered draft beer and the waiter brought us three different starters (one is the custom). We had some time to wait before our first tempura dish, enough time to look around and notice the master and the waiter and other chefs were all well past retirement age, and that the alcohol selection was a bit limited.
The master at work
At last the tempura started arriving at our plates, and it was nothing short of amazing. Really top-notch tempura: hot, lightly battered and not oily in the least. We had eggplant, prawn, two varieties of whitefish, ginnan, squid, onion, anago. Uni was one neither of us had had before, not as tempura.
At some point in the midst of this feast, I had a double-take at the master’s bowl of batter — specifically his stirring implements:
Stirred with a pair of … ?
Of course I asked, and the master — taciturn until that moment — opened up about his hobby as a jazz drummer. We talked about our favorite genres and performers, and compared CD collections. They had a rather good collection behind the register at the restaurant, but as Nana confirmed, it wasn’t a patch on the one I’ve got at home.
Sweet potato tempura with Remy Martin VSOP
By the time we’d finished, a woman from a nearby establishment had dropped in to pick up two large platters of tempura, and another couple had arrived and been seated at the counter. The master’s finishing touch for us (apart from ochazuke rice and sliced pear for dessert) was sweet potato garnished with a few drops of Remy Martin VSOP. (I think this was part of the set and not just a gesture in response for our shared love of jazz.)
The Natsume Soseki Memorial Museum, located in Waseda-Minamicho, Shinjuku, houses a replica of the famous author’s study from his “Soseki Sanbo” residence, the ground of which it sits upon. (The residence was destroyed during World War II.) The museum also holds an exhibit hall, café, event hall and a library dedicated to Soseki’s works. In addition to the complete works and related materials, the library contains many foreign-language editions, such as a Spanish translation of Botchan and a Korean edition of the complete works.
Natsume Soseki Memorial Museum
Natsume Soseki (1867–1916) is regarded as the father of the modern Japanese novel, and is considered by many to be the greatest novelist of modern Japan. He was known for his humorous satire of public officials in the Meiji Era, and one of his recurring themes was ridiculing Japanese attempts to imitate Western society. Among his most famous works are I am a cat「吾輩は猫である」, Botchan「坊っちゃん」, and the trilogy Sanshirō「三四郎」, And Then「それから」 and The Gate「門」.
Soseki Sanbo
We were fortunate to visit during an exhibit of the author’s draft writings, newspaper clippings of the original serialization of many of his novels, and elaborate scrolls of Soseki’s haiku. The exhibit also contained many early editions of Soseki’s novels, with elaborately decorated covers, correspondence with publishers, a period photograph of Dogo Onsen, the setting for Botchan, and movie posters and stills from various productions of Botchan.
I was a bit worried about being caught out by Jongdari, Typhoon No. 12, while at my driving lesson today. I only had a couple of hours of classroom lectures, but it’s about an hour’s commute each way. When I came out of the lecture hall the rain hadn’t started yet, but the wind was picking up a bit. I thought about having lunch near the station, and then decided I’d be better off getting home to try to beat the rain.
I messaged Nana several times on the way to let her know I’d be happy to pick up anything we need. She finally got back to me just as I arrived at the station and said, “No, we’re fine.”
When I got home, Nana warmed up some leftover beef Stroganoff for me and then said she’s going to the 7-11 later.
Me:
You’d better go now.
She:
7-11 is just downstairs.
(NB: It’s outside, around the other side of the building.)
Me:
It’s a typhoon.
She goes. She comes back for the umbrella and goes again. She comes back and reports that the umbrella was worthless because of the wind.
(In the end she’d gone to get another bottle of shochu. She said she didn’t want to ask the deliveryman to come out in this weather. So points for thoughtfulness, I guess.)
