Aizu: Where Samurai (and friends) go to Die
Trip Start
Mar 22, 2009
1
33
43
Trip End
May 03, 2009
Aizuwakamatsu,
Tohoku,
Japan
Friday, April 24, 2009
But I got a good start at a more 'traditional' restaurant, which appropriately doubles as an omiyage (souvenir) shop. The specialty here is dengaku, which are skewered things stood up in ash and cooked around some glowing embers. The skewers can be coated in an amazing sweet/salty miso glaze that I wish I could take home, except customs might have a field day with it. I aimed for 3 skewers (tofu, rice and meat), but accidentally ordered the sausage (good...and German, but not what I was aiming for) so I had to get a fourth of the local herring because not having fish is a crime. Overall though, really enjoyed the lunch and had some much needed respite from fast food.
After lunch, I wandered the empty main street towards a sake museum and brewery, where a relatively expensive and rather unsynchronized (the English pamphlet doesn't match up with actual displays) museum leads you to free tastings at the shop, which I should have started out in. From what I gather, rice is polished (basically abraded) from the outer coating and most of the bran. The left over core is then cooked and inoculated with a specific mold and left to ferment for about 3 months. Then the rice is pressed and the sake is drained out. The left over rice mash can then be distilled for the hard liquor, shochu. The sake can be of different classes depending on how much polishing was done--the best is the most polished. From the saleswoman, this brewery has dry sake, which was quite smooth, but I confess that I liked the taste of the cheaper sake 1 step lower, as it was bit sweeter. How bourgeoisie, I know.
From the brewery, it's a short maze of walls and avenues to Tsuruga castle, which is a steep, reconstructed site of a long seige. Also filled to the brim with school children on a field trip, buying toy katanas and fans--don't they have classes...at all? Didn't actual visit inside the castle, as I'm pretty tired of them and it's not that interesting I think, despite it's historical value.
Then another long march of tears for a few kilometers to the Higashiyama district, where there is a restored samurai manor and a few onsens. The reconstructed villa was pretty steep, as admissions go, but it did offer something different than most houses--it was furnished and had an air of what really went on day to day, including where cooking and washing and rice threshing was done. There's even a poop chute where doctors can check the health of the samurai through their excrement. And English signage to explain what the Hell all those tiny tatami rooms were for--who knew most of them were actually reception spaces for people of different peerage (lords, peers and servants). In terms of the furniture, I found the rooms a bit empty, but I wonder if that's the Japanese way. I just assumed that wealth begat tons of embellishment and material goods (i.e Versailles). But here, it was just good quality tatami and some preobably really expensive singular furniture pieces (i.e desk, chest of drawers). An oddity of the place has to be the manniquins used to depict every day occurrences. Most are pretty normal, like a family receiving a high status visitor in the main hall. Others a bit odder--there's one of the mother scolding children for playing in their father's room. And then odder still--the re-enactment of the suicides of the owner's family (wife (34), daughter (16, 14, 6, 2 (well the 2 year old probably couldn't commit suicide so it's more like manslaughter...)). Apparently, the lord went off to war and fearing he wouldn't return they killed themselves, though the plaque actually says that they feared their existence would cause him trouble. I'm hoping this is a mistranslation...please. The scene is actually stranger because one of the girls is apparently wounded by cannot die (the rest of the family is crumpled on the ground, plus the young kids are under a blanket) so she is begging a soldier to kill her--all heavy drama except there's no real facial expressions. Just an impassive mannquin face--all you're missing is a handbag and heels and she'd be fit for Macy's.
After the samurai house, I trekked another long road to Iioriyama, the site of another suicide related samurai story. Here, a group of teenage samura known as the Kyoakkotai (White tigers) had been fighting the imperial army and retreated to the mountain. From the hill, they saw smoke coming from the castle and assumed (wrongly) that the castle had fallen, so they ritually disemboweled themselves and the city now memorializes their tomb. What's that line about suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem--in this case it was a permanent solution to an imaginary problem... But the tour guide at the top gives a spirited dance-like performance of the suicide, set to a Japanese narrative. Either way, it was rather strange because I don't quite get the significance or context. Even going to the site of the kari kiri (you gotta hand it to the Japanese to signpost every single thing), I tried to find the castle...and nothing. The only thing you see is a sea of houses and one smoking object and that's a factory. Oh, how times have changed.
Overall, though, Aizu's been a nice stopover on my way down to Matsumoto and the Japan Alps. Maybe nto a go here specifically place, but a pretty location with mountains all around and at least a good day of sightseeing and some good food and some history thrown in. What else are you looking for?
Next up: Matsumoto, home of Crow castle.
-mike
