Day 2: Seeing Aizu Through Samurai Eyes
At the center of the Aizu region, the city of Aizu-Wakamatsu is a castle city with a strong connection to the Matsudaira samurai clan and others before it, and that samurai history has left its mark on everything from the city skyline to the stories locals tell. During the Boshin War, the Matsudaira clan’s political position put the city on the defense when the pro-imperial forces came north to cement the new regime’s power, and to this day any Aizu native can tell you about the wartime tragedies that still scar the city. The tale of the Byakkotai has particularly stuck around ー a group of young samurai soldiers still in their teens, who mistakenly thought that they saw the castle being burnt to the ground while awaiting orders on a nearby hillside, and feeling that all was lost, attempted seppuku (ritual suicide) en masse. But in spite of this sad shared history, the people of Aizu are particularly friendly and ready to share traditions, making it a great place to learn more about Japan!
Oyakuen Garden & Teahouses for the Feudal Lord
Our morning in Aizu began with a trip to Oyakuen, a garden and summer home designed just for the daimyo, the Aizu domain’s feudal lord. Landscaped during the samurai era for the relaxation of the most powerful man around, this traditional Japanese garden offers a leisurely path around a picturesque pond, at the center of which is a small island with a tiny teahouse. When the daimyo still ruled over Aizu, it’s said that he held secret meetings inside the teahouse, which was only easily accessible by boat at the time. Nowadays, visitors can freely roam around the secluded garden (and onto the teahouse island) like they own the place, and spend the morning as a lord or lady.
One unusual aspect of the Oyakuen gardens lies on the other side of a row of hedges, next to the pondside path. The name “Oyakuen” (お薬園) actually means “medicinal garden,” and a whole half of the garden space is devoted to rows and rows of medicinal plants, added to the garden in the 17th century, about 200 years after its original construction. To this day, Oyakuen’s gardeners grow a wide variety of plants used in Japanese “kampo” (漢方), inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, and for centuries these plants were really used by the citizens of Aizu to treat aches, pains, and whatever else they could manage. The juxtaposition of a practical medicinal garden right beside a luxurious lordly leisure garden makes Oyakuen equally beautiful and fascinating!
▶︎ More on Oyakuen Garden here!
Oyakuen Garden (御薬園)
8–1 Hanaharumachi, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Oyakuen Official Page (jp) / Oyakuen Official Facebook (jp)
Tsurugajo Castle
At the heart of the city of Aizu-Wakamatsu, and the old Aizu Domain, is the castle that was once the center of the local samurai’s defenses, called Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle or Tsurugajo. The castle’s history goes back to 1384, when the Ashina clan first built a castle in Aizu, and when the fortress was rebuilt as a “modern castle” in 1592 (complete with an unusually tall tower) the flashy new facilities were given the name Tsurugajo Castle. Unfortunately, while the young Byakkotai troops were indeed wrong about the castle being burnt to the ground during its 19th-century siege, the samurai of that time had a surprising amount of firepower, and their artillery left the structure unstable and unsafe. The castle tower was demolished a few years after the Boshin War, leaving just the old stone walls, before a reconstruction was finally later built to restore the city’s beloved castle!
Inside Tsuruga Castle today is a museum that details local samurai history, through the many generations of famous rulers who took over the Aizu Domain, all the battles they won and lost, and everything that happened afterward as well. There are life-size models of castle life and beautiful reconstructions of the iconic samurai helmets worn by historic local leaders, and even a reasonable amount of English signage that leads you through history as you slowly make your way up quite a few flights of stairs, to the rooftop lookout with a great view of the area!
Our Japankuru team recommendation is to stop at the little snack shop outside the castle before you leave, to try tempura manju, a local Aizu specialty. These little brown sugar red bean cakes are battered and fried like tempura, then topped with a dash of soy sauce, for a surprisingly delicious salty-sweet flavor combination!
▶︎ More on Tsurugajo Castle here!
Tsurugajo Castle (鶴ヶ城)
1–1 Otemachi, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Official Website (jp)
Lunch and a Show at Mangerou
After walking the halls once tread by Aizu’s many samurai, it was time to eat like a king at Mangerou, a restaurant that has been serving traditional Japanese food in a classic Japanese garden for almost a century. The spacious restaurant is divided into a number of private dining rooms with tatami mat floors and wooden beams overhead, along with broad windows along the walls, which look out onto different landscapes from the gardens outside. Eating at Mangerou really does feel a little like having a meal in a palace.
Our lunch at Mangerou fit perfectly with the surroundings, with a selection of elegant Japanese dishes on each tray. Fresh local ingredients and even some regional Aizu recipes were featured in our meal, which included everything from slices of sashimi and vegetable tempura, to Fukushima’s own “imoni” stew (芋煮).
On this tour through Aizu, though, there’s more to lunch than just a delicious meal. Following us from the Samurai Train, samurai artist group Kengishu Kamui returns once again at Mangerou, for an even bigger and better performance, flying across the tatami mats with swords in hand! Sometimes, after watching Tetsuro Shimaguchi and his crew show off their samurai skills, the audience even gets to join in on the fun!
Mangerou (萬花楼)
10–6 Higashisakaemachi, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Official Website (jp)
Archery Lessons and Samurai School at Nisshinkan
For those who couldn’t get enough of Kengishu Kamui’s samurai sword fighting, this trip’s next stop is the perfect place to learn more about how samurai would really fight ー and how to learn those skills, too. Nisshinkan was once a samurai school attached to Tsurugajo Castle, and it’s where young boys would learn everything it took to become an honorable samurai. (You didn’t think those skills came naturally, did you!?)
Nisshinkan was founded in 1803, when the chief retainer of Aizu’s fifth Matsudaira clan daimyo recommended emphasizing education as the best way forward. This samurai school was soon considered the very best out of the hundreds of similar educational institutions all over Japan, in terms of size and quality of education, and for us modern-day visitors it was hard not to be a little envious of the beautiful school buildings and some of the subjects that students once studied. Interesting reconstructions and displays show that based on strict Confucian codes of conduct, the curriculum at Nisshinkan started with a foundation of samurai etiquette and social rules, but also included everything from calligraphy to astronomy, horseback riding (including in the water of “Japan’s oldest swimming pool”), and martial arts like sword fighting or archery.
The school unfortunately stopped accepting new pupils when the original buildings were burnt down ー during the Boshin War, in fact. But visitors can still get a little bit of the Nisshinkan experience when they visit the sprawling samurai school campus. On the way in, an enormous sign spells out the basic principles set out for all young samurai-in-training to follow, called the Ju no Okite (什の掟):
1. You must do what your seniors tell you to do.
2. You must bow to your seniors.
3. You must not tell lies.
4. You must not behave in a cowardly manner.
5. You must not bully those weaker than yourself.
6. You must not eat outside.
7. You must not talk with women outside.
And finally: You must not do what you must not do (ならぬことはならぬものです).
Fortunately for us, those rules aren’t enforced anymore, so we were allowed to “study” at the school even though we just ate lunch off-campus! On our tour, the Japankuru team tried Nisshinkan’s archery workshop, where we were quickly set up with wooden bows and a handful of arrows to aim at bullseyes set up on the other side of the target practice grounds. Please don’t ask us how many times we hit the target, we’re a little ashamed of our aim. Let’s just say we had a great time working on our samurai skills!
Nisshinkan (日新館)
10 Takatsukayama, Kawahigashimachi Minamikoya, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
Official Website (jp)
To Yonezawa: Learning the Iado Way at the Toko Sake Museum
After studying hard and trying our best to polish our not-so-great archery technique, it was time for an hour or so on the bus, heading even further north for a relaxing evening in Yonezawa. Our last big stop for the day was the Toko Sake Museum, built in the restored traditional sake brewery where venerable Yonezawa sake makers Kojima Sohonten long produced their famous Toko brand sake. Yonezawa’s cold winter temperatures and mountain spring water set the city up for great sake brewing, and Kojima Sohonten has been making their sake in this area for over 400 years (and 23 generations), after being established in the year 1597. Back then, the sake was produced for consumption by the local ruling samurai, the Uesugi clan, and even when a rice shortage threatened the region in the Edo period, Kojima Sohonten was allowed to keep using the precious grains to produce their beloved sake.
Nowadays, visitors can tour the old facility to see relics from the past four centuries of Yonezawa sake making, including ceramic vessels that Japanese brewers used in the process long ago, the enormous wooden barrels utilized in more recent centuries, and even a brewery reception area arranged just like it was back in the Meiji period (1868–1912), complete with old account books and a vintage telephone. Of course, visitors aged 20 and over can also sample a few famous Toko Sake brews, to find the perfect bottle to bring home from the gift shop. Their limited-edition museum-only sake is a popular choice, but their sweet plum wine (called umeshu/梅酒) has won a number of awards!
▶ More Japanese brewery tours here!
Toko Sake Museum (酒造資料館 東光の酒蔵)
2–3–22 Omachi, Yonezawa, Yamagata
Official Website (en)
Before leaving the Toko Sake Museum, on this trip we were treated to a special samurai demonstration all about Iaido, a style of Japanese sword fighting developed 450 years ago by Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu. While on a mission to avenge his ambushed and murdered father, this young samurai developed his own sword fighting techniques, all about awareness and the ability to respond quickly to attack, plus an accompanying pacifist philosophy that warriors should only attack first to prevent others from killing. In the end, Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu did find his father’s killer and take his revenge, but he also left behind a legacy of beautiful martial arts technique, demonstrated during this tour by the experienced Abe-sensei. The performance ended with “tameshi-giri” (試し斬り), the act of testing a sword’s strength and sharpness, which was once performed on humans, but is now done on wet, rolled tatami mats instead!
A Toko Brewery Breakfast
While browsing the Toko Sake Museum gift shop, members of the Japankuru team were particularly intrigued by the freezer filled with cute pouches of amazake (甘酒), a sweet, mostly non-alcoholic fermented rice drink. Kojima Sohonten makes a series of amazake drinks, some of which are mixed with fruit for a smoothie-like experience, so we grabbed a couple of them to enjoy with breakfast the next morning, after letting them defrost in the fridge overnight. If you’ve never tried amazake, the unique flavor makes these pouches a fun sweet treat!
Read more about the trip in part 3, coming soon!
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