May 1st
Bleary eyed from 2 hours sleep I stumbled into the taxi at Niigata ferry terminal. I can't say I saw much of Niigata aside from the train station and the usual apartment blocks and hotels.
The first train to Aizu Wakamatsu wasn't until 8.20 so I had more than 2 hours wait, time enough to get some breakfast and a doze in the waiting room. I dozed on the train for the first 20 mins or so as we left the city.
The sight of the first blooming sakura trees woke me up- finally some spring colours (very much missing from Sapporo). We wound up through the mountains following a large river. The journey was like passing though another time in Japan, old wooden houses and straw hatted villagers working in the fields, an old shrine in a cedar forest and a wild monkey munching by the trackside and everywhere dots of pink and flurries of pink. That and the hordes of camera's...there were crowds of middle aged/ elderly men with more camera's and tripods than any press conference crowded at stations and bridges and the like. I fairly certain that the train was a perfectly normal train so why all the uber train spotters?
As we approached the Aizu Wakamatsu I got that usual faint feeling of dissappointment you get in Japan, all you could see were concrete hotels and parking lots, not a sign of the old houses or samurai past, the town is famous for. As I had arrived earlier than check in I dumped my bags in the lockers and headed off to the town bus
Most people got off at the castle stop and I could already see the hordes of others ambling amongst the cherry trees, so I decided to escape the crowds and headed for the Oyakuen, a Japanese garden built by the then ruling Aizu clan to grow medicinal plants and for relaxation. And it was relaxing, the gardens were pretty empty and I spent a pleasant hour walking round, breathing in the spring air.
Back on the bus again, this time to the Bukeyashiki, the chief retainers house. It was a pretty impressive building, many rooms, but suprisingly far from the castle, where he must have had to visit almost daily I would have thought. I got to try my hand at some archery and even managed to hit one of the tiny side-plate sized targets, though it was as much fun watching the Dads showing off their archery skills to their kids.
Here some of the some of the tragic history of Aizu comes out- the wive of the retainer killed herself and the children during the Boshin war (Meiji restoration, kind of civil war) because she thought her husband was going to die during the campaign. I definately felt the whole cultural differences here and later on when I went up Mt. Inomori where more suicides occured. By the time I reached Mt. Inomori I was feeling shattered, my brain was still at sea, but I figured I would see this, leaving the castle for the following morning.
So me and crowds (which became a familar theme) headed up the slope and steps, the lazier ones taking the escalator. I went up (and down) the weird pagoda which is very Escher like in its design inside. Then for a final push went and saw the graves of the Battosei- young samurai's who believing the castle was burning (again during the Boshin war) decided that killing themselves was the best option- one boy survived to tell the tale...there was a strange mix; on the one hand there was insense and flowers and a tragic feeling and then there were monuments to their "bravery and courage" - strangely enough some from Germany and Italy during their fascist period. I could see nothing brave or couragous about a complete waste of life.
I stumbled back down the stairs and dragged my now seriously carcass to the hotel, asleep by 6pm, not even a strong tremor disturbed me....
