I rented a bicycle at Izumi Station.
I was worried about riding under that blazing sun, but the humidity turned out to be low and there was a breeze. Pick up some speed and you get cool air in your face. And it was an e-bike! So it wasn’t hard work at all.
Cycling around Izumi. It was a very good plan.
About fifteen minutes from Izumi Station, I arrived at the Izumi-Fumoto Samurai Residences(出水麓武家屋敷群). The first place I visited was the Izumi-Fumoto History Museum(出水麓歴史館). Then at Takezoe-tei(竹添邸) I listened to a kind, thorough explanation and learned about the history of Izumi-Fumoto.
I already covered all of that in the previous post, though.
:: Dense Trees and Neat Stone Walls, the Izumi-Fumoto Samurai Residences
I’d finished my short study of this town’s background, so now it was time to properly ride around every corner of it.
The photos I’d seen on Google Street View and on Izumi’s tourism site looked quite different from the actual streets. Honestly, before the trip, this neighborhood looked pretty bleak in photos.
But riding through it on a bicycle, corner by corner, this town turned out to have really appealing scenery.
Maybe that’s because it was summer in Japan, summer in Kagoshima. It’s a hot summer, but Japanese summers have this strangely blue sky. And Kagoshima, sometimes called the southern country(南國), has a lot of green trees. Midsummer is when those trees show off their green to the fullest.
Because it was a kind of planned town, the streets of Fumoto are laid out in a grid. And the land and the roads are neatly built up with stone walls, stacked like embankments. Above them grow the lush trees particular to Kagoshima.
Riding a bicycle between them felt pretty good.
:: Where the God of War Was Enshrined and Warriors Prayed for Fortune in Battle, Suwa Shrine
Wandering the alleys like that, I came across a large shrine. It’s Suwa Shrine(諏訪神社), the largest shrine here in Fumoto.
I suppose it makes sense, in a frontline border town where warriors lived together? They built a shrine to the god of war(軍神) from ancient mythology, and prayed for fortune in battle(武運).
And because the married deities had many children, people also prayed here for safe childbirth and for children to be granted.
More than anything, the atmosphere of the shrine grounds — quiet but neatly kept — makes this a really nice place. The grounds aren’t that large, but they’re full of summer green, including a huge tree said to be over 600 years old.
Even the moss packed all over the torii was green, and it made the place feel really good.
In front of the shrine’s worship hall there’s a bronze statue of a mother dog and a puppy. And under that statue there was a base inscribed with the twelve zodiac signs.
I didn’t know exactly what it was, so I went ahead and touched the rabbit(卯), my own sign. Looking it up later, it turns out this is apparently for praying that your children grow up well.
I don’t have children, so that was a pointless thing to do.
I got back on the bicycle and rode around the alleys of the Fumoto samurai district again.
I got a really nice photo in front of a tiny corner shop. And in this place full of traditional houses, I also found Catholic Izumi Church(カトリック出水教会). That felt quite unusual.
Now, it was getting close to three in the afternoon. My condition just wasn’t recovering. The shochu I drank yesterday must have been more than I thought.
I started badly wanting to go back to the hotel, wash up, and rest.
:: Chanoka, a Specialist in Natural Domestic Tea
Before heading back to the hotel, I wanted one cold drink in this town. And then a cafe appeared in front of me. I thought it was something like fate.
It’s a cafe called Chanoka(茶ノ花), with a sign reading specialist in natural domestic tea(自然派国産茶の専門店).
Unfortunately they don’t sell coffee — it’s a place that sells tea, literally: green tea, black tea, and so on.
The interior was so clean that I felt a bit sorry about walking in. I’d been cycling around in midsummer and was sweating all over.
I sat alone in a corner of the shop and looked over the menu. I thought about having a cold green tea, but what I finally chose was the green tea affogato.
It was too hot. Seeing a menu item with cold ice cream in it made me want it.
Nutty, fragrant vanilla ice cream, dropped into very strong green tea. They told me to mix it well before eating, but I ate the ice cream and the green tea separately at first and started mixing halfway through. Mixing it really was better, just as they said, but I was curious about each taste on its own.
I finished it in no time at all.
The air conditioning cooled the sweat, the ice cream cooled my insides.
After a short break, I got back on the bicycle and returned to Izumi Station. Returning the bike, I asked whether there was a hot spring or a public bath nearby, but they said there wasn’t. I gave up and went up to my hotel room. I took a cold shower and lay down on the bed.
According to the original plan, today I was going to visit Kannoji(感応寺), stop by Kami Shuzo(神酒造株式会社) to check whether a tour was possible, and buy some shochu. Getting all the way to Hakozaki Hachiman Shrine(箱崎八幡神社) might have been asking too much, but I had that on my list too.
But thanks to yesterday’s shochu, I had to give all of it up. Well, nothing to be done. If you gain something, you lose something.
Hmm… what did I gain, you ask? A good time last night? Haha.
