Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima

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This weekend was my "get out of Sendai" weekend. The last couple weeks I have been busy on weekends and have had no time to go out and do anything before the winter cold sets in. So yesterday and today I was out of Sendai and out enjoying Tohoku to it's fullest in a weekend dripping with historical content.

Today I met my manager, yes my boss, in Koriyama station and we drove together to Aizu-Wakamatsu. Aizu-Wakamatsu is famous for the Byakkotai "White Tigers". The story goes that during a time of civil war a group of samurai were waiting at Iimori mountain for word from the castle, Tsuruga, when they saw smoke raising up from where the castle stood. Thinking that the castle had fallen into enemy hands the group commited seppuku, ritual suicide. The truth was that the castle wasn't on fire and it hadn't fallen into enemy hands. There is a small memorial on the place where the fire was seen and also this great memorial hall.

From the beginning. My manager and I drove into the city and found Tsuruga-jo (the castle) and headed through the great museum that is set up inside. You can buy a ticket for the really beautiful and preserved tea house thats on the grounds as well. As you head up the castle you pass great pieces of art, pottery, and funny little places where you can poke your head into and see yourself in a mirror as a laborer. There's also a movie, all in Japanese, and fun little diagrams of the castle and the surrounding town. The top of the castle has beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and now that they are covered in golds, yellows, reds, and oranges. We partook in some nice soft cream and had a curious incident with a man we both believe was drunk before finding our way back to the car and moving onto Iimori Mountain.

Iimori Mountain has a nice small memorial to the Byakkotai but it also has this amazing memorial hall. It's hexagonal and has this great staircase the lets you go up and down without going backwards. The stairs go around 33 Kannon statues. It's great fun to walk around them and up at the same time. The mountain also has beautiful views of the city and, of course, you can see the very top of Tsuruga-jo from the memorial site.

Aizu has a very traditional craft scene. At Iimori Mountain you could watch people making candles with beautiful paintings of flowers on them. Each month gets a different flower. You can buy them everywhere and on our way out of Iimori we walked into a store with hand painted lanterns. As I was walking around looking for something to get, the man running the store was also painting candles too. His designs were a lot more interesting then just flowers, but they were all so beautiful. There are also handmade kites, Akabeko, a good luck bobbing head cow, and miso too. So many things to get and so much omiyage, souvenirs, to buy and so little time!

We had such fun going around and checking out Aizu. I really appreciated all the traditional crafts and attention to detail here. Nothing was spared and the Byakkotai will forever draw a large crowd here to remember their final sacrifice. The Japanese love those stories the best.

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