From Nagasaki, we took the Shinkansen to Kumamoto. We had to transfer twice with one connection giving us only 4 min to get on the next train! That was a worrisome experience…
In Kumamoto, the sights to see are the Kumamoto Castle and the lower area called Sakura baba josaien, Suizenji Garden, Kumamon bear at Sakura Machi shopping mall’s roof top, and shopping/eating at the shinmotori arcade, and the princess Kaguya’s glowing garden”.
The must try Kumamoto foods are horse meat dishes, karashi renkon (lotus roots stuffed with hot mustard), Salad Chikuwa (deep-fried fish cake with potato salad inside), Taipien (vermicelli soup), garlic ramen which has fried garlic bits and ikinari dango (sweet potato manju).
Day 1
Lunch of ramen at Kumamoto train station. This is the tsukemon dipping style of ramen. I think I chose the wrong ramen restaurant… I didn’t taste any garlic in the noodle broth.
Followed by the famous Kumamoto sweet potato mochi at Kumamoto station. They looked really pretty, but were not my favorite though… I guess chunks of sweet potato inside mochi is an acquired taste? Cuz normally, I love mochi.
We then took a taxi from the station to our hotel and checked in.
We walked 10 min over from our hotel to the 14th floor of city hall for a clear view of Kumamoto castle.
Dinner of black kurabota pork at Katsuretsutei which is walking distance from our hotel. Be prepared to wait a while before being seated. Use the kiosk to put your reservation down and get a numbered ticket.
The wait was worth it. While you wait, grind your own sesame paste and add the tonkatsu sauce to make the dipping sauce. When the tonkatsu arrives, dip and enjoy! The tonkatsu is so juicy and tender. Plus they give you rice, cabbage salad, and lots of variety of pickles. I was also impressed that the waitresses clean each bottle of dressing and all the condiments bottles at the table by spraying and wiping it down before the next set of customers sit down. I don’t think the waiters do that in the US
Sakura machi mall roof top terrace has a giant Kumamom bear, the Kumamoto mascot. We walked here after dinner.
We got lucky that they just opened up this Princess Kaguya’s Glowing Garden at the roof top of Sakuramachi mall. It’s 2000 yen per person ($15). All the art work took 6-9 months to design, and then another month for production. The art work are all crafted of bamboo with lights strung inside. It’s quite pretty so I’m not sure why we were the only ones here and we got the whole place to ourselves. Perhaps it’s because you can see a lot of the lights from outside already without paying. They probably need to put up higher fences! Ha ha
Princess Kaguya’s Glowing Garden: Here’s one of the many flower art with a bamboo frame. I wonder how they keep the flowers fresh in the scorching heat of the Kumamoto sun?
Princess Kaguya’s Glowing Garden: I liked this display the best. These are all bamboo balls hanging in a corridor with lights inside. You can walk through and be immersed in the lights. So it has a bit of that team labs exhibit feel.
Princess Kaguya’s Glowing Garden: close up of the bamboo balls
Princess Kaguya’s Glowing Garden: This display is made of carved bamboo tubes and flowers.
Breakfast at our hotel Sotetsu Grand Fresa Kumamoto. They had Kumamoto specialties such as horse meat stew, taipan, the fish cake stuffed with potato salad, and lotus root stuffed with mustard so I decided to pay for the breakfast at this hotel.
After breakfast, we walked 15 min to Sakura No Baba Josaien tourist information center to buy our castle tickets (850 yen per person includes the castle and museum, if only castle then the ticket is 800 yen) and to get a free English tour guide for Kumamoto Castle from the Tourist Information Center. But along the walk to the castle is the Statue of Kato Kiyomasu, the builder of the Kumamoto castle.
The guide explained how the fortress walls are impenetrable and the origins of the stone and how they are arranged for strength. He also explained the two family “crest/symbol” (Kiyomasu vs Hosagawa)
This was the former entrance to the castle. You can see the stairs and if the enemy made it this far, the stairs would be removed to make it more difficult to enter the castle
At the plaza in front of the castle. The guides are not allowed to go into the castle, so we thanked him and went inside on our own. He wouldn’t accept our tips.
6th floor of castle has nice views of town
After the castle tour we returned to the Sakura No Baba Josaien area. It’s decked out in Edo style buildings and there’s lots of food stalls that sell the fish cake stuffed with various ingredients, the lotus root with mustard, the sweet potato mochi, and horse meat. I chose the cooked horse meat. They had raw horse meat too…which was not appealing to me.
After lunch, we quickly went into the Kumamoto Castle Museum Wakawukaza. Most displays were in Japanese but the film was in English and there’s some interactive things such as dressing up for a photo. The tickets were only 50 yen extra if you chose the combo ticket, so it’s practically free. So go if you have time.
We then took a tram to Suizenji Jojuen Garden, 400 yen per person, open 9-5. The garden, built by the Hosagawa family, the 2nd family of the castle after Kiyomasu, has a photogenic lakeside garden representing the 53 stations of Tokaido (ancient road between Tokyo and Kyoto). See the mound in the distance? It’s supposed to represent Mt Fuji.
And these are supposed to represent the torii gates in Kyoto. The rest of the motifs are not very recognizable.
Afterwards we took the tram back to our hotel and Shopped at Don Quixote (Japanese chain that has snacks, and tons of other items for omiyage). Then went back to the room to rest a bit before dinner at the shinmoto arcade. We had some skewers, noddles, and chicken karage. But the funnest part was ordering the takoyaki and having to make it yourself with the batter, octopus and ginger.
Here are the instructions
I think I did ok… although they didn’t provide the kewpie Mayo, nori or bonito shavings for the toppings, only sauce. So that was a tad disappointing
After dinner we walked back to city hall because we discovered that the 14th floor stays open til 10pm, and there’s a different back entrance to take the elevator up. That way you can get night pictures of the castle
Kumamoto Omiyage
Crunchy chocolate, furikake, Aso jersey milk donut sticks from Fujibambi, pistachio crunch