We went to Matsue because it seemed like a good place to stop on the way
from Kyoto to Hagi. As it turned out it may be the most beautiful city
that we saw in Japan; certainly it is one of the most beautiful cities I have
seen in the world.
My understanding is that Matsue is largely famous within Japan as the
residence of Lafcadio
Hearn. Like most non-Japanese of course I had never heard of
Lafcadio Hearn before visiting Matsue. Lafcadio Hearn was born in
Greece, the son of an Irish father and Greek mother. He came to America
to work as a journalist before moving to Japan at the end of the 19th Century.
His early writings about Japan are quite famous among Japanese today.
As
a tourist destination, one of the really nice things about Matsue is that
there is a special tourist bus that makes a continuous loop around the city,
stopping at all the interesting sites. For a single fare you can get on
and off this bus as many times as you like in one day.
The
first thing we did in Matsue was take the shuttle bus from the train station
to Matsue Castle, which is considerably smaller than Himeji Castle but in some
ways nicer. I believe that both Himeji and Matsue Castles are two of the
few original castles remaining in Japan (most others are concrete
reproductions). Perhaps part of the appeal of Matsue Castle was that it
was nearly empty, and it was a beautiful day, perhaps the nicest day of
weather we had in Japan. The view from the top of the castle of the city
was spectacular.
After
leaving the castle we walked through some woods to a Shinto Shrine (which I
think must have been Jozan-Inari Shrine although I am not sure). The
photo at the top of this page shows Tony at the base of the steps to this
beautiful site. Although the shrine had ample evidence of being
well-attended and cared for (hundreds of ceramic dogs or foxes had been placed
everywhere), there was no one in sight. From the woods surrounding the
shrine we could hear what sounded like monkeys or parrots screeching in the
trees. It sounded almost like artificial jungle background noise, like
something you would hear at Disneyland's JungleWorld.
From
the shrine, which I believe was a personal favorite of Lafcadio Hearn, we
walked to the
Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum, passing by some of Matsue's canals.
There are tour boats available (see the photo) on these canals, but we did
not choose to ride one.
The
Hearn museum was small but interesting. I have since become a
collector of Hearn's books (through
E-bay auctions). One thing I found particularly amusing about the
Hearn museum was that they played the music of
Loreena McKennitt in the background, I suppose because Hearn's
father was Irish.
After leaving the museum we walked across the street and into some kind
of souvenir shop, where the proprietor spoke to us enthusiastically in
Japanese about something. Seeing our dumbfounded expressions her
assistant muttered something about "ice" to us in English, and we understood
that she was offering us something like what we would call Italian ice.
I was beginning to realize that since leaving Kyoto we had come to a part of
Japan where people would naturally assume that we spoke Japanese, as I am
sure that there are few Gaijin who make a pilgrimage to see the Lafcadio
Hearn museum who are not familiar with the language.
W
e
then took the tour bus across town, and down along the coast of Lake Shinji,
where we found ourselves passing a large SegaWorld, always a reason for us to
stop wherever we went. We bought lunch across the street at a Lawson's,
where the cashier asked me something about my box lunch, which Tony was smart
enough to realize had to mean "do you want me to heat this?"
Matsue
