Tsuwano

I’d see the hillside trail, a zigzagging path covered end-to-end by red torii gates the night before. It was lit up by lanterns along the way which in the inky night almost appeared as if floating in the sky, beckoning me to come see. Going up on a moonless night the view from the top was nonexistent but morning was another story.

Heading up those misty steps, the hillside covered in green, red and gold autumn foliage I was greeted by the sight of a shining gold and red gate to the Taikodani Inari Shrine as I emerged from the torii tunnel and then a view that was worth the early morning and hike up top.

Like I’d seen so often depicted in Japanese art, the surrounding mountaintops were rendered islands floating in a ghostly sea of fog. Behind me the shrine was almost desert and serene as sunlight from the perfect angle struck it and made everything golden shine.

This is the best way to start the day on a trip to Tsuwano.

Tsuwano is a small rural town, more of a village, on the Tsuwano River in the shadow of its former mountaintop castle. It’s a place of natural beauty, art, literature and preserved old culture, which combined with its comfy, old-fashion atmosphere make for a relaxing yet never boring place to retire for a few days before boarding the train, or 80-year old steam engine, back to reality. We visited in November, when the autumn leaves were about to peak and while there was the odd tour group and other visitors it never felt packed or over-run with tourists, despite catering to them.

The main draw is Tonomachi, Tsuwano’s Edo era heart. They often bill this, like every preserved Edo era street or district in Japan as a “Little Kyoto,” which is a misnomer. Kyoto is and always was a bustling center of activity. The historic half of Tonomachi is a beautiful façade of the Edo-era with its white-walled samurai homes, lines of golden trees and deep gutters full of fat and colorful carp, but this isn’t Kyoto by a long shot, this feels more like where the nobility of Kyoto would escape to for serenity.

There are more museums and little attractions for first time visitors to take in than is possible over a weekend so my wife and I were strategic about what we wanted to see, though still found time to slowly enjoy cafes, sweet shops and sake tasting (and sake ice cream) along the way.

We had about 24 hours in Tsuwano, arriving with the SL Yamaguchi train just after 1 p.m. Saturday and departing with it the following afternoon.  This meant that we could gather with the other photographers at the Tsuwano O-hashi (Tsuwano  Bridge) just beyond the Tonomachi street to take pictures of the departing and arriving steam engine as it crossed over Tsuwano River with the green mountains as a backdrop. (Another aside for train fans, there’s a D51 steam engine on display at Tsuwano Station that you can get inside.)

We spent the first day settling into our ryokan and walking around Tonomachi but the second was for museums. Having just the day we chose to visit the local history museum, Mori Ogai house and the Then and Now Museum. These may not be top items on everyone’s itinerary but along with the shrine these are what I felt would nicely round out the trip to see different aspects of Tsuwano within our allotted time.

One place we would have liked to see but left off the itinerary was the ruins of Tsuwano Castle, which my wife wasn’t feeling well enough to hike up to. The castle began in 1283, not long after the divine wind stopped the first Mongol invasion attempt, as a defense against future invasions. It was torn down in 1871 on the order of the Meiji government; fear of use by rebels is often cited as the reason for mass castle destruction in this period but it was more of a cost-saving decision. Castles are very expensive to maintain and in a unified nation there was no longer fear of domains fighting each other for regional or national dominance.

This is worth bringing up because the loss of the castle and the feudal way of life is what took Tsuwano from being a governing seat of its own domain to just another remote town well off the main roads with no other resources to provide further economic or population growth. This resulted in the beautiful little pastoral escape that it is today.

Our first museum was the Tsuwano Kyodokan. This is the local history museum, which was built in 1942 but designed to complement the town’s Edo charm. It’s small but covers all the bases with artifacts from pre-historic arrowheads to mother-of-pearl inlaid firearms from the Edo era and the obligatory pottery shards. Pretty standard stuff for a local museum, but with the right highlights to show what made this town stand out. Of interest is a room showing off the achievements of local notables and a Meiji era frock coat with golden decoration. These were a civilian uniform for bureaucrats and nobility of the era and many prominent men had their portraits created wearing these.

I also learned here why Tsuwano has such a prominent Catholic church in Tonomachi. Catholics first came to Tsuwano in good numbers in the late 1800s, but not because they wanted to.

With the end of the Edo era, its samurai, daimyo and castles, came a new progressive one in which men were all equal and Christian religion could be practiced openly. Or so many Christians who had been hiding and secretly preserving their faith under penalty of torturous death if caught, believed. With the opening of new Catholic churches in Kyushu many came out professing their faith. These people were swiftly arrested and sent to Tsuwano for “re-education,” by which I mean torture until recanting their faith or death. This is illustrated with a recreated cage, which museum paintings depict as being put outside during a snowy winter, its inhabitants dying of exposure within them. Eventually the laws were changed after it was realized that torturing people over religious beliefs was not helping Japan’s desire to be seen as a modern nation equal to the Western ones it was attempting to join.

Unfortunately none of this museum was in English and it had a no photo policy.

Author Mori Ogai might be the best-known Tsuwano native today, if not always for his actual work. He was an army surgeon during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War who would retired as Surgeon General of the Imperial Japanese Army, but who really gained fame as a writer writing novels and translating foreign works. Today he’s also been bishonen-ized for visual novels, manga and anime as a character in Bungo Stray Dogs and Meiji Tokyo Renka because that’s a thing people do now apparently.

His childhood home is a typical traditional Japanese house; its construction wooden and its rooms are utilitarian with sparse décor and furnishing. No actual entry is allowed, but the sliding doors were all open so we could look inside.

 There’s a memorial hall and museum beside the house, but due to limited time we skipped it. We assumed it would be entirely in Japanese and it would really slow us down if Emi had to translate it all for me like at the last museum. Another site we skipped is the home of Amane Nishi, which is just across the river. Nishi was another Meiji-era literary who translated European law and philosophy books into Japanese.

The Then and Now Museum houses a collection of Japanese 20^th century household items and every day gadgets from 1900s kitchen appliances to 1980s computers. The progress in just a hundred years when compared to the unchanging Edo era (1603-1868) is night and day. As a foreigner I love places like this because even familiar things, like cash registers, are different due to the age and also because these are Japanese interpretations of the ideas.

Emi played a very old children’s piano and I tried a manual key-strike typewriter, two of the antiques that are set up so visitors can try their hand at them. Like Meiji-mura telephone exchange it also has the “operate a rotary telephone challenge.” (And yes, I can.) It made me think about all the little details of life that we pay no attention to, they gradually change, phase out or phase in and it’s not until much later that you realize that the change has even occurred.

The museum is almost entirely dual language.

After the museums we headed back to Tonomachi for more sweets, cafes and sightseeing. While not as flashy as the samurai half of the street, there’s other buildings downtown that date from the mid-1800s and are cultural properties. These are normal stores but with history, I recommend visiting the Fundo-ya incense shop which was built almost immediately after the fire that burned down Tsuwano making this the oldest building downtown. Just past the shop front is a hidden little garden inside the building’s central courtyard that the owner lets visitors see for no charge.

Bags of omiyage in hand, we rushed back to the station and caught the SL before the final whistle with just enough time to take a picture of it and the “old” Tsuwano sign in the setting sun.

Besides what we saw Tsuwano has a lot more to offer, especially involving its local culture. As well as the castle I would like to go back and see the traditional heron dance performed and watch horseback archery. There were also art and photography museums in Tonomachi we didn’t have time to see.

We stayed at Norenyado Meigetsu, a traditional ryokan on a narrow side street just off Tonomachi. It offered a bath and restaurant which fed us local cuisine and different sakes from the Furuhashi sake brewery. The bath is a large communal pool fed by hot spring water that’s as more of a recreational pastime than a means of cleaning up. If you’ve never stayed in a ryokan this one is an ideal first, its what you should expect from a good ryokan and not to mention beautiful.

For food I recommend trying the kuro inarizushi at Mimatsu Shokudo, soba diner which began in 1931 and is the oldest in Tsuwano. Kuro inarizushi is very dark fried tofu-covered rice. I have no idea why its dark but it tastes good.

The best way to visit Tsuwano is to take the SL Yamaguchi from Shin-Yamaguchi Station for a sightseeing trip through the forest and fields of Yamaguchi and Shimane aboard a black steam engine pulling a set of recreated pre-World War II passenger cars.

Tsuwano Tourism Website
http://tsuwano-kanko.net/en/

Mimatsu Shokudo
59-13 Ushiroda, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5605

Mori Ogai Memorial Hall
238 Machida, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5611

Tsuwano Kyodokan (Town History Museum)
650 Morimura, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5604

Tsuwano Then and Now Museum
270-4 Machida, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5611
TEL 0856-72-3278

SL Yamaguchi
http://www.c571.jp/