Takachiho Gorge July 2013. Day 3

The next morning (after previous post about Hiroshima and Miyajima,) Sunday, we woke up bright and early to make our way to Kyushu. We rode the shinkansen from Hiroshima City station to Kumamoto City Station. It took around three hours, if I remember correctly.

I was able to read a bit on the train, but mostly I looked out the window. It was so beautiful, everything was so green!
There were a lot of tunnels on this shinkansen route, so when we were in the tunnels for long stretches that is when I read. I have never been able to sleep on transportation, but I would have if I could have.

This is a taxi in Kumamoto City with the local mascot on it, Kumamon.

When we got to Kumamoto station we walked across the street and waited for a bus that would take us to Takachiho. This bus ran the width of Kyushu from Kumamoto City, to Takachiho, to Nobeoka and back. The bus did this twice a day. We had missed the morning bus, but we were able to get on at the noon bus. The trip took about three hours from Kumamoto to Takachiho. The bus continued on to Nobeoka (about two hours away, and would turn back to Takachiho. We had about four hours to do the two things we wanted to do in Takachiho. And we had to be back in time for the bus, or else we would be stuck in Takachiho overnight with no place to stay and we would miss school the next day. Missing a day of school during this study abroad program was unforgivable and would most likely result in us failing the course and getting sent home early. There could be no mistakes.

On the bus we met this girl named Alison. She had beautiful red hair and pale skin. We started talking to her and she decided to hang out with us in Takachiho. She was going to all the same places we were and because we were on the same bus, we had the same schedule.  Alison was a Swiss girl who was backpacking around the world. She had been all over Europe and was starting on Asia. She had been in Japan for a few weeks at that point and was going to be there for a few more. I get the feeling that her family was pretty rich to be able to fund her adventures around the world. What I remember most about Alison was that she was confident. I don’t think she spoke more Japanese than I did, but I do remember she was definitely more confident while speaking it. Her confidence was inspiring. Even today, three years later, I often think about her. I only knew her for about five hours, but she left a lasting impression on me.

Our first stop was the famous gorge itself! When we arrived it was raining pretty hard and I didn’t have an umbrella, so I just put the hood up on the jacket I was wearing and called it good.

Here are some manhole covers for Takachiho City.

Along the way we walked past Takachiho Shrine, so we stopped to check it out.

After that, we walked quite a long distance down a hill and some windy roads on our way to Takachiho. I took some beautiful photographs and video of our walk. Along the way my camera was getting we and I think some water was leaking inside because it started acting up. The inside of the lens started fogging up and it stopped taking pictures for a time. So I put it in my backpack and left it alone for a while. Chris took pictures for me if I had a request.

This man was directing traffic in the rain and was excited to see us. He wanted to take a picture with me.

We finally made it to the entrance of Takachiho. There was a little shrine and garden at the entrance that was just gorgeous. From here we walked on to the gorge itself.

Just after the entrance park and koi pond you, you turn a corner and you can see the Takachiho gorge stretching out before you in two directions! It is a beautiful, blue river that cuts its way through the black cliffs of volcanic rock. There are many waterfalls that flow from the sides of the gorge into the river. Normally you can rent a boat and get a tour down the river but because it was raining, that was not an option. We decided instead to walk the path that was built along the side of the gorge that follows the length for a long ways.  I took many pictures and it was so beautiful!

At the end of the path we made our way to a bridge that spanned the gorge above us. When we got up there, there was a little tea shop. We realized that if we walked back the way we had come we would never make it back to our second destination or back to the bus. So we asked the tea shop owner if we could use his phone to call a taxi. He told us no, but he would call the taxi for us. This is when Alison showed her amazing confidence in speaking Japanese. Chris and I could have handled ourselves, but it would have taken more time and probably been more confusing. Alison, will forever be a superstar in my mind for this exchange.

When the taxi arrived it took us to the other side of town to Amanoiwato Shrine. We hiked down an easy, rather short trail (about 10-15 minutes) along a river to the shrine.

This is a shrine that is attached to a popular story in Japanese Shinto religion and culture. Long ago there was the Goddess Amaterasu, she was the Goddess of the morning, the sun and the universe. Her name is derived from the word ‘amateru’ which means ‘Shining in Heaven’. Today the Emperors of Japan are believed to be descendants of Amaterasu.

Long ago Amaterasu used to share the sky with her brother Tsukuyomi, the God of the moon. He upset Amaterasu by killing the goddess of food by reaching in her and pulling food from her body. This caused Amaterasu to get really upset so she split away from him and created the cycles of night and day.

Amaterasu had another brother named Susanou, the god of the sea and storms. One day Susanou went on a rampage and destroyed Amaterasu’s rice fields, and killing one of her handmaidens in a fit of rage. This upset Amaterasu so much that she went hiding in a cave, which hid the sun from the world for one whole year. From here the story goes a few different directions, but this is the version I like; she was eventually persuaded out of the cave by gods and Shinto priests telling her she was so beautiful and how everyone missed her. They set up a mirror outside the cave and pleaded with her to just come out and see how beautiful she was with her own eyes. Once she emerged from the cave she was carried off to heaven and forbidden to return to the earth to hide in caves forevermore.

It is this cave that Amaterasu hid is that is located in Takachiho. The path to the cave is an easy walk about ten to fifteen minutes into the forest. It is flat for the most part and follows a little stream which soon turns into a river. The cave is along the river. It is a large cave and it has a shrine nestled in the back. The area surrounding the shrine and the river is full and I mean FULL of rock piles and cairns. You can’t step off the path at all without knocking over a cairn.

It was here that I was hit with the most intense feeling that I can only describe as awe. I've felt it since, but it was here that felt it first. We have many stories all over the world, and some of them even reference places in the real world that we can go to. But living in America, there are not a whole lot of places that I can realistically visit that are as steeped in myth and legend. Take Christianity, for example, there are plenty of holy sites, but they are on the other side of the world. Even if I did have the money to go visit them, it’s not really safe enough for me to want to. Not like Japan, where you can see sites pulled straight out of the storybooks with relative ease. This is the feeling that I was hit with like a ton of bricks as I stood in the cave of Amaterasu, I hope I did it justice.

After the cave we headed back to the main center of town so we could catch our bus. While we were waiting for the bus to arrive we were browsing through a little gift shop. The owner gave us a little cup of tea with gold flakes in it. It was so strange, it tasted like a broth, but it had a flavor that I recognized but couldn’t place. ((Three years later while visiting Kyoto, I ran into another tea shop that gave out samples of the same tea. It had been bothering me for years because I didn’t know what it was called or what the flavor in it was. It has plum in it and it and I bought a package. The one I had in Kyoto didn’t have any gold leaf in it, but it tasted as amazing as I remembered it. I would have loved to have seen the look on my face as I recognized the tea I was drinking to the one I remembered fondly from three years prior. I still don’t know what it’s called, but now I have the in ingredient list and I can probably figure it out.)) ((Update: It's called Umecha or "Plum Tea."))

The bus arrived and took us back to Kumamoto. Alison got off early and continued her adventures from some forgotten town between Kumamoto and Takachiho.

We arrived in Kumamoto and snapped some photos of stone creatures on the sidewalk on the way back to the station.

Chris and I were able to board a shinkansen back to Shin-Osaka station. That trip was another five or six hours, if I remember right.

It was after midnight, although I don’t remember exactly what time, when we arrived and we caught the last train that was headed towards our stop. But because it was so late the train actually stopped a few stops before our station. It was kind of a pain. We checked google and found that if we walked from this station, it would take us three hours to walk to our apartments. But, as luck would have it, when we emerged from the station we saw a line of taxis that were waiting for people like us who hadn’t been able to make it all the way to their destination. We showed the cab driver the address and tried to make small talk, but he was having none of it.

I remember that cab ride as being one of the scariest in my life. He took off like a bat out of hell! He sped and weaved through the streets, going as fast as he could. I don’t know what his motivation to go so fast was, but my Goodness! When we got close enough to our neighborhood and recognized where we were we told him that this was close enough and he could let us out here. He seemed confused as to why we cut the trip short, but it was because we didn’t want to die as he attempted to speed through the tiny streets of our neighborhood.

It took us another fifteen minutes to walk to our doors. By this time it was close to 3 a.m. I crashed so hard and got up bright and early for school the next day. I powered my way through on ~3-4 hours of sleep.

Here is a manhole cover near the station in Kumamoto.