Sunday, 28 October 2012
Given the circumstances when I woke the next morning, seemingly the first human to have emerged from slumber, I did a quick calculation and decided if I was going to sit anywhere with the iPad on the knees and continue to tap out the narrative it was a case of finding the niche at the top of the stairs and ignoring the piteous whining emanating from the living area below.
Had I ventured downstairs there would have been two insistent canines demanding attention, and until someone else surfaced and took up the running that would make the writing bit impossible. I hadn't been at it too long before Our Host surfaced, and I caught up on the rest of the previous day before venturing into the maelstrom for a shower and breakfast.
Readers may suspect Hughesy's engaging in a bit of hyperbole when I use the word maelstrom to describe a living area inhabited by two smallish dogs, but given the nonstop hyperactivity (Red Cordial Dog) and the frenzied demands for attention (Grog Dog) I'm afraid no other, more suitable term springs to mind.
It's equally difficult to come up with a word to summarize the venue that occupied the bulk of the day, the small town of Hiraizumi and its premier attraction, Chuson-ji Temple.
We set off just after nine, heading south to a place we'd visited last time around when persistent drizzle had sent us indoors for lunch rather than up the steps to the temple, and had already taken a look at the town's other main draw card at Motsu-ji, and maybe, if I'd done some homework I'd have been more inclined to venture into the drizzle rather than sit inside and shovel curry down the gullet. This time around, however, I'd done fairly detailed research, so strap yourselves in for a fairly lengthy exposition, boys and girls.
There was a certain degree of concern on our hostess' part as to whether I really wanted to go to Chuson-ji, but I produced the handy PDF with the walking around the town map that seemed to quell most of her concerns. There were a number of places I wanted to go, even if going constituted a brief glance and a photo.
On the surface, driving through the town, there's nothing to differentiate Hiraizumi from a myriad of other small Japanese country towns, though if you reach the car parks outside two major attractions you'd soon realize there's something special in the vicinity.
So, the back story...
A population of just under eight and a half thousand is a far cry from the late Heian era (around nine hundred years ago) and the Kamakura period when Hiraizumi was the home of the Hiraizumi Fujiwaras, the most powerful clan in Japan, and served as the de facto capital of an area that covered nearly one-third of the country. At that point the population was somewhere between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand, and the city’s cultural and political status almost rivalled the national capital, Kyoto.
The oldest structure in Hiraizumi seems to be Hakusan Shrine at the summit of Mount Kanzan (Barrier Mountain), described in 1334 as being seven hundred years old. The shrine has been rebuilt a number of times but its latest incarnation still stands in the same strategic location.
That strategic location, at the junction of the Kitakami and Koromo Rivers, was probably what prompted Fujiwara no Kiyohira to move his home to Mount Kanzan around 1100. The Koromo River was the traditional boundary between the Japanese heartland to the south and the northern Emishi peoples.
Japanese hunters, trappers, settlers and missionaries had been in contact with the Emishi since the early eighth century, with a Buddhist priest Gyōki establishing Kokuseki-ji Temple in the mountains east of the Kitakami River in 729. Military expeditions to subdue the Emishi were repelled in 776 and 787 but a Japanese scorched earth policy of burning crops and capturing and resettling women and children prompted the Emishi leaders Aterui and More to surrender in 802. They were subsequently beheaded.
It’s one thing to defeat your enemies but quite another to keep them subdued, and rather than ruling the newly-acquired territory directly it ended up as half a dozen semi-autonomous districts along the Kitakami River that eventually came under the control of a powerful Emishi clan, the Abe family. Semi-autonomous is the operative word here, and after Abe no Yoritoki refused to pay taxes to Kyoto, led raids south of the Koromo River and acted as if he was an independent ruler he obviously needed to be subdued.
The result was the Zenkunen or Early Nine-Years War (1050-1062) which saw the Abes defeated by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and Kiyohara no Takenori and the six districts handed over to Kiyohara no Takenori. That didn’t work out either, and corruption resulted in the Gosannen or Latter Three Years' War (1083-1087).
Around thirteen years later, Fujiwara no Kiyohira moved to Hiraizumi, right on the former border, planning to rule an area stretching from the Shirakawa Barrier in the south to present day Aomori Prefecture in the north. His new base was located almost exactly in the centre of the Tōhoku region on the main road leading from Kyoto to the north (the Frontier Way).
Kiyohira built Chūson-ji at the top of the mountain and other pagodas, temples and gardens followed through Hiraizumi's golden age that lasted a mere three generations until 1189, when the city was razed by Minamoto Yoritomo, soon to become Japan's first shogun who was in pursuit of his brother and rival Yoshitsune, who was being given protection by the Fujiwara leader. After the fall of the Fujiwaras the town sank back into obscurity, with most of the buildings destroyed. When Matsuo Bashō visited the area in 1689 he reflected on the impermanence of human glory:
Ah, summer grasses!
All that remains
Of the warriors dreams
It was the contrast between the former glory and contemporary reality that prompted the desire to visit somewhere and take a look around a few places where there didn't seem that much to actually see.
But, first, there was Chuson-ji.
We arrived in the car park to find the place close to checkers with not one, not two, but three baton-wielding traffic wardens guiding the incoming flow of cars and buses into appropriate slots in the parking area.
Wandering over to the entrance, we were expecting to pay the regulation couple of hundred yen to get in (nominal fee to fund maintenance and upkeep) and, surprisingly, none was asked for, though we did receive a fairly flash English language leaflet describing the town's main attractions.
We made our way up the hill, through a magnificent avenue of ancient trees, passing a variety of smaller structures.
Apart from its status as Hiraizumi's most famous temple, Chūson-ji serves as the head temple of the Tendai sect in Tōhoku, but it is best known for its Golden Hall (Konjikidō), a mausoleum that contains the mummified remains of the leaders of the clan who ruled the region in its 12th century heyday.
The Tendai sect claims the temple was founded in 850 by Ennin, but most scholars believe Chūson-ji was founded around 1100 since there is no archaeological or historical record of Buddhist activity in this area before that time.
Similar to Kyoto's Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion), the Konjikidō is a hall completely covered in gold, dates back to 1124, one of two buildings that survive from the original complex. The other is the Kyozo Hall, which served as a repository for sutra (Buddhist scripture). While not nearly as impressive as the gilded Konjikido, it predates that building by 16 years.
The Konjikidō originally sat in the open air, but successive measures to protect it from the elements saw it housed inside a wooden building that still stands on the site today, and subsequently moved inside a purpose built concrete building behind thick glass so that it's now only visible from the front.
Dedicated to Amida Nyorai (the Buddha of Infinite Light) the structure, which measures five-and-a-half metres on the sides and stands eight metres high, contains altars for each of the first three Fujiwara lords. Apart from the roof, the whole thing is covered with gold leaf, decorated with golden lacquer and mother-of-pearl, and studded with gold and silver, with three Buddha images.
Walking around the network of paths that reach around a kilometre into the mountaintop forest there's more to Chusonji than the golden hall, though that is, of course, what draws the crowds. Other interesting buildings on site include a number of interesting buildings apart from those dating back to the Fujiwara period. There's the Hondo (main hall), where the main rituals and rites are performed, a Treasure Hall that houses some impressive artifacts and a noh theatre stage.
Having made our way around the temple, it was time for something solid in the way of sustenance, and given the number of tourists and sightseers in the area you'd probably expect a lengthy delay, though one hoped the majority of those inclined to seek out lunch were in the process of being delayed by the booming drums and the Noh theatre performance we'd bypassed.
We were on a sealed side track, separate from the path we'd followed on the way up when we passed a seemingly innocuous building with some Japanese signage out the front. I'd probably have wandered past, but Our Host pulled us up, took a squiz at the sign and suggested we head inside. The description of what we'd be getting inside wasn't the sort of thing that would prompt an immediate Yes! But, on the other hand, if we could get in that took the lunch issue right off the agenda.
Which it duly did, and rather tasty it was, too. We could go into details, but there are memory, space and tapping time issues that keep us moving relentlessly forward. Lunch was also punctuated by frequent updates on the score line from a soccer semifinal, where Our Host's school were battling the local equivalent of Argentina for a spot in the final. At two-nil down things did not look promising.
Back in the car we headed off in search of locations associated with former glories and frequent updates on the soccer score line, which moved from two-nil down to two-all by full time. an own goal had the opposition ahead, then came the equalizer before the team hero slotted in the penalty that won the game.
And there's a little story that goes with that. The star footballer, obviously not a scholastic type, had been looking at avenues of employment once he's finished his schooling and wasn't a candidate for tertiary education. He had, according to Our Host, already applied for a job as a fireman, and had been scheduled for the old job interview that very day. With a morning match against Morioka and a morning job interview it looked like something was going to have to give, and you'd probably assume that a career path would take precedence over temporary sporting glory.
At the same time the Japanese seem to take their school sport fairly seriously. The first full day of our last visit coincided with the Grand Final of a High School baseball competition significant enough to warrant nationwide TV coverage.
I know because I saw it, and we ended up sitting at a table next door to a bunch of celebrating Okinawans, chainsmoking and toasting their home town's national success later that evening.
A soccer semifinal in the Deep North might not be in quite the same territory, but was significant enough to have the Mayor, in his capacity as head honcho of the local authorities, order the Fire Brigade to reschedule the interview so the school's star striker could play.
They lost the Grand Final, but he subsequently got the job.
As far as the locations associated with former glories were concerned, the weather put paid to Hughesy's plan to wander around the place on foot, but we managed to find the ruins of Kanjizaiō-in which once boasted a 'Pure Land' style Jōdo Garden, built by Fujiwara Motohira's wife. That was destroyed by fire in the 16th century, and while many of the structures were rebuilt afterwards today, all that remains is a park and a pond.
Across the road from the park a sign on the edge of a cluster of contemporary houses represents all that's left of what amounted to the commercial sector of the section of the Frontier Way that effectively represented old Hiraizumi's main street, an area that included several tens of blocks of shops, storehouses and commercial premises.
From there we took ourselves over to the ruins of Muryokō-in Temple, modelled after Byodo-in Temple in Kyoto , but apart from the sign that identifies the location all that remains is the temple's pond, along with a larger sign that gives you an impression of the magnificent structure that once stood there.
We also made our way towards the summit of Mount Kinkeisan, where Buddhist sutras were once buried, and while, under more favourable conditions I might have been tempted to take a stroll down the paved path I figured I'd dictated the agenda for long enough, and passed over the reins to Our Host, figuring it wasn't that long before the train left and there were other fish to fry, more than likely in an environment of coloured leaves.
The quest for coloured leaves brought us back to the Genbi Gorge, home of the flying dungo, though you'd have expected the weather to have stifled the dungo trade. We parked behind the Sahara Glass Park,and once again pretend to be paying customers before heading for the gorge, where the coloured leaves weren't quite at their best yet, but weren't too far off.
From there it was on to the station at Ichinoseki, farewell to Our Host, and on to a Shinkansen that took us as far as Morioka, where news of the soccer semifinal defeat didn't seem to have reached the platform. We made our way across to the right line for the Akita Shinkansen, and we're on the ground in Kakunodate on schedule in not quite pitch dark and drizzle just after five-fifteen.
Fortunately the hotel was located right next door to the station, the rain wasn't falling that heavily and the dash across open space was a mere cricket pitch or thereabouts.
Better, a quick investigation revealed a coin laundry, which solved a slight predicament. We'd been on the road for five days, and the laundry backup wasn't anywhere near the desperate stage, but with two nights in Kakunodate, a late arrival into Aomori on Tuesday and an evening appointment in Sendai on Wednesday, it made sense to get what we'd accumulated clean, and push the crisis point back another week or so.
Dinner at the hotel restaurant did a perfectly acceptable job of filling a yawning gap without threatening to hit any heights, and we treated to the room, free Wi Fi and a couple of healthy slugs out of the bottle of sake that had been donated to the keep them warm in the mountains campaign in Kitakami.
Needless to say there was no question of needing any rocking...
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