Coming ashore, we weren't asked to declare anything. An immigration officer, a portly middle-aged man in blue uniform and peaked cap, seemed interested in the fact that I was arriving in the morning and departing in the afternoon, less fearful of my activities in Japan and more personal interest in my interest in Tsushima. He seemed like a great people watcher. Having gotten loose from customs, I exited the building into a comparative steam bath and started down the road on foot. Immediately on my right was a revered old hill, called Tategami, or the Standing Turtle, which is nevertheless covered in a metal mesh to protect the buildings below from erosion and rockfall. I didn't know it at the time, but there's apparently a shrine at the top of it. Knowing that I owed a 1700Y cash fee to the port before I could disembark, the first thing I did was set out for the post office, which my map said hosted a global ATM. I got out my money, and then headed across the street to the Red Cabbage, the local grocery store, as Laura is a great fan of grocery stores.
I think she would have liked the Red Cabbage. Not only does it have a true diversity of items, the store was visually interesting, not just with great produce, but great advertising and funny advertising, with murals of farmers and a model of Godzilla's foot crushing through the ceiling. I took lots of photos (Facebook) for Laura, but could find nothing that interested me for lunch. I went down the street and found the Hotto Motto, a bento lunch counter. For 600Y and some, I got tempura veggies and chicken on a bed of rice, plus iced green tea. The lady behind the counter spoke no English, but I got along just fine by pointing at pictures in the advertisements on the wall. Having found the entrance to the former Kaneishi Castle, I sat on a low wall and dug in. I was starved, and the meal was cooked perfectly. At one point a little boy wandered by and said "Hi," and I was sure to return a friendly "Hello," albeit through a mouthful of rice.
The gate of the former Kaneishi Castle is part gate, part donjon, and part pagoda, and was reconstructed in 1990, from what remnants (a stone foundation?), and from what historical records (drawings? contemporary surviving structures?), I could not say. From there I walked to the former castle gardens, which today is mostly just a pond, some Zen boulders, and part of an old wall. I didn't get very far, and only took a few photos, before a gardener shooed me out. The gate was open and the garden was supposed to be open to the public, so I don't know what happened. There's also supposed to be a 300Y fee, but I didn't see anyone to take my money, so. But there wasn't much to see, so I scampered off.
The path from the gate to the garden then continues around to dump you at the end of the street you started the path on, in front of Banshoin Temple, a Buddhist shrine built in 1615 by the 20th daimyo (lord) of the So clan to honor his father, the 19th daimyo. The temple isn't original, having been reduced to ashes on several occasions, but the gate is, flanked by two scary looking wood-carved statues of Buddhist demons. I paid a 300Y fee to enter the grounds, though I skipped the temple itself, as I didn't care to remove my shoes, which at that point were already a bit muddy just from walking the 50 metres from the ticketing window to the temple porch (or stupa stoop, as I'd like to call it). I leaned in though and got a few photos. It doesn't appear to be a regularly ritually active site, but offerings are left on a daily basis.
Heading back out and to the left, one continues up a giant stone staircase lined by ishidoro, stone lanterns of a funerary cast, the fire and smoke of which remind visitors of the ethereal, airy nature of the soul. Here along the way were terraces containing the graves (ashes) of the So clan, the daimyos of Tsushima. These are all stone pillars in the form of a stupa, surrounded by a low stone wall, sometimes attended by a stone bodhisattva. Generally the higher one went, the more recent--and ostentatious--the graves. Here you are truly ascending into the rainforest that is the Tsushima hillside and mountains, and everything is wet and carpeted with various mosses and slimes. The photos fail to capture just how green everything is. That combined with the age of the site, and the stone walls and graves, gave everything a distinct Indiana Jones flavor.
Many people do not attempt to climb the Banshoin graves because of health and fitness issues, but I made it to the top, and then back down again, no worse for the wear than a mosquito bite. At this point I decided my next destination should be Hachimangu Shrine, a Shinto temple to the southeast along the main street. I should mention here what the neighborhoods are like. Generally, except for two major thoroughfares with proper two-way traffic, all other steets in town are more like alleys, where cars can only pass with considerably difficulty. They are all lined with neatly dressed and fitted stone. Houses are very compact, and no space goes to waste. That space not occupied by the house or parking for a single vehicle is usually given over to carefully cultivated ornamental gardens. And odd though typically (according to Laura) Japanese feature is the presence of a vending machine on every corner--no matter how abandoned--selling small cans of coffee, soft drinks, or soup. Almost as frequent are Jizo shrines, small hutches containing the effigy of the kami or bodhisattva Jizo, a creepy hairless doll-like figure, supposed to help the sick children of people leaving offerings, usually coins. Who collects these coins is unknown to me, but it seems like brisk business.
Hachimangu Shrine is noticed from the main road by its large stone torii, an sort of arch or gate that delineates sacred space from the profane. It was free, especially in that it was empty of any people who could accept a fee. Coming up a few flights of stone steps, one walks right under a roofed gate towards the shrine proper, past rows of graves, a sacred spigot, and a roofed rack or screen to which are tied various prayers or spells, to the left; to the right seem like a series of practical buildings. At the end of the paved walk is the shrine itself, but the doors were closed and even the approach to peek inside was barred by a low stone table or altar. Headed back out the gate, there were two smaller shrines, each with their doors slightly open, empty but for a broom in the one. Both had smaller shrine buildings behind these, but they were closed up and inaccessible except through the fore-shrine, which I was pretty sure weren't for visitors to enter unbidden.
I then came back out of Hachimangu and crossed the street, headed south to Kokubunji Temple through a warren of side streets. The good thing about Izuhara is that it is so small that if you head in generally the right direction, you will presently stumble across whatever you're looking for. Kokubunji is an active Buddhist temple, the modern building sited on the former site of the first temple, from the early 19th century, which burnt down. The gate however seems to be original, and Kokubunji was the lodging for the Korean late Joseon delegation. Behind the temple, stretching back into the hills, are countless more graves, presided over by stone stupas. By this point my feet were well-blistered, and though the temple presently had some sort of activity going on, I decided to take my shoes off to instead sit on the steps to one of the graves and nurse my feet. Though I might have enjoyed seeing the inside of a Buddhist temple, the language barrier frequently means I skip things where the practical difficulties outweigh the cultural or historical value to be gained.
Having re-taped my feet, my next and last sight to see was Seizanji Temple, another active Buddhist site much more in the Zen stamp. This temple was much less visible from the street, but once inside, had rock gardens, raked sand, delicately pruned shrubbery, and all the rest. Again, there was something going on inside--there were shoes piled up under a split curtain emblazed with a tsuru mon, or crane emblem, but even if I wasn't ridiculously tired and suffering in the feet, it would have been too much to have tried to join in on whatever was going on. Out back of the temple was again another hillside graveyard, disappearing up into the hillside forest, much further than I dared climb, given my feet. I surveyed the whole town and port of Izuhara from here, made my peace, and proceeded down from the graves, through the temple grounds, back down to the main road. At length I returned to the terminal and waited the couple hours until the ferry would begin boarding again. I caught a wifi signal, gave my wife an update, and tried to doze a bit on an out-of-the-way bench.
We got back on the ferry without any kind of departing customs or immigration control. My seat this time was a single both window and aisle seat on the port bow. On the way out, I counted more than 30 trawlers, all within a thousand metres of each other, setting to their evening task of squid fishing. I tried to sleep a bit, but my neighbors in the two seats behind me were two Spanish women lisping to each other at a great clip, as they had been that morning, and every time I'd seen them out during the day. I could not imagine what they had left to say to one another, but they kept at it, and loudly. Back at Busan, they seemed to have some difficulty, after we were X-rayed again, with the immigration officer, who did not speak Spanish, and was having trouble with whatever heavily accented scraps of English the women could muster. I handed my declaration to the customs officer--nothing to declare, except a belly full of Hotto Motto--and headed out the door to find a taxi. The fellow I enlisted would only take me to Busan Station (rail) for a flat fee of 10,000W (almost three times the rate by distance), but I was tired enough that I didn't care. Understandably, I don't think a 3,400W fare at rush hour has much profit in it, but my ferry ticket had been unexpectedly discounted 30,000W (I never understood why), so I thought I could afford it. What I couldn't afford was to try cab after cab trying to get a better rate.
The ferry had arrived at Busan at 18:30; at Busan Station, I bought my KTX ticket, got a bulgogi burger at the Lotteria, and boarded the train at 20:00, arriving at Cheonan-Asan station at 22:10. I didn't sleep at all on the train, instead watching a Korean nun in the seat across from me repeatedly nod off into the Lives of the Saints that prefaced her Bible. I caught a cab to the hotel, got up to the room--Laura was already at work for the night--stripped, showered (I felt like a prune stewed in its juices), and then crawled into bed, only to find I wasn't as tired as I should be. My blisters certainly didn't help.
As incredibly tiring, painful, and occasionally scary (Busan Station overnight) as it was, I'm glad I made the trip. I have always wanted to visit Japan. My parents were Marines in Okinawa in the '70s, I was conceived there, almost born there, and was raised by my parents on stories of their time living in Japan. And compared to the hustle and bustle of Korea, and the occasional brusque manners of its inhabitants, I found Tsushima quiet and easy, and the Japanese there to be gentle and retiring. I don't know if I felt any womb-bred sense of belonging to the soil there, but Tsushima itself was a satisfying experience.
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