Venture to Kumamoto

Just about when you felt frustrated you missed the train, it turned out to be the wrong train. I almost got on the train to Nagasaki if I arrived at the Hakata station one minute ealier this morning. Fortunately the right train to Kumamoto was waiting for me at the next platform! And I made it in time.

I got on the rapid train at Hakata Station to Omuda at 9:28. There were not many passaengers on the train. Before the train took off, I saw a fashionable senior lady across the aisle. I became interested in her when she took up a file of music notes. She started glancing the songs in various languages. I gathered my courage to say hello to her and invited her to sit next to me. That's how I got to know Shimoshiro san. She is a soprano teacher and has many singers friends in Taiwan. She left me her home address before she got off at Kiyama for her music class. I was happy to make acquaintance with another singer in Japan.

The train arrived at Omuda at 10:27. I had 30 minutes break to buy the ticket to Kumamoto, bought two freshly baked breads from Trandor, got on a regular train at Omuda at 10:58 and arrived at Kumamoto at 11:45. After checking in the hotel, I got on the Kumamoto City Tram. To my surprise, Toastmaster Tamura Minoru got on the same tram one step ahead of me. Now I had someone to rely upon to get to the next destination.

The moment I walked into the lobby of Kumamoto City Internatioal Center at 2PM, I saw Toastmasters Takashi Suzuki and Hiroyasu Tezuka, I joined them for an afternoon coffee. Then Toastmasters Rio Imamura, Setsuko Noda and many toastmasters showed up. We had a cheerful Toastmasters round-table discussion till 2:30PM, the meet up time to visit the Kumomoto Castle.

D76 Fall Conference 2010 organizing committe invited a senior interpreter to accompany us in Kumamoto Castle. He not only informed us of the history of Kumamoto Castle, but also guided us to see important historic documents and architectures. We also saw the differences of castle walls between Kyomasa and Hosokawa.

Kumamoto Castle is considered as one of the three premier castles in Japan, along with Himeji Castle and Matsumoto Castle. It celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2007. In 1607, Katou Kyomasa completed the present Kumamoto Castle as a large and extremely well fortified castle. In 1632, Hosokawa clan took over the castle and ruled Kumamoto for 240 years. It was besieged in 1877 during the Satsuma Rebellion, and the castle keep and other parts were burned down.

On our way to visit the newly renovated Lord's Inner Palace, I invited Toastmaster Rio Imamura to take a photo with me behind the historic figures. I didn't know who Lady Garcia was till I visited her cemetery at Mt. Tatsuda Park in the northeasern party of Kumamoto City.

Lady Garcia was the wife of Takaoki. Her real name was Tamako Akechi. When she was baptized, she was given the Christian name Lady Garcia. "Garcia" means gratitude in Latin. Lady Garcia married Takaoki Hosokawa through the go-between Nobunaga. When Lady Garcia was 38, she committed suicide as the hostage of Mitsunari Ishida. Lady Garcia wrote the following poem before her death.

"As blossoms fall
I see my fate
In this world
Blossoms pass away
And so must we"

In order to recharge myself before the welcome party in honor of IP Pat Johnson, I found an udon chain store in the shopping mall, I ordered a big chunk of fried burdocka along with a big bowl of plain udon from the counter. I added a big spoon of tanuki on top of my udon. Coincidentally, I found Toastmaster Rio Imamura at the same shop. We sat together to enjoy the most popular plebeian cuisine among Japanese people. Rio told me that he liked Kitsune Udon from childhood.

At the welcome dinner party, International President Pat Johnson delivered an educational speech. She talked about her story of knowing Toastmasters club in 1983, her first encounter of Toastmasters, and she grew with other toastmasters in the past two decades.

After listening to Pat’s inspiring story, the luxurious dinner was served, to my surprise. I was not informed of the dinner. With a full stomach of udon, I still gobbled a big quantity of the delicious dinner without reservation, sashimi, basashi, fried chicken rolls, spaghetti, sushi, cakes.

Toastmaster Taruaki Fujii sat next to me. When he told me that he sang the bass part of No. 9 at Kumamoto Freude Chrous, I found him an angel from the heaven. I recruited him to Joint D67 & D76 Toastmasters chorus immediately. What a lucky Toastmasters day I had from the morning till the evening!