Wednesday, February 13, 2008
pilgrimage for Musashi
Miyamoto Musashi was one of the most famous samurai ever. He was well known for his 2 sword fighting style, and for the authorship of “The Book of 5 Rings”. This is Reigando cave where he mediated for 90 days and wrote the book.
In the tourist brochures this is listed as an attraction that is only a short 12km trip just outside of town. A short day trip. 1/2 a day in fact.
What they don’t tell you is that in fact, this place is in the mountains around Kumamoto, and that there is no public transport. Even some locals I asked, hadn’t heard of it. We had just rented our little Nissan, and it was suggested that we go there before we headed further to Mt. Aso. It took us double the calculated time due to :
1. Driving with a right hand drive
2. Narrow Japanese roads
3. GPS speaking Japanese and all instructions in Japanese
4. Mountainous roads
But we made it. We were the only ones there… It was peaceful, and very scenic. I could see why Musashi loved to go there.
When I was younger and practiced martial arts, I read his books and the novel about his life. It was very inspiring, and affected the way I thought about things. To think that all these years later I would go to this cave is very amazing to me. And to be able to visit it with Dallas and not have other tourists about made it more special. like it ( the cave ) was still existing for us to come one day.
