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With a major samurai exhibition coming to the British Museum this year, and a new Shōgun series is on the way, The Telegraph writer John Gimlette went looking for the real thing in Japan. He travelled on our Samurai Footsteps itinerary – and found the samurai legacy very much alive.
It’s not often we get lost in time. But when we arrive in Japan, we think we’ve landed in 2070. The trains run at 200mph; robots man the information points; you say goodbye to your luggage at one hotel, and it reappears at the next. Japan makes the future look easy.
But soon we realise we’re also immersed in the Middle Ages. It’s not just the courtly manners and chivalrous staff. Some things have remained almost unchanged hundreds of years: formal wear, diet, bedrooms (with their rush mats and futons), communal baths, and the lingering interest in swords. And then there’s the pervasive legacy of the samurai, that delicate mix of trepidation and beauty.
To better understand all this, I’d approached InsideJapan, probably the best in their field. “Japan gets almost 60 million tourists a year, and can get extremely busy,” says Japan specialist, James Mundy, “But if you seek out the samurai story, you find yourself in some of the quieter, more interesting places like Inuyama, Kiso Fukushima and Nagasaki .” With that, he arranged a 2,000-mile inter-island trip for me, my wife and daughter, travelling mostly by Shinkansen bullet train. Here are the highlights.
Asia’s answer to Ancient Rome
Receiving 24 million tourists a year, Kyoto is hardly a backwater. But it was the crucible of samurai world. From about 1200AD onwards, this warrior class held sway for almost 700 years, foisting discipline and humility on Japanese society. Discourtesy was punishable with instant decapitation, and even petty criminals were crucified or boiled alive.
But it was also a time of magnificence, and Kyoto has been left with tea gardens, palaces, and over 2,000 shrines. One, Sanjusangendo, (dated 1266) is over 400 feet long and contains 1,000 super-sized golden deities each with 40 arms. Another, Fushimi Inari, has a tunnel of over 10,000 gateways stretching off into the forest. There’s also a kimono shop, Chiso, established in 1555, and the great Nishiki Market where you can buy anything from fermented fish to a sparrow-on-a-stick.
Best of all is the Ninomaru-goten Palace. Constructed from cedar, gilt and paper screens, it’s both airy and daunting. Gigantic tigers leap across the walls, and the floorboards squeak underfoot, to deter assassins. Built for the emperor around 1600, it was soon commandeered by Japan’s most powerful samurai clan, the Tokugawa. That year, they butchered the opposition in battle, sidelined the emperor, and ruled for much of the next three centuries.
A last samurai castle
Fires, earthquakes and Allied bombing have all taken their toll. Most city castles – like Kyoto and Osaka – are reproductions. But Inuyama, near Nagoya, is the real thing, built around 1537. From the outside, it looks like a stack of dainty, ornamental pavilions. But, inside, it’s more a Tudor warship, with gunports and steep chunky stairs. The family who owned it have even left us with some samurai armour. It’s curious stuff: stormtrooper helmets fitted with antlers or giant moustaches (Tokyo’s National Museum has even wackier samples; fish-scale armour and helmets like sea-shells. You might also like the arrows fitted with whistles, to make the battlefield scream).
Fighting and eating Osaka-style
After the niceties of Imperial Kyoto, Osaka seemed raucous and fun. We joined a sword-fighting class, and hired a guide to show us the night life. Osakans, she said, were famously hard-working, loud, boozy and epicurean (“We call it East Manchester!” she laughed). I tried octopus dumplings and deep-fried tongue, and a draught of pear-scented sake. We also came across a ‘hedgehog café’, canals threading through the skyscrapers, and a sort of all-night Woolworths with a department of sex aids.
Our hotel, the Hilton, looked down on Osaka Castle. It’s probably the most impressive fortress ever built, with 15 acres of concentric pea-green moats and 9 miles of ramparts (some still 120ft high). But it wasn’t invincible. In 1614, it was captured by Japan’s greatest Shōgun (or supreme commander), Tokugawa Ieyasu. Depicted in films as a dashing samurai, he was – in reality – too corpulent to mount his horse.
It was also here that Ieyasu met Japan’s first Englishman. Shipwrecked on the south coast, William Adams had fully expected to be boiled or chunked. But the Shōgun had other ideas.
See all stops on the Samurai Footsteps route
A little England among the Samurai
Of all our samurai stopovers, Nagasaki was probably the most spectacular and intriguing. Sprinkled over jungly mountains and inlets, it’s like a mini-Hong Kong. All around were warships, cranes, eagles, and cable cars, lending the city an air of drama and promise.
All sorts of people have ended up here, including the Portuguese (1543), the Jesuits (1571) and William Adams. Although some of these encounters ended unhappily (in crucifixion), Nagasaki is still 10% Catholic. Adams, meanwhile, became the Shōgun’s adviser and was appointed a samurai (it helped that he’d arrived with 500 muskets). The trading post he promoted – the Dejima wharf – has now been lovingly preserved, along with all its guns, gin bottles and Delft. Between 1614 and 1859, this was the only place in Japan permitted to foreigners.
I’m not the only Briton charmed by Nagasaki. The Victorians loved it, and an enclave of bungalows, called Glover Park, has somehow survived. Photographs from the 1870s depict the samurai (still in robes and swords) being retrained by the British as engineers and shipbuilders. Even now a little Britishness lingers on in the DNA of Mitsubishi and Kirin Beer.
All this industry made Nagasaki a target. Ironically, the atomic bomb exploded over the city’s cathedral killing 70,000 (including 8,500 Catholics). A museum tells the whole story in molten bottles and squashed steel. Our hotel, The Indigo (then an orphanage), escaped the worst. Exquisitely refurbished, it’s a reminder that life goes on, sometimes more lavishly than ever.
Bamboo and bears
Between Kyoto and Tokyo, a mountain path leads over the Lower Japanese Alps. We hiked about 25km, up the Kiso Valley: a world of cypress forests, rice paddy, giant bamboo, spirits, and bears. At regular intervals, we had to ring a large brass bell, to avoid any growly encounters.
This path – called the Nakasendo Trail – was well-known to the samurai. Every two years, their commanders had to clamber over the mountains to pay homage to the Shōgun in Edo (modern-day Tokyo). It’s funny, the things they left behind: giant stone lanterns, mini forts, Buddha-shaped mileposts and a tree-stump full of coins. Each night, the samurai would stop at a juku or post-town. I loved these places, with their cedar streets, hot springs and old ryokan (or inns). It was like stepping into one of Hiroshige’s dreamy prints.
My favourite juku was Narai. It had grown rich in the 1800s making lacquer combs and had barely changed since then. Everyone had wooden fire buckets and a tiny bonsai garden. ‘BEWARE OF MONKEYS’, read the signs. In the evening, we were dressed in kimonos and seated on mats. It was, I imagine, a proper samurai dinner: poached eel, welks and pickled plum.
Shōgun-on-Sea
An hour or so west of Tokyo, the thickly-forested mountains plummet into the sea at Ito, and a beach appears. It was here that Adams built the Shōgun his first western-style ship. Japan has never forgotten this, and Adams (known here as ‘Anjin’ or Pilot) is still celebrated in place-names, statues, films, festivals and brands of beer. But he was never allowed home, and died – rich and homesick – in 1620.
On the very spot where the ship was built, a remarkable hotel has appeared. The Kai Anjin has gorgeous charcoal interiors, plate-glass views and its own hot springs. I don’t know what you call this style but Jacobean Cool will do.
Tokyo the Great
Tokyo takes all this to extremes: a futuristic super-city on samurai foundations. Although home to 14 million people and some of world’s tallest, funkiest buildings, a complex and disciplined culture survives. It’s all there in the detail: the paper lanterns, the dogs-in-pants, the ‘WANTED’ posters (‘Reward: 6 million yen!’) and the shops selling geisha wigs and split-toe socks. Head for ‘Samurai Experience’ and you can even buy an original sword (for around £8,000).
A few samurai haunts still exist. There are the gigantic ramparts of Edo Castle, of course, and the Ueno Toshugu shrine built for Ieyasu (who’s still revered in gold-leaf and prayer). We also wandered the Hama-rikyu Gardens, where the warlords drank tea and hunted ducks. Best of all is Senso-Ji, a vast complex of crimson temples and pagodas. One shrine commemorates a samurai who, after a career in mutilation, retired here to live a life of remorse.
Our last morning, we went to a sumo ‘stable’. I won’t easily forget the sight of these great, globular men pounding round the ring. Oddly, sumo had been banned during the Shōgun era, being too vulgar and crude. That seems rather precious for such seasoned killers.
The shōgunate finally collapsed in 1868. At last, Japan began to change, becoming – eventually – the place we love, and the place it is today: energised, fascinating, delightfully strange, and cautiously modern.
John Gimlette travelled on our Samurai’s Footsteps itinerary.
John Gimlette is a barrister and regular contributer to the travel pages of The Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian, as well as publications including Conde Nast Traveller and Wanderlust. He is an author of several books, including his latest, The Gardens of Mars. Madagascar, an Island Story.