Kumamon!

It is well known that Japan loves its mascots. Almost every city has one, but it doesn’t stop there: trains, stations, even transport cards. On the latter, JR (Japan Railways) is trying to retire the very famous Suica penguin and to replace it with a new one, facing a lot of backlash from the public because the Japanese LOVE their mascots!

We thought we’d quickly say hi to a very famous mascot by spending a night in Kumamoto: it’s no other than KUMAMON! He’s one of the most popular ones in Japan and has taken over not only his hometown but really the whole Kyushu island. In Kumamoto, it is hard to walk for more than 2 minutes without seeing a depiction of him: photo spots, gift stores, even entire levels of malls are dedicated to him. He is also often depicted with Kumamoto Castle, one of the more famous Japanese castles due to its black features.

Unfortunately, the castle has been a bit unlucky in the last few years: an earthquake in 2016 destroyed big parts of it and restorations were planned to take 35 years, only for it to then be hit by another earthquake last month, which you might have seen in the news. In full Japanese fashion the stones were all laid out, marked and labelled in order to put them back exactly where they belong. Personally, we haven’t felt an earthquake on our trip yet, but it’s very likely we will, given our extended time here.

We only had one night here, but we experienced two more things worth mentioning, one pleasant, the other one a little bit less so.

For the pleasant one, we enjoyed a few hours in the Suizenji Jojuen Garden. Even though it’s not one of the 3 great Japanese gardens (we will hopefully tick the 2nd one off our list on this trip), it has everything you could wish for: koi fish swimming in the lake, bonsai trees decorating the landscape, and a miniature Mount Fuji (that’s what it was actually called on the park map) providing the necessary backdrop.

For the not-so-pleasant experience, we tried one of the local specialities: horse meat sashimi. We ordered it based on the recommendation of Waki, a local we had dinner with and who made for a wonderful night apart from the dish. For us, the slices of raw horse were very chewy and almost impossible to swallow. Even though we like our meat fairly rare we will be sticking to the maguro sashimi for now!

Only a few pics this time, but one took us 20 minutes to take, trying to find the perfect framing and timing. Can you guess which one?

Country

Japan

Region

Kumamoto

Date

22 September 2026

Camera

Sony a6700

GPS

32.805269,130.705464