Visiting to the Tabaruzaka battle field, Kumamoto

After seeing the iris watching at Lake Kagurame, we decided to take a drive to see the Tabaruzaka battle field (田原坂公園 -koen, which means "park" in Japanese), located the former Ueki Town (植木町 -machi) now become a part of Kumamoto city. This place is known as the Battle of Tabaruzaka which took place in March 1877, was a major battle of the Satsuma Rebellion.

The weather forecast says it will be rain in the afternoon. It started to rain on the way around Yufuin. When we got into the Yamanami highway mountain road, it came out fog. We couldn't see at all around, therefore we must follow the mountain road to go down. Keep taking a foggy road for a while, it becomes a flat road from Ozu. But we had encountered another problem twice on the middle of Kumamoto prefecture road 30. It seems like much confused because there's no direction to Ueki in the intersection! Finally, we arrived at Tabaruzaka Park at 6:30 pm.

Dankon-no-ie (弾痕の家) or the house of bullet holes. It still remains the bullet holes which occurred during the Battle of Tabaruzaka. Next to the house, there is a museum. It is possible to know the fierce battle at that time.

Monuments for Battle of the Satsuma Rebellion. In the cenotaph, it is inscribed as the dead bodies both the imperial forces and the Satsuma clan. Also a memorial tower for the battle is setting up in the foreground.

A view of the west direction from a small hill. It was a rainy day, I was able to see the rural landscape.

It was nothing to do that because of the heavy rain. The new museum will be open soon, so we'll visit there again in autumn.