Japan 2010, Day 7

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Arnond was in charge of the plan for today, and he graciously allowed us to go to Matsumoto Castle before heading to Tsumago, since we were unable to do it the previous day. We showed up at the castle not long after it opened, and it was a pretty chilly morning. It was a much less complicated castle complex than Himeji, with a very simple layout for the outer walls. There was a collection of donated period firearms on display in the castle, and the way displays were set up inside it was very similar to Himeji Castle.

Some of the guns on display

There were some interesting later additions to the complex, like one section that used lotus flower-shaped windows due to later influence of Chinese Buddhist architecture. This castle was also one of the few castles to have a moon viewing room, an addition used to entertain guests during the peaceful later years of the castle. The room was quite a bit more open than any other rooms of the castle, and the outside terrace was painted red, in contrast with the white and black of the rest of the castle.

The moon viewing room from the outside

When we finished up looking around the castle, we checked out the city museum next door, as our admission ticket covered that as well. While we were looking around it, an old Japanese lady kept coming up to us to explain little things about Japanese religion. I think at first she didn’t want us to misunderstand Japanese traditional culture, coming up to us to explain that the phallic worship objects on display were not to be taken in an erotic fashion. She popped up a few times later to explain things as we ran into her again in the museum. She seemed to primarily talk at Arnond, probably because he looked the most Japanese, as she had pegged me for Chinese, and Chris was just clearly not Japanese.

Hina Matsuri dolls on display on the 2nd floor of the museum

It was kind of funny since Arnond was probably the least capable of understanding what she was talking about since he had the least experience with Japanese. On our way out, Chris picked up some omiyage, being this delicious thing called “Letter from the Alps”, and if I remember correctly, also Kit Kats with a local flavor for his family back home. We then left for Tsumago. I was actually surprised at how long Arnond had allowed us to stay at the castle, as at that point in the day, we would have very little time in Tsumago. I hope he didn’t cut into the time too much by trying to be considerate; I think we would have been fine with hurrying up if he wanted us to. Anyway, we got to the station with our bags, and it took a bit of work before we were able to figure out that the best way of getting to Tsumago would be by taking a local the whole way, as any expresses we took would not stop there, and we’d have to wait for the same local to get to the right stop anyway, which was Nagiso. After we got on the train, I slept for a good portion of the way, but when I woke up, I found the scenery to be breathtaking. The path the train took followed a river through the mountains, and looking out at the river and the mountains was just very beautiful. I should have taken photos of it, from the train, but I was thinking I’d be better off taking photos once we got off the train, which didn’t work out. Anyway, upon arriving at Nagiso, we found that we basically only had an hour at Tsumago before we had to take the bus back to the station to catch the last train out to Nagoya, which is something we had not realized. We made the best of it and took a bus from the station to Tsumago and looked around the preserved Edo-period town.

Arnond looking at the Tsumago guide map

It was actually somewhat of a disappointment because although the buildings were all certainly Edo period, the road was still paved, giving it the same feeling as you might get from an older section of any other rural Japanese city. Also, the weather wasn’t so great, with the air misty and it raining on and off.

A view of the town and the mist

We then caught the bus back to the station, and caught the express to Nagoya. We got there early enough to switch over to the Hikari, and we made it all the way back to Tokyo. As we hadn’t been sure that we’d be able to get there that night, we hadn’t made hotel reservations in advance, and were unable to get rooms at the hotel we were keeping our stuff at. As such, Chris and I just got a room at a different hotel in the area. The arrangement led to a strange thing with our original hotel, where they wouldn’t let more than one of us go up to the room with our stuff because of their policy. That meant we had to go up separately to prepare our stuff for the next few days at Nikko and Mito. After Chris and I got our stuff, we went to our hotel and talked a bit with each other until going to sleep.