Don't appear to a verandah

Bizarre frog being attacked by samurai lizards sculpture at the entrance to Nawate Street.
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On Sunday, so as not to have wasted the whole weekend by sleeping in on Friday, Adam and I went to Matsumoto in Nagano.  We took a 2 hour, 1800 yen local train ride that left Kofu at around 9am.  Matsumoto is a big but beautiful city and very different from Kofu.  Mostly cleaner and less crowded I think.  It also has many scultures and bizarre details.

The main attraction in Matsumoto is Matsumoto-jo (Matsumoto castle) which was built around 400 years ago as a fortress (thus no comforts of daily life exist there).  We got a free English tour from two volunteers with the Good Will Society which was very interesting.  The tour of the castle took about an hour and had us walking up and down narrow passageways with insanely high steps and enormous crowds of people in our frozen sock feet.  It was almost all made of wood and was interesting to see the Japanese style castles as opposed to the stone ones of Europe.

We found a store that sold pokemon, pianos, and high powered weapons.

Warrior window
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Two things I was particularly impressed with were the warrior windows windows with thick wooden slats that were covered by another panel of wooden slats the same size as the openings on the first.  When you slide the slats over the openings the window is closed.  When you want to open it you slide it so that the slats are on top of the slats and hence the openings line up with the openings.  I think that all houses should have these, especially those in Florida.  I was also impressed with the tiny shrine that was built in the rafters of the top floor of the castle.  Another interesting feature was the hidden floor.  From the outside the castle looks like it has 5 floors but there is a secret hidden floor between the 3rd and 4th floors that you can't see from the outside.  The tower with the verandah was also neat.  The room with the verandah was a moon viewing room which was built after the civil war ended (and was thus just for decoration and luxury).  When you slide the wooden screens back you can see all around the castle.  The guide told us that they used to say that you could enjoy three full moons at once in that room.  One in the sky, one in the reflection in the moat, and one in the reflection in your glass of sake.

Matsumoto-jo
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The rest of the day we just wandered around.  The lady at the tourist information centre said that Nawate street was interesting.  It definitely did prove to have some unusual shops and was on the banks of a very nice and clean river.  We found a store that sold pokemon, pianos, and high powered weapons.  There were also stores selling bonsai plants, antique hankos, koi fish, huge spikes with Japanese family names in kanji engraved on them, and tons of tacky, mostly frog-related, souvenirs.  We also passed a shrine where they seemed to be having some sort of ceremony (lots of women in kimonos and banging drums).

View from Matsumoto-jo of the castle grounds and beyond.
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The lady at the TIC also told us about a cafe that sold cheesecake.  Adam wanted to try it so we tracked it down and the word is that is was gelatinous and gooey.  Not exactly Western style.

We then wandered to find the Genchi well that was marked on the map.  I thought it would be a bit more elaborate than it was but it was just a well in which the water had been directed to spurt in streams for ease of filling containers.  There was a shrine immediately behind it and many people were there filling jugs and other huge containers that lead us to believe this was their daily drinking water.  I washed the tea out of my thermos and filled it with the cold, clean water.

We then meandered through the streets searching for a statue that looked like a giant penis on the map we had.  I just wanted to see what it really was and why it looked like that on the map.  It turned out to be a 2 foot high stone with a rope tied around it displaying folded paper in the fashion usually seen at shrines.  When we went in search of another giant statue on the map, we found that it was a warrior with a wooden backpack around 1 foot high and definitely unimpressive.

One thing that I really wanted was a colourful temari.  Made only in Matsumoto, temari are made by placing a rock in a loose covering of paper.  The paper is then wrapped in white cotton thread until it is the desired size (anywhere from 6 inches to a foot in diameter).  It is then finished by wrapping it in coloured cotten threads with intricate designs.  If the temari has been crafted in the authentic tradition, you should be able to hear the rock banging around inside when you shake it.  I realized that I really had no use for a colourful ball no matter what painstaking efforts had gone into its creation so I decided not to get one afterall.  Adam got a keychain with Hello Kitty in a kimono and a plastic representation of a temari beside her.  This will have to due I guess.

We wanted to go to an open air art museum that was put together by the same guy that made the one in Hakone (which I have heard was amazing) but you have to take a bus there and back and pay to get in so it would have ended up costing us 3600 yen each to see it.  Matsumoto has all kinds of weird museums that make you wonder who would go to see them like the Matsumoto Timepiece Museum and the Matsumoto City Museum of Measurement Instruments.  None of which we visited. One thing I did want to see was the print making exhibit at the Matsumoto City Museum but I forgot that that was where it was and as the museum charged 600 yen admission we decided to pass.

We got back to Kofu around 7pm and went to Adam's to watch Lucky Number Sleven with Joel and some snacks from Ogino (grocery store).  Good movie.  I would recommend it.

So that was Matsumoto.  More photos are at my photo site (http://82fly.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php).