We are waking very early (for us), partly because we are falling asleep by 9pm or not much later, at least I am, and partly because the rooms have mostly been very light. With shoji screens, light permeates from about 5am.
Despite the elaborate meal last night, I was feeling quite peckish this morning. Everyone seemed to appear at the breakfast room at the same time at 8am, and the range of little dishes arrayed before us was beautiful. Pottles of salad, pickles, mackerel, salmon, shrimp, natto, omelette, miso soup, hard boiled eggs and so on, as well as a small variety of European options (cereal, white bread, croissants and yoghurt). We avoided the European food. We admit a downfall in buying a single French pastry last week, otherwise we have been completely European-food free. The pastry wasn't very good anyway.
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| Our choices from the options for breakfast |
The guests are our ryokan are a mix of Japanese and tourists. It's actually quite strange to be bumping into other tourists because we have encountered so few non-Japanese apart from Kyoto. It was therefore really weird to have awful western music played during dinner last night. This morning My Way was on the system. We managed to keep our breakfast down all the same.
Today is our last day exploring and we are rather sad to be leaving. Having said that, we are both winding down and have been enjoying the rest options and settling into train seats when on offer. We've covered a lot of territory, seen many new and wonderful sights and feel our understanding of Japanese culture and the Japanese people is growing.
Some things, of course, we find very odd. We have not seen a single (live) animal during the last few weeks except for a few cats and a small number of toy dogs, normally miniature poodles. The latter are typically dressed up in outfits, often matching if the owners have two dogs. The most bizarre we have seen was a pair wearing matching jeans and glittery t-shirts!
Yesterday we watched a real Japanese greeting. Everyone, everywhere, bows all the time as a matter of politeness. However, when we were on the train yesterday, a young man came into our carriage and greeted an older man in the seat in front of us, perhaps his boss. Clearly they were pleased to see each other, and enthusiastically exchanged words. The younger man formally bowed very low about 20 times during the three minute exchange and the older man about five times. We have read about how the social hierarchy dictates who bows, who bows the lowest and how often, but it was quite something to behold. The politeness and helpfulness of everyone we have met has certainly left a lasting impression on us.
We both love the little Kei cars here. It would be awesome to take one home with us and use it as a little run-around to get the groceries in town. They remind me so much of Lego cars but I realistically think their crash rating wouldn't be too hot! John has seen a comment that your shins form part of the impact absorption.
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| My favourite Kei car is the Daihatsu Canbus, a bit like a VW Camper. |
Our accommodation is about 15 minutes out of the centre of Matsumoto, so a shuttle is provided early and mid-morning. We opted for the 10am departure because the day we have planned is supposed to be relatively easy. After being dropped at the train station, we walked to the highly regarded Matsumoto Castle. I have been trying to get here since our first trip to Japan in 2019, because the castle is one of the oldest remaining in Japan and has the oldest five-story donjon (tower). When the Edo Period ended and was superseded by the Meiji Restoration, the castles were suddenly regarded as obsolete and many were totally dismantled. Matsumoto castle was built in the late 1500s, when various clans were at war with each other. Many have been restored at some time in the last century, normally by completely dismantling them and rebuilding them. All the massive woodwork is pegged together, so it isn't destructive.
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| Matsumoto Castle |
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| The castle had a particularly good old firearms collection - these are incendiary mortars |
Although we've seen many castles by now, this one was stood out for a number of reasons, but the main one being the incredibly steep stairs between the various stories. At one point the stairs rise 40cm with every step, on a 61 degree angle of steepness. Added to this, the lintels were often very low, so you seemed to be crawling upstairs while also ducking your head. It was tough work for John but quite a hoot. Even the shorter Japanese were finding the steps hard to navigate, so they must have been a real test during times of war when samurai were rushing up and down them.
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| Fukashi-jinja Shrine |
With not too much on the agenda for the rest of the day we thought we'd check out the Matsumoto City Museum of Art. What a delightful surprise we had in store for us. We felt a little sad about missing the giant spotted pumpkins on Naoshima Art Island in favour of more time in Okayama last week but we needn't have worried. The Matsumoto Museum of Art had a large and amazing Yayoi Kusama exhibition - the artist of the giant pumpkins. Best of all, there was indeed a giant pumpkin! There were also some amazing and huge fibreglass tulips, a rotating chandelier in a completely mirrored room, a corridor of strange spotted worm-like fabric objects and more, plus the pumpkin. Absolutely lovely.
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| Entrance to the museum with Yayoi Kusama tulips |
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| Mirrored corridor of lovely little worms |
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| Rather beautiful objects |
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| Infinity mirrored lights |
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| The famous pumpkin |
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| Yayoi Kusama is clearly a character - she's over 90 in this shot, and still creating works |
After the exhibition we thought we'd look in a few shops, having done very little shopping so far. Complete failure. Prices in the nice stores are pretty high, and we couldn't see anything we liked, so headed back to the station. As an example one touristy place here was selling lovely wooden children's lunchboxes. I had bought one in Tokyo on our first trip at well under $10. A shop here had the same style and quality, smaller but double height, for over $150. Ouch!
We were intending to do a bit of shopping in Matsumoto tomorrow to fill in a few spare hours, but there's nothing here we could find, so we quickly traded in our old reservations at the station for new ones that will give us some hours in Tokyo's kitchen shop district, which we know and love.
When we got back to our ryokan we had a last soak in the onsen. The men's onsen was very hot (44 deg), hotter than the women's.
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| Men's pool tonight - they swap each day |
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| Some Boy's Day traditionally clad samurai in the ryokan lobby |
Dinner tonight was even better than last night. The timing of dishes was spot on. The dishes included duck and pickled celery, tofu skin, black sesame tofu with ginger, sashimi and scallops with wasabi, cold noodles in soy with eggplant, courgettes and shallots, fish fried at the table on miso paste with a yam ball, crusty ball filled with vegetables, seared wagyu-like beef and courgettes, tempura salmon and tomato, miso soup with rice and pickles, and finally delicious ice-cream. It was a feast indeed.
