Roving Japan

We had a great time riding around the city today. We used a tourist map that we got at the train station yesterday and we planned a rough route around town that included stops at the castle, then one of Japans original middle schools and finally a miso factory. We figured that we would be able to find plenty of interesting things in between. As a bonus, the weather was perfect!

Matsumoto castle was awesome. We got there in the morning and enjoyed a leisurely climb to the top floor. The views of the city from the top were really nice. Matsumoto is surrounded by the Japanese Alps, and the weather today gave us a great view. As with most castles, the interior of Matsumoto castle is displaying some old artifacts, but this was the first time we’ve seen old canons on display. They also had an old rocket and a few other unique weapons like a dagger/pistol.

Next to the castle there is a little museum showing historical objects from Matsumotos history. I don’t know why, but my favorite thing was the wooden sandal ice skates. There was also a display about a local festival that involves carrying wooden penis around and throwing them into peoples houses. I guess it’s good luck.

The old Japanese middle school we went to was interesting. It was one of the first middle schools built in Japan during Meiji.

From the school we just biked around, not really going anywhere in particular, just enjoying the nice day and taking in our surroundings.

Around noon when we were getting hungry, we started looking for a good place to eat. At first we biked past the usual suspects: Udon, Soba, Ramen, etc… But after a little while I saw it. Like a beacon of hope beckoning me to come closer. I saw the “U2 Burgers Cafe”.

I immediately slammed on the breaks and slid into a bike parking spot. “Risa! I found lunch!”

Inside we found a very nice little restaurant that takes pride in making authentic burgers. And for the low low price of $10 I actually got a real burger. Sure it wasn’t giant, but it was good and there was some real meat between the buns. It also came with a decent number of fries. Thank you Matsumoto! You’re officially my favorite city in Japan!

After lunch we meandered our way to a little miso factory and tasted some miso soup. Then we biked over to the main river running through town and took some photos of the green grass with the mountains in the background. We also came across a high school baseball game, so we stopped and watched that for a while.

A curious aspect of Matsumoto are the fresh water wells spread around town. Every few blocks there are little wells that spew an endless supply of fresh mountain snow melt. The locals come by with dozens of empty plastic water bottles and fill up. We drank some of the water and it was certainly crisp and clean. Not a bad little benefit for those who live here!

I think this city is my favorite city in Japan. Free bicycles, fresh water wells, hamburgers, thai curry, an awesome castle, beautiful mountains, and interesting architecture make this one heck of a cool place. I’m really glad we decided to come here.

Tomorrow we’re back on the road!

[Editors note: 7 days left! I will hopefully finish soon!]

Day 85 Photoset

Mr. Itoh told us that we should look for chopsticks in this part of Japan. The wood from this valley is some of the best in Japan, so one of the local specialties is Chopsticks and wooden hair combs. His advice was to look for the pairs in the $10 - $20 range. Anything cheaper than $10 wouldn’t be nice enough, and anything more than $20 was too expensive.

So this morning we spent a good amount of time wandering around Narai, poking our heads into the houses-turned-museums, and browsing the many fancy chopsticks and combs.

These goods have been sold here for hundreds of years, since most travelers passing through couldn’t carry much more than small trinkets like combs and chopsticks. Everything is hand made and really nice.

We probably spent an hour or so looking for the perfect set, but we just couldn’t settle on one that we were willing to pay that kind of money for. $10 is a lot for 1 pair of chopsticks. We decided to move on and see if we could find chopsticks along the way.

Outside of Narai, we found a lacquer ware shop selling top quality Japanese dishes, boxes, and anything else you might make out of wood and lacquer. We are in Nagano prefecture now, so you might remember the Nagano Olympic medals were black on one side. That was a tip of the cap to the local lacquer industry.

Everything in the store was super expensive, so we didn’t stay long. We looked at the bowls that seemed identical to our bowls we bought for $1 each, only these are the real deal and therefore cost like $100 each. They also had chopsticks, but nothing caught our eye, so we moved on.

For lunch we stopped at a big roadside rest area that had a big shop/museum filled with more chopsticks and lacquer ware, and a restaurant owned by a woman from Finland. We thought it might be a nice change of pace to eat some western food, so we ordered the closest thing we could find which was a spaghetti / salad thing. It was pretty good, but the highlight of the place was a funny little book talking about the great things you can do in Finland. The one that stood out to me was the wife carrying competition! Maybe Risa and I should compete!

Again, none of the chopsticks seemed right for us. We didn’t want to pay $10 on just anything, so we needed THE PERFECT PAIR. But we couldn’t find one. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. From the rest area, we continued down the highway until we reached the small town of Niekawa.

Niekawa is home to the second major checkpoint on the Nakasendo trail. We figured that since we didn’t tour the checkpoint in Kisofukushima, we should tour this one.

The checkpoint building was pretty cool, with lots of old artifacts from the Nakasendo days.

We learned about how everyone passing through here had to be inspected to make sure they weren’t carrying any wood from kiso valley. They also checked every woman, and every man who looked like he might be a woman to make sure they weren’t royalty. Apparently, back in the old days, the shogun had kidnapped the wives of many of the local feudal lords and held them captive in Edo. The checkpoints had to make sure none of them were trying to escape by checking everyone who passed through.

We also got a good look at some of the old passports and documents used back then. It was a lot of fun.

After the checkpoint it was about 4:30pm so we made the executive decision to take a train from Niekawa to the city of Matsumoto. Originally I had wanted to walk to Shiojiri, but we spent a lot of time shopping for chopsticks, so we didn’t have the time. We also wanted to see Matsumoto since it is famous for one of the most beautiful castles in Japan. So on the train we went!

It was a little sad, because the train spends a lot of time in a tunnel, so we missed the final few kilometers of beautiful Kiso valley scenery before popping out in the main valley near Shiojiri.

Matsumoto is an interesting place. As soon as we got to the train station, we knew we were in a unique location. It seemed like everyone had big hiking backpacks like us. This is the main hub for people who go hiking in the Japanese Alps, so risa and I didn’t stand out at all.

We went straight for the information center and grabbed a bunch of maps, then walked to the hotel we reserved last night.

As we walked through the city, the vibe we got was totally different from most places. Matsumoto is definitely NOT “Any City In Japan”. It’s got a lot of character. Modern architecture, nice big sidewalks and lots of foreign food!

In our room I brought up google earth and found a Thai curry place with good ratings, so we checked out a couple free bicycles from the hotel and rode down there to experience an AMAZING dinner. $12 got you all you can eat curry, and you could choose between 10 different flavors! The common strategy seemed to involve making an X with the rice, and pouring 4 flavors into the divided areas. It was delicious.

After dinner we rode to the famous Matsumoto castle and took some really cool photos. This castle is awesome. One of the best looking we’ve seen. We can’t wait to come back tomorrow. I guess the bicycles at the hotel are free to use, and you can also pick up free bikes at museums and the train station. I think we’re going to get some good use out of those bikes tomorrow.

Day 72 Photoset

Yasunobu is a successful tailor with his own shop in Nagoya. He designs and makes all his clothes in his studio room in his apartment. His wife Machiko makes handmade silver jewelry which she sells in their shop as well. Since Yasunobu is into fashion design and fabrics, he took us to a cool area in Nagoya called Arimatsu.

Hippies like to tie up some cloth and dump it in a bucket of dye, soak it, untie it, and call it good. Whatever random patterns emerge, its acceptable. Things are a little different in Arimatsu.

The people in Arimatsu have been making a specialize and precision form of tied-ye for hundreds of years. Their methods are detailed and extremely time consuming, but they produce really amazing patterns.

Yasunobu took us to the Arimatsu tie-dye museum where we got to watch some volunteers demonstrate the knot tieing. We also got to see a lot of examples of the different patterns they can produce with different knots.

I never knew that tiedye could be so precise. They aren’t making random designs, everything has been planned beforehand. The blank fabric is layed out on a table, and the pattern designer makes a dot wherever he wants a knot tied. The knot tiers then go about tieing the hundreds, or thousands of knots by hand. It’s amazing.

Yasunobu has two daughters, Saho and Miki. Saho is a fashion designer like her father. She is also a part time English teacher so I can talk with her without needing a lot of translation. This afternoon, Risa and I went with Saho to checkout downtown Nagoya.

Our first stop was Nagoya castle. This castle is pretty big, but it’s not an original. Inside they have the standard castle museum stuff. Samurai suits, and historical artifacts from the original castle and the surrounding area. However, they also had a few things that stuck out. The first was a fun “castle construction” simulator. You basically had to pretend to help pull large stones to be used in the castle wall. There was a gauge on the side that told you how strong you were. It was fun, and I’m proud to say that Risa and I were both stronger than the guy who went before us! Haha!

It was also interesting to learn that when the castle was originally built, the various subjected areas around Nagoya would donate stone to use in the construction. The lords of those smaller areas would stamp the stones with their symbol so that the main lord in Nagoya would know who donated what. We didn’t notice these markings when we got to the castle, but sure enough, as we left we could see the old markings on the stones from a bunch of different lords.

The castle is right next to the main Nagoya stadium. Right now the famous “Nagoya Sumo Basho” is going on. This is one of the main 4 sumo tournaments in Japan. We saw some sumo guys walking around, and Risa and I are trying to decide if we should splurge and buy a ticket! We didn’t have time to go today, but maybe tomorrow? It sure would be cool!

While we were out with Saho, Risa and I wanted to go see the store that sells Saho’s clothes. So we jumped on a train and went to Nagoya’s shopping arcade. This arcade is much like the covered arcade in Osaka, only with about 25% the number of people. Of course, just because they don’t have as many people, doesn’t mean they don’t have a few crazy’s. While Risa was in the bathroom, one old man in a cowboy hat was particularly interested in me. He kept saying “Hallo! America? HI!” I talked back to him in Japanese, and he talked back in broken English. He asked where I was from in America, and I told him Oregon. “Colorado!” “No… Oregon” “Oh! OK!” He had a pen and paper with him, so I drew a map of America and showed him where Oregon is. The best part was when I was getting my picture taken with him, Risa came out of the bathroom and was like, “Um… who’s that guy?”

We eventually made it to Saho’s store, and Risa finally got a chance to wear something other than her hiking clothes. She tried on one of Saho’s dresses, and really liked it. Too bad for us, it was kind of expensive! Good for Saho, bad for us! It was a nice dress though!

We wandered around the shopping arcade for a while, ate some ice cream, then left to go to the Nagoya port where we could watch the summer fireworks show.

We didn’t quite make it all the way to the main viewing area, but we did manage to get some cool seats. We climbed up a ladder and sat on a tall cement wall that gave us a clear view of the show. As a cool bonus, we also had the giant ferris wheel in view, so we could see the fireworks and the lights of the ferris wheel together. It was really fun!

For dinner, Machiko made us her famous spring rolls. Yasunobu explained that it was THIS dish that made him want to marry her, and after tasting it, we don’t blame him!

Day 69 Photoset

Rentaro and his wife Taeko took us to a great castle today. Inuyama castle is one of the 12 remaining originals, and one of 4 national treasure castles in Japan (Along with Himeji, Hikone, and Matsumoto). It’s not that big, but since it’s an original, you can really feel the history.

This castle also has one of the best top level views we have experienced. For once, the top level didn’t block the view with tiny windows or chicken wire. In fact, the top floor had giant doorways leading outside to a balcony where we could walk all the way around. We had no expectations for this castle, so it was a nice surprise when it turned out to be so cool!

Tonight we are in a new house. Rentaro dropped us off at Risa’s uncle Kazuhiko’s house in Mizunami where we will spend the next couple of nights. Kazuhiko is Risa’s dad’s older brother.

Kazuhiko and his wife Yukiko live with his daughters family in the main house, while his son’s family lives in the house next door. All together, there are 7 people in the main house (with one more on the way!) and 4 folks next door. Big family! Japan’s low birthrate is definitely not a problem here!

Kazuhiko and Yukiko are really similar to Risa’s parents in the way they interact with each other. It’s kind of funny because when we first arrived I turned to Risa and said, “They are just like your parents!” and she just looked and me and said, “Right?! Kazuhiko is JUST like my dad.”

Should be fun staying with them!

Day 64 Photoset

Yousuke is the leader of the local Boy Scout chapter. Today there was a scheduled field trip for some of the youngest scouts to the cities Disaster Preparedness Center. Yousuke invited us to go along, so Risa and I went with them to learn about earthquakes, house fires, and tsunamis.

The center was actually pretty cool. The earthquake simulator was fun/scary. Fun because you know its fake, scary because if that’s what a real 7.0 quake feels like, I’d be crapping my pants. They also had a dark smoky room where you have to feel your way to the exit, and a 3d movie that simulates the 1959 Ise Typhoon.

All in all, it was pretty fun. My only issue was with the guy who was explaining how to get out of a dark smoky house. He told people to use their hands to feel the walls/doors for heat, but he didn’t say to use the back of your hand. The back of your hand is more sensitive, and if it gets burned you can still use your hand to grab things. When feeling for heat, never use your finger tips or palm! always use the back of your hand!

The next stop for the troop was a neat ice cutter ship and the Nagoya harbor museum. The kids seemed to enjoy everything, although the little boy spent most of the time running around and pounding on any levers and buttons he could find.

Last stop of the day was Kiyosu Castle. This castle is a replica, although it was reconstructed within the last 5 years, so its a really well done replica museum made of wood rather than concrete. This particular castle is famous because it was the base of Oda Nobunaga, one of Japans primary historical figures.

The best part of the castle was the sweet armor I got to wear. The first room of the castle was showcasing some modern samurai armor made by local craftsmen and volunteers. When the main guy saw me, he said he would give me “Gaijin Service” and let me put on the good stuff! The whole time he was putting on the armor, he kept saying how cool gaijins look in samurai armor. Ha! Tom Cruise eat your heart out! I AM THE LAST SAMURAI.

When we got home, we got to enjoy some fireworks with Yousuke, his son Takehiko, Takehiko’s wife Sachie, and the two kids.