Matsumoto Black Crow Castle

This morning was another beautiful day and we headed off early for the short walk to Matsumoto Castle. Matsumoto is so compact we did not need to take the "Sneaker Bus" - another one of those great, rather odd Japanese English names. It is a lovely city with lots of interesting little streets heading off and a view to the mountains whichever way you look. On arrival at the Castle, we were lucky to be offered a tour by one of the 'Goodwill Volunteer Tourist guides'. Shoji was a knowledgeable and affable guide, who patiently showed us around the castle, pointing out features we almost certainly have missed. Extraordinarily kindness, which we appreciated. Thankyou Shoji.

The castle is largely intact and as built in 1595. It was lucky that it was constructed at the end of the Sengoku Warring States period, so it never saw action, and its special room for the lord of the castle to commit ritual suicide if things went badly has never been used for its designed purpose. Nice of the designers to cover all possibilities though. The most used part of the castle proved to be a later addition, the 'Moon viewing platform' constructed with open windows overlooking the moat, and designed as a good spot for the Samurai to drink sake. And very nice it must have been too.

We wandered back along lovely Naware Street that winds along beside the river with lots of little shops and cafés. We sampled the 'taiyaki' - a local delicacy, essentially a waffle but in the shape of a carp and available with a variety of fillings. We can recommend the apple and cinnamon.

Castle visiting builds the appetite, so we stopped off for lunch in a little restaurant which had a granny sitting at one of the two tables outside, contentedly hoeing into a big bowl of noodles. We figured that was local knowledge, so we sat at the other table. Lunch was good but our castle guide made a reference to 'horse beef' during the tour. We weren't sure if this was a lost in translation thing, but we looked at the bits of beef that came with lunch with some suspicion.

On the way back to our hotel, I saw out of the corner of my eye a lady pointing her camera in our direction. I assumed she wanted to photograph the building behind us, and began to move out of the way, but no, she wanted to photograph us. Funny to have the tables turned. So we posed and smiled, and wondered what on earth she would say when she showed this one to her friends or family. "And here are these two funny gaijin ....'

Back at the hotel we embarked on the adventure of using the hotel washing machines. Detailed instructions for using the drier, but for the washing machine the only assistance was a picture of the character on the ON button. Anne punched a few other buttons, hoping that we would get cold wash. What we didnget was long wash, as tone machine was still going hours later. But eventually it released our wash and we now have nice clean everything.

For dinner we hit a very trendy yakatori bar over the road. The food was very nice though some of the items we got bore little if any resemblance to what we thought we'd ordered. But it was all good, and pretty reasonable price wise. To round out the day we walked back up to the castle, which a nice man in one of the shops we visited today told us would be lit up tonight. And so it was, a grand sight and a nice end to a very pleasant say in Matsumoto, a city I'd recommend everyone should put on their must visit list.