Today we moved at a leisurely pace. This is the first time we’ve had blackout blinds, and they worked fantastically. I woke up first around 6:30am and went to the onsen for a half hour. Then I came back to Viki and Henry still sleeping at 7am. We all got ready and went down for our morning hotel breakfast. It was a bit pricey, at 2,300 yen / person, but it was great! There was Shinshu beef, salmon chirashi, cooked salmon, soba, fresh tempura, chicken karage, and a lot of other items. Henry grabbed a croissant off my plate and ate the entire thing.
When we were thoroughly stuffed, we went out to explore for the day. We walked to Agatanomori Park and visited a 1900s high school converted to a heritage building. We visited the Fukashi-jinja Shrine and saw some kind of ceremony in progress where a dressed up priest beat a drum. We walked through the Aeon mall around lunch, packed with people, and marvelled at the different stores and kinds of food in the food court. Finally, the main event was to see Matsumoto Castle.
At Matsumoto Castle I saw a German couple exiting and asked them if it was worth going in. They said yes, and that there were free volunteer English speaking tour guides if we went back to the park entrance. So we followed their direction and found a tour guide, who turned out to be great. She explained to us the history and how it’s the oldest surviving wooden castle in Japan. Most other castles were destroyed during the Meiji restoration in 1872, when the government ordered all historical feudal fortifications be destroyed. Fortunately some philanthropist bought the castle and donated it back as a culturally significant point of interest. We toured the castle and I learned that Sumarai weren’t just ancient sword-weilding solders, but that they were around in the age of gun powder. We saw an original Sumarai suit of armour and saw the kinds of guns they had.
Viki got hungry, so we hastened to “Nawate Shopping Street”, adorned with frog statues, where street vendors sell all sorts of snacks to passers by. Viki got a fish shaped waffle filled with chocolate and I got some deep fried octopus balls (a typical dish here), that basically just tasted like some sort of deep fried cream thing. Not my favourite. We continued on back to the hotel for Henry to nap, Viki to veg, and me to head to the onsen before dinner.
We booked a super fancy and expensive Kaiseki dinner, the pinnacle of Japanese fine dining, at a place called Hikariya Higashi. The next two hours were spent juggling keeping Henry calm and eating course after course of different specialties of the chef. We liked the first three courses (beans on a bagel thing, potatoes four ways, and a fish ball soup). But then things got weird. The sashimi course included squid, which had an unappealing chew and cloying aftertaste. There was an entire deep fried little fish where you ate the whole thing, organs and all. There was some Shinshu beef that didn’t seem much different than what we got at our hotel breakfast buffet. And some other dishes. Fortunately Henry didn’t injure himself, break anything, or cry too much, and we were glad to have experienced a Kaiseki dinner once. But we think our palettes probably aren’t a great match for Japanese fine dining. The ambiance was quite cool though, the restaurant was in a traditional edo style house with cool artwork, and we were one of only two tables sat there for the evening.
We then walked home and got Henry to bed late, around 9pm. We’ll be up early tomorrow for a bus to our final Japan destination, Kyoto!
