teamEggers

Matsumoto [Part 3]

(note: I don’t have a ton to say about the next day, but i do have a lot of photos. please ask if you have questions about anything!)

In the morning, we came downstairs and had breakfast.  Japanese breakfast is very different from American style breakfast.  From top left to right you have: tamago (baked egg – kind of like french toast without the bread), a place for soy sauce, nori (the sushi-seaweed), char (fish), snap pea in soybean, a dish for rice, tsukemono (pickled vegetables), and miso soup.

wait, what was that? yes. a whole grilled fish for breakfast. he’s a cute little guy and he was cuter in my belly.

After our (coffee-less) breakfast we left our ryokan (view from the outside)…

… and set off to see The Castle.  This was, after all, the purpose for the journey. 

The town of matsumoto is largely centered around the castle, so it’s a quick walk from nearly everywhere downtown.  We happened to be staying about 6 blocks away.  At 8:30am it opens up to tourists, who are allowed to shuffle in their stockinged feet through the six floors and three connected towers. 

There are placards in both English and Japanese along the way, explaining what each room was used for and who may have stayed there.  Since there were very few living quarters, it seems that this particular castle was largely used as a military stronghold.

It’s hard to imagine samurai in full armor clambering up and down the steep and narrow staircases – Clumsy-Michelle had to take it *really* slow. I had always pictured samurais to be tall, swift and elegant. Jon had to be extra careful not to hit his head. Lumpy-head speaks all languages:

After wandering around the inside, we headed on to explore the castle grounds. There were hundreds of women dressed up in Kimonos attending some sort of tea ceremony. We still have no idea what it was for, but it’s quite the sight to see.

Looks like we’ll have a beautiful, hangover-free day of picture taking ahead of us.

Matsumoto [Part 4]

After the castle, we had some exploring on the agenda. There was a sake brewery we had heard about, that supposedly gave tours. Not really realizing that this could be problematic, we checked it out.

These are the directions: A 5-minute walk from Matsumoto Railway Kamikochi line Shimonii station. You are looking for a tall brick chimney; off the platform, over the track & turn left. Follow this road around the fields, to the back of the brewery.

Sounded good. We boarded the rickety local train with confidence (see above) and not until we got to Shimonii station did we realize the directions were very vague and we were in the middle of no where. We’re going to to ahead and call this the “heartland”.

As jon and I wandered down these empty country roads, admiring the scenery and gazing on the farmers, we started to wonder… “are we lost?”. Eventually we found what we were looking for, though i have to say it was nothing short of a lucky break.

We actually walked into someone’s driveway before we found the right spot. I’m sure these heartland farmers don’t get a lot of white-folk knocking on their door asking for booze. It’s a good thing we realized our mistake before it was too late!

Let’s recap the scene. Jon and I have walked a ways down a curvy-country highway to the back of a (seemingly) deserted barn. Our plan is now to ask the Japanese proprietor for … tour? Clearly we’re out of our minds.

So you can imagine how grateful we were when there was someone (an owner) who spoke English. Even though it wasn’t the brewery tour we were looking for, it was still really interesting. She took us around her house. the house where her grandparents grew up and her family had been making sake for years and years.

I learned some interesting things. #1. Daikoku is the large pillar in the center, holding up the house. It’s the support beam. It also became the word for the central figure (usually the dad) of the household. Daikoku is also 1 of the 7 lucky gods. So you could say something like “she’s the dakoku-bashira of the company” if you wanted to point out how rockstar someone was.

#2. This is a sugidama, which is a traditional store-sign for sake houses! “What’s that”, you ask? “Tell me more”, you demand! Well of course! Japanese history lesson for the day: When new sake is ready, a fresh, green sugidama is hung. The family that owns the brewery (or sake shop) will make it by hand out of cedar boughs. (sugi is cedar, dama is ball). This green ball outside the door signifies to the neighborhood that the sake was well made and also calls for the blessing of the gods. As the year goes on, the sake ages and the sugidama browns.

After the tour they let us taste all of their sakes and we brought a ton home with us. We heart sake.

The plan is to catch the train back and take it to the woodblock-print museum. We miss the train by literally 30 seconds. This was my penance for not running every day in the morning, as I should be. I have quickly reverted to “horribly out of shape”. Sigh.

So. We walked. It’s only about a mile and a half and it looks like a clear shot.

As I mentioned, our destination was the Ukiyo-e woodblock print museum.

It was supposed to be *incredible*.

After seeing it though I’d say it was just so-so. Not really worth a special effort to get there, but cool to see if you’re in the neighborhood. The most notable part of the experience was the exterior of the building, though it was interesting to listen to the (bilingual) curator talk about the process and the history.

Back on the train. This is the smallest train station I’ve ever been to. But i have to say – Japan is the most incredible place ever for having reliable public transportation even in the country.

Ueno

While Elizabeth was here, we headed up to Ueno park – home of the Tokyo zoo (which we didn’t make it to), great cherry blossom viewing (though we were a few days too late for that!), and acres of culture.

I had planned a relaxing afternoon in the park: a sake-fueled picnic, lazing on the grass, playing scrabble. There would be birds chirping and the sun shining gently overhead. (cue record-scratching “eerrrrcccchhh”.)

Oh, that’s right. We’re in Tokyo. Tokyo, where the parks are chock-filled with people and they don’t really have grass. When visiting a park in the largest city in the world, it’s important to realign your expectations, lest you be terribly disappointed.

Now don’t get me wrong, we did have a spectacular time. But there were no frolicking squirrels.

After our concrete-filled scrabble and sake session, we wandered around the park for a bit. I must tell you again how much I love drinking in public. I think it’s solely because you suckas back home can’t walk down the street with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other, looking at temples. Kind of like jumping on the bed when you’re an adult. Or eating ice cream for breakfast. (All of which has ended poorly for me in the recent past, so perhaps I should heed my own warnings!)

At the shrines, you can buy small wooden placards for 5 or 6 dollars, and then you write your prayers on them and hang them on this wall. Once a week, the shinto priest will gather them all and bless them. Generally, they’re all written in Japanese, so it’s hard to understand what sorts of things people wish for. Luckily for me, Ueno park was a hot-bed of white people this weekend.

The sakura season is fleeting. There are really only a handful of glory days and then it’s gone. I feel like the historic, war-torn Japanese were very aware of their mortality and so this is symbolic in some way. Jon and I visited a castle in Kyoto where they would not plant maple trees because, while the leaves were beautiful most of the year, the way they fell in the autumn reminded the samurai of their own deaths. There were only evergreens allowed in the inner courtyards.

This is how I think of Elizabeth:

The obligatory shot for our mothers:

Not that Jon necessarily minded, but was this girl wearing just-knickers? Where are your clothes, young lady?

I’ve been working especially hard on finding my calm center in the past few months. It was my new-years-resolution of sorts. Of course I’m not there yet, but I feel on my way to zen – I’m now more able to seek out these moments of quiet in the middle of an otherwise chaotic day:

boring girl stuff

Buyer beware. Boring girl stuff past this point.

My hair is longer than it’s been in years. Which is nice because it’s kind of different than usual, but I’d like something a little spunkier, you know? You think I can rock this shorty-style? Or would I look just absurd?

/end girly rant.

Sukiyaki

There’s a traditional dish in Japan called sukiyaki, which is a kind of one-pot stew with meat and vegetables.  Jill had first cooked us Sukiyaki, telling us that (like a lot of other things in japan) this is one of those dishes that varies by the region you have it in. For instance, near the coast they probably add seafood.  In Kyoto, where there are a lot of zen Buddhists, we had something similar with tofu.  The other day we passed a Yokohama-style Sukiyaki restaurant.  So we thought we’d check it out.

Yokohama style has less (different) things in it than the style that Jill made for us. This one had beef, mushrooms, tofu, leeks and a green leafy vegetable.

Generally sukiyaki is served on cold days. It’s one of those dishes that you can make even on a really tight budget because you can put whatever you can afford in it. Our restaurant must have missed that memo because it ended up being tremendously expensive. We were kind of afraid of that when we were ordering – I suppose it’s one of those things you just have to be okay with when the waitress can’t understand your price-clarifying questions!

It’s common to dip your cooked sukiyaki into raw, scrambled egg before eating it. Elizabeth and Nathan (below) weren’t into that part at all! Jon and I will either die early of food poisoning or live to 102 because our stomachs are made of steel.

I was reading in wikipedia about sukiyaki and found out that we may have just gone to the oldest Sukiyaki restaurant in all of Japan! The first sukiyaki restaurant, Isekuma, opened in Yokohama in 1862. Woah!