Matsumoto [Part 1]

After a two hour train ride through a winding, tunnel filled mountain road, we arrive in Matsumoto.  There, we set out immediately for Hokata, home of the Daio Wasabi far. A helpful (English speaking) tourism guide directs us to the best place to rent bicycles.

On our way to Daio we stopped at a temple.

While I can’t find any confirming information, I believe the placard said that it was the tokoji temple and these were the shoes of a great buddha. All who wore the shoes would have good luck, etc. Jon, who hates fun, wouldn’t put the shoes on.

The afternoon that followed was the sort of scene they have in movies. You know the kind when the grumpy, desolate girl from New Jersey is swept off her feet by a rich, older man and they have a whirl-wind getaway in the countryside somewhere? Yeah, kind of like that.

With sunshine-filled blue skies overhead, the country highways provided excellent views of the enigmatic Japanese Alps.

I had always seen these mountains painted in such a way that I thought it was the regional watercolour style of painting. I had no idea that that the mountain ranges actually appear to be fading of in the distance, like each farther peak was shrouded in an increasingly dense fog. There’s no other way you could paint them. My photos do not do them justice.

If I look at my monitor in the right way, this photo has a very distinct large circle where the sun is. It’s incredible. I just cant stop looking at it and thinking that “the land of the rising sun” really means something here.

After a pleasant 20 minute bike ride, we arrive at Daio. Daio is essentially the Disney Land of wasabi farms. We’re in wasabi-country and Daio is the one that tour busses line up at.

The grounds were beautiful.

The wasabi was tasty. My only complaint was that it was a little too family friendly. The “wasabi beer” was more like St. Patrick’s Day Kirin and the only discernable quality about the “wasabi ice cream” was the chalky aftertaste it left. Honestly though, if my only complaint about the day was that my ice cream wasn’t spicy enough, I lead a charmed life.

This is fresh wasabi root. They make special dishes that you can grind it in! The best thing to do is to grind it about 15 minutes before you’re going to eat it. We read later that wasabi is similar to wine – a small amount of oxidation allows the flavours to meld and cohere (ie: get spicy), but too long and you lose the freshness and potency. I’ve been exclusively eating bad wasabi my entire life and didn’t even know it.

Matsumoto [Part 2]

After the wasabi farm we headed back to Matsumoto where we located our ryokan for the night. A ryokan is the traditional Japanese inn, are generally found in older cities and are traditionally crazy-expensive.   We found this one for $60/night (each) and that included a Japanese breakfast in the morning!

We’ll go ahead and call it a smokin deal.

So these ryokan – they’re not like hotel rooms as we know them.  They size is measured by how many tatami mats you can fit on the floor, and instead of a bed you have futons on the floor.  (these fold out)

I hadn’t really expected to stay in the “lap of luxury” for $60/night, but I also was a little nervous about how comfortable sleeping on the floor could be.  Boy, was I wrong. I don’t know how they do it, but these little guys are like nests of love.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  When you get to the ryokan, they ask you to take your shoes off at the door and they give you slippers.  There’s a 3 room dining area where you fill out your paperwork (and also where breakfast is served in the morning).

There’s a little zen garden in the middle.  I wonder how many buildings we pass have this hollowed out center to let nature in?  It’s one of those things I would have never guessed existed from the exterior of the building.

There’s a house bath and a house shower, (though since there were only 8 rooms, we didn’t really have to wait long for them) and two sets of toilets.  Very small.  After the proprietress showed us around, she brought us to our rooms where we mistakenly walked right in with our slippered feet.  Silly us.  You take the inside slippers off before you enter the bedroom. (You also take them off before entering the bathroom too. There are usually separate slippers provided for these rooms.) The japanese must have deep seeded fears of their feet getting cold.

The room was really cute. There were two sliding doors to get in, acting as a shoe-chamber.  On the opposite side of the (very humble) room was the window that overlooked the streets and the river.  For insulation I presume, there were four different screens to slide open before you reached daylight.

They also gave you robes to wear while you were there, and in the halls you’d see the other guests shuffling around in them. Very different than what we’re used to. I’m glad we got to experience it.

Jon is, of course, much too tall for everything here. (the sticker says “mind your head” but is chin-height for him!)

Now that we’re settled in, we head off to explore a bit. We’re at a bit of an impasse with our eating establishments. We like to eat at challenging restaurants. Places with character. We like to allow the chef to cook for us, what s/he cooks best. I think in america, this is well accepted and is a mark of pride for a lot of great chefs. In japan, it’s tricky. We WANT to eat at the good places, that are frequented by the locals. But honestly, they scare the shit out of us. Logically we know that the worst that can happen is they tell us to go away (there aren’t any anti-racism laws here). But even assuming we get in the restaurant, it’s really difficult to convey that we WILL eat whatever you put in front of us – just make it good. you know? ugh. I get frustrated and tangential about this.

The point of the story is that we heard of this particular restaurant. Armed with a general idea of its location, and the proper kanji to look for on the store-sign, we actually found it. And then we stood outside for a few minutes, paced, and tried to work up the courage to go in. It sounds stupid, I know. But imagine that you’re standing at an essentially unmarked door that very well looks like it could go into someone’s living room. Inside you hear salarymen laughing loudly, having a great time in what is very likely a 10 foot square room. You know that as soon as you slide open the door, all eyes will go to you and, because you’re a 25 year old white girl, they’ll probably keep staring at you.

Okay. so we do it. Open the door…. and the place is PACKED. There are people everywhere. The chef (who speaks some english) tells us their full – he’s very sorry. bah!

After battling with some disappointment issues, we finally head off to our second choice – kura, who’s known for their local specialty basashi, or raw and thinly sliced horse meat.

I also had some taru-sake (aged in cedar so it has a really manly, smoky, woodsy quality) out of the traditional wooden box, or masu.

Dinner was good. I wouldn’t call it earth shattering or ground breaking, but it was good.

Tomorrow we get to the main attraction, but this was our sneak-peak for the night:

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.