Friday 22nd June - Castles and Mountains

The train ride to Matsumoto, where I was due to catch an onward bus to Takayama, was uneventful. I did get to make my first solo attempt at ordering a coffee from the lady selling drinks and snacks from a trolley on the train and... great success! I acquired a kohee with curimu and she was nice enough to respond to me both in Japanese and English, which helps when you're trying to pick up a language.

The rain started to clear once we left the Tokyo suburbs, and it brightened progressively until Matsumoto - by the time we reached our destination it was positively sunny. Along the way there was plenty of countryside and a lot of small towns to catch my eye - travelling by train and bus is great for seeing more than just the destinations. I took a bunch of pictures out of the train window which I will bore you with later.

At Matsumoto I managed to navigate the station and find the coin lockers (coin lockers are everywhere near public transport hubs in Japan, it seems - and it makes visiting places pretty easy even with kids and luggage in tow). They're all standard sizes too, and while I was careful to bring along two bags small enough to fit into the most common small size lockers (well - according the Japan Guide's dimensions anyway - I have yet to try it for real), at Matsumoto they have the medium lockers and I found both my bags fit into one of those, which saved me 200 yen. Bags dumped, I called into the Tourist Information Centre at the station, where no English speakers were in residence, but that was okay aince with a bit of crap Japanese from me and some obviously pre-prepared (on their side) visual aids, they directed me to the bus station across the road (it wasn't very obvious from the concourse).

Matsumoto station is pretty much like any modern smaller station in the UK, by the way - all glass and sliding doors (though you have to push a button to open them - they're not automatic, as I found out after a moment of confusion) and on the street-side of the ticket machines are some shops and cafes. One of these is a Starbucks, so I popped in there for a quick coffee and a molten egg sandwich, having left Tokyo without eating any breakfast. By this time it was 10.30, and after a small diversion to buy my bus ticket for later, I set off for a walk round and to head to the Castle.

Matsumoto has tourism signs with directions to the main sights in English, so it's pretty easy to find your way around. Though you can get a cab or a bus, I chose to walk to the Castle, which was about twenty minutes or so, because I was tired of sitting down on planes and trains. This also meant I could take the odd diversion and wander around the city centre a bit, just to stretch my legs. It's pretty much what you would expect from a provincial city, all in all - nothing spectacular, but also not unattractive, and very clean.

Back on the proper route and the Castle was easy to find, located in gardens that I'm sure are lovely when it's the season for various flowers. It's just past the azalea season right now so there were still a few bushes showing off faded blooms, and there was a lot of budding new foliage in evidence, if not a lot of flowers. And if water features are more your style, there's a bloody enormous moat round the castle which is full of koi, and in what I presume to be either its inlet or its overflow, there's a whole raft of water lilies. There were also alot of puddles, but they were by accident not design, since obviously rainy season is still happening in Matsumoto - even if I got lucky on my trip.

I walked a full circle of the Castle park just to see the views, partly in the park itself and partly along the pavements just outside. Then I angled back towards the entrance with the ticket booth - 600 yen gets you entrance to the Castle itself (roughly around a fiver) and to the more formal gardens inside the Castle walls. It's a fiver well spent, too - I was there for a good couple of hours, and only spent maybe ten minutes of that time sitting in the covered rest area having a cold drink. The rest area, I noticed, has been strategically placed to give you a clear view of the front of the Castle, so all requirements of aesthetics have been met in that regard.

Onto the Castle itself, and it really is a gorgeous old building, as you can see from the pictures I took. It's rightly famous - not only for being one of the very few original castles left in Japan (most have been destroyed and rebuilt at some time or another) and in addition it's just a very beautiful piece of architecture. It's made mostly of wood (which explains why so many Japanese castles have not survived wars and accidents) and is several storeys high, all of which are open to the public. Well – provided you're happy to take your shoes off and carry them with you in a bag to avoid damage the the wooden floors, anyway.

There are a lot of displays of Japanese guns, which were handmade and copied from (I think) Portuguese guns of the period. As incongruous as it seems to imagine samurai running around with guns, that is in fact how it was at the time. Matsumoto is strictly a utility castle, not one that was used in peacetime as a residence, and the design reflects that with rooms for command and for fighting. An interesting feature is the “warriors running passage” set at a slightly different level to the regular rooms and allowing for swift access for samurai to all sides of the donjon (keep) as necessary. Mind you, samurai were obviously simultaneously tiny and yet able to take stairs steep enough to be a health and safety hazard in this day and age. I went up them regardless just to check out the fantastic views from the top floor, but I'm thankful I'm not taller.

Anyway, after completing the “route” around the Castle, I put my shoes back on and had a brief chat with the attendant who had some English and wanted to know where I was from. My answer apparently pleased him and possibly also the fact that I told him I like castles. Maybe he thinks all English people like castles, I don't know. Then it was time to head back to the station to make sure I had plenty of time to get the bus to my intended two night stay in Takayama.

Oh I forgot to add - just for a bit of TMI, at Matsumoto Station I also had my first encounter with Japanese public toilets - not the Western style super-technical-do-everything-legal-you-could-possibly-imagine-to-your-nether-regions ones, but tha traditional crouch-style ones. They're strictly built for utility and not for comfort, and good luck if you're disabled or have a bad back. I generally don't get along with these kinds of loos - I experienced plenty of them in Eastern Europe years ago, but needs must. I'm sure they're much easier to manage if you're wearing a skirt, but I am always convinced I will fail to aim well, even though it's never happened yet. So I guess that successfully managing to order coffee, operate coin lockers and not to pee on myself means I get to level up, or something.

Anyway, after a leisurely walk back from the Castle, I bought a cold drink and a rice ball for lunch at the Station convenience store, retrieved my bags, and headed off to the bus station. Sounds like an easy operation, but in fact while the bus station itself is pretty obvious, figuring out how to get to the bit with the actual buses in is not so easy. You walk through the doors and find yourself in a shopping mall, which is a bit disconcerting when there are no obvious signs. When in doubt, head for the Information Desk, is my motto, and even though the lady in charge there did not speak English, she managed to figure out what I wanted, promptly closed her desk and guided me there herself. In my defence it really WASN'T obvious, and in fact she went to check which part I needed herself first as she wasn't sure.

I had a fifty minute wait and since there was no-one around to see, I committed the sin of eating in public, consuming my rice ball and using some unexpected free wifi at the bus station to check my mail. I'm still not sure what that rice ball was but I believe it was tomato ketchup flavoured, with egg on top. Strange but actually pretty nice, and all part of the culinary adventure.

The bus arrived promptly and with only me and one other person on hoard we started the two and a half hour drive to Takayama. I can't really do justice to the views in words – you'll have to take a look at the pictures for that, but once you get away from the urban sprawl around Matsumoto and start to get into the mountains, it is the most glorious mountain scenery. The slopes are bristling with trees and at every turn there's rushing water and dramatic drops. The road to Takayama winds precariously around the outsides of mountains, and I was sitting on the passenger side (they drive on the same side of the road as in the UK here) so I got some awesome looks down the sides of mountains to the valleys below. And if they can't wrap a road around it, they stick a tunnel through it – some of the longest tunnels I have ever driven through which go on for a few kilometres and one which even had a junction in it.

Interesting to see how the architecture of even small towns differs to that down near Tokyo with less flat roofs in evidence – they get a lot of snowfall in the Alps and some areas are ski resorts in winter. And emerging from a tunnel at one point revealed a huge lake on my side that I imagine is also used as a reservoir, since it's probably carved out of rock. There were signs to waterfalls too, though I only saw one from the coach at a distance – great hiking country no doubt.

Things flattened out a bit as we entered the edges of Takayama, but we were still surrounded by mountains and thankfully it was a bright and sunny day so everything looked to its best advantage. If you're wondering what the outskirts of even the most picturesque cities look like, then the answer is – much as you'd expect. Superstores, factories and office blocks dominate, though I note that like Paris, even the centre of cites seem to have a lot of housing compared to in the UK – step off the main drag down an interesting looking alley and it'll be a residential street.

We reached Takayama bus station dead on time and there's a Tourist Information Booth right outside (again, the bus station is nestled up to the train station there) staffed by at least one English speaking guide. She handed me a map (in Emglish) and pointed me to my hotel, which was next to the station about two minutes walk away.

Takayama Ouan is the most expensive place I chose to stay in for this trip – it's a three star but that's not why I picked it – I picked it for the natural hot spring onsen/sento baths that they have on the 13th floor overlooking the city. You can't come to Japan and not try some hot spring bathing, I think, and this is the nearest I am travelling to hot spring country.

The approach to the hotel is pretty cool – it's on a main road (though since Takayama is a fairly small city, that's relative in terms of how busy it is) but they've managed to create a peacful little space out front with a covered footbath (open to passing walkers) and some greenery and water features. It's really very pretty. The staff here were variably capable with English but uniformly cheerful and whenever I needed to ask a question it seemed that the same one or two people magically appeared to help. Checking in, they knew who I was immediately before I even got out my reservation – which was an early indication that I was the only non-Japanese in residence (and indeed I didn't see a single foreigner there the whole time, unless there were some Koreans or Chinese that I didn't spot). Mainly the hotel seems to be a draw for couples having a romantic getaway and older Japanese on holiday, though there were a couple of families with small kids.

Anyway, I checked in with no fuss, though the process took a while since the lady explained very thoroughly the various amenities of the place. Firstly you have to leave your shoes in a foot locker, since beyond reception the floors are tatami throughout. Second there is a buffet breakfast every morning as part of the price and also as it turned out, free noodles in the restaurant at night around 10.30pm. The bathing consists of three private baths which you can use for 30 minutes and two public baths (one indoor, one outdoor) for ladies – all on the roof. She also wiped the wheels of my suitcase before I ventured on to the tatami.

Very little to note about the room aside from the fact that it was very comfortable, came with a water heater, what I THINK was an electric ice bucket (?????) and had an enormous bed. In keeping with the Japanese/Western fusion theme, the bed was essentially a mattress on the floor topped with a futon and a Japanese comforter. It was, as I found out later, so comfy as to be fatal if you laid down for a short rest.

Apart from showering, calling home, sorting out photos and taking a leisurely wander around Takayama after dark, I was way too tired to do anything after I arrived. I couldn't even be bothered to tackle ordering food, and since I was craving salad at this point, I stepped into a konbini (convenience store) and picked up some sushi rolls and a small salad for dinner back in my room. I'd planned to take a bath and try the noodles later, but after a can of fruity booze (pink grapefruit alcopops FTW!) I in fact fell asleep at ten o'clock and did NONE of those things.

All in all, a good day, even if full of travelling. And now I will attempt to get blogged up to date because I am getting WAY behind due to too much to do and too tired at night :)

• More pics on Flickr here

Today's CHOON was Dive by Propellerheads.