Today marked the start of my cross-country trip, as I left Tokyo (again) and began making my way south. The trek to my accommodations in Takayama was a long one, so I decided to break up the monotony of riding trains and took a slight detour to the city of Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture.
Matsumoto is well known for its beautiful castle, which is one of the most complete of Japan's remaining original castles (the keep is an original structure, built in 1504). I only had three hours in the city before I had to catch a train for Takayama, so I put my luggage in a rental locker and left the station. Surrounding the castle, bordering the moat, is a small park that I decided to walk through:
As I emerged from the park foliage, a magnificent sight came into view. I've seen many castles in Japan, but in my opinion even the highly-praised Himeji Castle doesn't come close to this.
After spending a few minutes taking it all in, I finally made my way to the gate and paid admission to enter the castle grounds.
There was a box of free pamphlets with a place to put a stamp for every castle visited in Japan. As I have no intention of visiting every castle this time around, I decided to stamp a few pages of the notebook I happened to be carrying with me.
A small garden lined the path to the castle that loomed ahead, often referred to as "crow castle" due to its black exterior.
As Matsumoto Castle existed in a time of both archery and firearms, small openings lined the walls on every floor, allowing for the use of both types of weapons. Slots in the floor above entryways were for the purpose of dropping rocks and whatnot on unsuspecting invaders.
The second floor of the castle featured a gun museum, which had some pretty intense looking armor as well as devastating firearms. Pictured below (under the armor photo) is what appears to be a hand rocket of sorts.
To say that the stairs within the castle were steep would be an understatement. I had to use both hands and feet to climb the ladder-like steps, ducking under large wooden crossbeams.
I eventually reached the top, where a few other visitors were taking a well-deserved rest after the climb.
Windows situated on every wall provided a magnificent view of the city:
After spending half an hour relaxing on the castle's top floor, I made my descent and emerged from the entrance to find a man in samurai armor waiting for me. Although I'm not a fan of touristy photos, the costumed person proved to be particularly convincing with his sword...
After my unenthusiastic photo-op, I briefly stopped by the gift shop and found these beauties: chili KitKats. I didn't buy any, since I plan on visiting the KitKat chocolatier in Tokyo at the end of my trip, but I thought it was a cool find regardless.
On my way back to the station I stumbled across Yohashira Shrine, located right in the city center. While there wasn't anything necessarily remarkable about it, the stroll through the shrine grounds was enjoyable.
My train wasn't scheduled to depart for another half hour, so I treated myself to a bowl of ramen (this seems to be a common theme).
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