Today started with our first of many packing sessions, followed by another slightly odd breakfast (today salad, burgers, croissants and something yellow that might have been scrambled egg). Our train left just past 9am and we managed to fight our way through the crowds at the station to find the right platform and hop aboard. Changing at Shinjuku we boarded our first express train heading for Matsumoto.
On arrival we picked up some bread products from a bakery and headed to the hotel. The bakery is what could only be described as French inspired, and served everything from curry doughnuts to the hotdog tortilla I had as part of my lunch.
We then made our way up to the main tourist attraction of Matsumoto, the castle. Set in two rings of moats and rising 5 visible stories high, it is a quite impressive wood and stone structure. We took photos from around the edge of the castle first, then went inside. At one point we were delayed a little, along with around 7 or 8 others trying to take this photo, while two girls took repeated photos of themselves in the middle of the bridge in the foreground. After about 5 minutes of us all stood patiently waiting for them to pass, one of the others decided to go and point out that a group of people were waiting for them to get out of the way...
The castle has very steeply wooden inside stairs and gave a decent view out over the quite dull looking urban surrounds up until the mountains that ring city.
Rolf is pictured in the grounds of the castle...
This evening we went out for a meal in which I had my first sashimi of the trip and Emily tried sushi for the first time ever. Ok, so she only had a plate of cucumber rolls but you have to start somewhere... It seems that her sushi tasting may have also finished there, with her not getting on with either the wasabi in the rolls, or the seaweed that wraps it. She did eat at least 5 of the rolls (she hastens to add). Thankfully the rest of her meal consisted of more tempura vegetables.
On arrival we picked up some bread products from a bakery and headed to the hotel. The bakery is what could only be described as French inspired, and served everything from curry doughnuts to the hotdog tortilla I had as part of my lunch.
We then made our way up to the main tourist attraction of Matsumoto, the castle. Set in two rings of moats and rising 5 visible stories high, it is a quite impressive wood and stone structure. We took photos from around the edge of the castle first, then went inside. At one point we were delayed a little, along with around 7 or 8 others trying to take this photo, while two girls took repeated photos of themselves in the middle of the bridge in the foreground. After about 5 minutes of us all stood patiently waiting for them to pass, one of the others decided to go and point out that a group of people were waiting for them to get out of the way...
The castle has very steeply wooden inside stairs and gave a decent view out over the quite dull looking urban surrounds up until the mountains that ring city.
Rolf is pictured in the grounds of the castle...
This evening we went out for a meal in which I had my first sashimi of the trip and Emily tried sushi for the first time ever. Ok, so she only had a plate of cucumber rolls but you have to start somewhere... It seems that her sushi tasting may have also finished there, with her not getting on with either the wasabi in the rolls, or the seaweed that wraps it. She did eat at least 5 of the rolls (she hastens to add). Thankfully the rest of her meal consisted of more tempura vegetables.
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