[Japan Travel]: Matsumoto + Suwa (last day!)
Hello! 
This is already the last day if my awesome winter vacation.
No need to worry, though, spring vacation's coming up in a few weeks!!
(^___^)b
This last day features another highlight: Matsumoto Castle (I wanted to visit it forever, but somehow never managed to do so until now!)
Here we go!~
Matsumoto and Suwa (January 7th 2011):
After leaving Nagano and after a long day there (Zenkoji temple in the morning, snow monkeys in the afternoon, Shibu Onsen in the afternoon) I arrived quite late in Matsumoto. It was already past 10pm, but I sooo wanted to go and see the castle. My hotel was quite close to it, so I went off for a night-sightseeing tour! Quite cool because I was like the only person in the park at that time. Kind of creepy, though XD
It was difficult to get decent photos of the castle at night, though. I don't have a tripod (yet) and there was almost not light at all!
It was extremely cold! Part of the small lake around the castle was frozen.
Yet there were two beautiful swans swimming around!! (*___*)b
On my way back to the hotel I stopped by at Mr. Donuts (which was right next to my hotel and open until quite late, yay!!) and grabbed a Rilakkuma donuts.
Yummie!!!! Usually I don't eat donuts that late, but it was a long day and I think I deserved those XDDDD They were super yummie!! (*___*)b
I got up quite early the next morning and was already on my way back to the castle again.
The gully displays what Matsumoto is famous for: Temari
Although it was REALLY cold, there wasn't that much snow.
I never throw rubbish. Do you? I throw balls and stuff, you know?! XDDDD
There's a really famous shopping street which has a frog as mascot (more about it later) in front of it: those two huge frog statues!
Reminded me of Naruto somehow (o__O'') .... XD
Right next to it a small shrine.
Still empty and nothing going on there, so I went back at a later time again.
Frog statues everywhere around that shopping street!! ^-^
It was still quite early, so I moved on.
Over there you can see the clock museum (which I also visited later). I think you all know that nothing is open yet at around 8am in Japan! (x___X'') ....
Random. Kaguyahime?!
There are some nice small ponds in Matsumoto.
Finally arrived at the castle.
The weather forecast said it would be super cold, but clear today and until then it looked like they were right and I was happy to finally FINALLY have a day without snow/rain/clouds.
The swans were there again, too!
I slowly walked towards the entrance, knowing that it was still too early. I had to wait until the castle gates opened, so I could explore the castle from the inside as well.
Some parts of the lake were still frozen, but most of it was okay, so the swans could swim around without any problems.
I used the time to take lots of photos from many different perspectives.
What the hell is that huge grey cloud doing there?? Wasn't it supposed to be clear the whole day??? ARGH!!! ;o; Panic!
Getting darker and darker (-_-') ....
But somehow this gives the photos a nice colorings ^-^;
The clouds moved quite fast.
Finally the gates opened and I could enter. The moment I did it started snowing. CRAZY!!! Sunshine + snow!! This was a magic moment!! I walked around in the small castle garden, one of the only people there apart from the ones working there and was happy like a little child XD
Alright, let's go inside!
It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cold in the castle!!! Never enter a huge ORIGINAL castle in winter, early in the morning!!! NEVER!!!! The slippers were almost frozen, too, and I barely could stand being in there, but it was so interesting, so I wanted to stay.
Matsumoto Castle is one of the few castles that's still in its original shape.
Interesting items everywhere, but not much English explanations.
Lucky you! You guys can enjoy these exhibits without having to freeze like WOAH!! ;)
Some floors you couldn't enter (probably too old, this one had quite a low roof, so you would have hit your head anyways..)
The explanation on the sign says: "The 3rd floor: The third floor, a kind of attic to the second floor, is called "Hidden Floor" or "Dark Floor" because there are no windows. The lack of windows made the Main Tower appear to have five floors instead of six. This floor was mainly used for storage of food, gunpowder and weapons. The floor has two stairs going up to the fourth floor."
Nice view on the "Japanese alps" from the top floor of the castle.
On my way back: *lol* gotta love these signs!
Board game that looks similar to "Go"?!
Old coins.
Wha..??!!! XD
I think this time you can read the explanation?! ^-^;
And then I left the castle again. I took some more photos from the inner garden and the castle.
The clouds were gone again and it stopped snowing.
If only it would be straight!!! Other than that it looks really nice.
Slowly moving away from the castle (not without taking another 2342534 photos).
And goodbye castle, see you later again!!!
Next to the castle there's the Matsumoto City Museum. Entrance fee for the castle is 600yen, but entrance to the museum is included. It's a nice museum and if you have time, you should check it out as you don't have to pay exta for it if you went into the castle anyways!
As you can see they also have English explanations for the exhibits.
"Wii" and "Nintendo DS" a few hundred years ago ;P
Wow, that's cool!! Geta skates!!! (*__*)
Photo from a popular festival in Matsumoto City.
Scary(?!) dolls.
Awww, the grandmother of my camera!! ^-^
Old stuff rules! XD
Left the museum again. The weather was still very nice, but it was still extremely cold!
I left the castle, checked the time and then was on the way to my next destination.
Can you read the secret duck code?
Random small chapel/chruch.
My next destination: The former Kaichi school
Now, if you're wondering why students are running around, that was the new school, the old school is what you see in the background.
Finally there. Clearly a Western-style building.
Above the entrance door.
And inside. Old wooden building. Old wood makes a lot of noises when you walk on it. Some parts were closed to the public (probably too dangerous to walk on it).
I was tempted to write something on it XD
Here you can see the date of my visit (January 7th).
Old study material.
A lot of the old classrooms are exhibition rooms now.
The dragon in this door is VERY old, one of the oldest parts in the school!!
Outside again.
You already saw this earlier on a photo. It's right next to the former school.
It's the former parsonage. Entrance is free, but the inside is not really interesting.
On my way back: funny "sign" on the street saying: "Stop and look left and right (first)."
P.E. class was over it seems, at least no students outside anymore. In the background the former, in the front the new primary school.
Back at the castle. By now there were quite a lot of tourists, but I was just walking through the park back to sightseeing spots I passed in the morning.
I took the chance to take some more photos of the castle, of course. As you can see the lake was still partly frozen.
Symmetric?!?!
As you can see I stopped every few minutes to take photos again. Well, you have to admit that it's really a beautiful castle and the weather was great, too!! (*-*)b
Saying goodbye to the swans.
And a cute duckling!
It was noon. I headed over to the Timepiece Museum next.
Even the business hours are presented in a clock! Awesome!
They had a LOT of interesting clocks there. A lot of German clocks, too!
Japanese-style clock. I didn't have time to take that many photos as I was taking part in a quizz (I'm not sure if that was available in English, too).
More Japanese-style clocks in full size.
Uhm, yes, that's NOT a clock! XD
I liked this one a lot!
All the little details are so beautiful.
Woah!
And back in the shopping street from earlier. This time it looked a bit livelier, so I entered!
Some small restaurants and shops.
The street was very short and much smaller than I thought it would be. A bit disappointing.
However, the cute frogs made up for it ;)
Gotta love Japan's cute signs!
I went back to the hotel, grabbed my luggage and ate the stuff I bought in a conbini.
On my way to the station I saw the "sightseeing bus". Quite colorful. Never used it because it was easy to walk to the major sightseeing spots anyways :)
There's also an Animate close to the station! Haven't been in one in ages, though.
I took a train to Suwa and got off at "Kamisuwa Station". From Matsumoto Station that takes about 40 minutes by local train ^-^
Suwa .. what?? Well, it's not a famous tourist spot at all! There seem to be a lot of onsen and stuff, but I wanted to see yet another castle (what else?! ;P ...)
It was a ~20min. walk from the station to the castle.
Finally there. The lake around this castle was completely frozen as you can see!
Quite a small, reconstructed castle, but cute somehow :3
Featuring a nice Japanese garden as well!
Time to explore the castle from the inside.
Photos inside were forbidden and I barely can remember what was inside, but it probably wasn't that great and without any English. Of course they don't get foreign tourists often, so they were quite surprised to see me XD
Awesome view from the top floor!!! And can you see it? ...
Yepp, that's Mt. Fuji ... AGAIN!!! My first day started with Mt. Fuji and my last day surprisingly ended with it. Awesome! ^-^
Outside again. I still had a few more minutes before I had to leave again.
Poor fish :( ..... Everything was frozen there, but quite close to it there was no frozen water with fish happily swimming in it ;o;
Oh, the castle's name is "Takashima Castle" btw.!
Suwa City gully.
So awesome!!! A spa for your feet IN the actual station! First time I saw something like that! ^-^
I left Suwa around 4pm and came back home close to midnight. The rest of the day I spent in trains (x_X')
I had a short stopover in Nagoya where I went to eat dinner. Kind of funny as I spent my summer vacation in Nagoya and so I left Nagoya on my last day of summer vacation and now I also left it (more or less) on my last day of winter vacation XDD
Camera(s) used:
Pentax K-x and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5
And that's it. That was my busy, but awesome winter vacation!
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did when travelling (^___^)b
Coming up next: -nothing yet- (BUT spring vacation is around the corner, yay!!~
)
P.S.: For some time now my LJ Scrapbook sucks since the last LJ update! All my travel photos are uploaded to my LJ Scrapbook and they load so slow since a few days. I'm truly sorry and I hope LJ will notice and fix it soon *annoyed*
This is already the last day if my awesome winter vacation.
No need to worry, though, spring vacation's coming up in a few weeks!!
(^___^)b
This last day features another highlight: Matsumoto Castle (I wanted to visit it forever, but somehow never managed to do so until now!)
Here we go!~
Matsumoto and Suwa (January 7th 2011):
After leaving Nagano and after a long day there (Zenkoji temple in the morning, snow monkeys in the afternoon, Shibu Onsen in the afternoon) I arrived quite late in Matsumoto. It was already past 10pm, but I sooo wanted to go and see the castle. My hotel was quite close to it, so I went off for a night-sightseeing tour! Quite cool because I was like the only person in the park at that time. Kind of creepy, though XD
It was difficult to get decent photos of the castle at night, though. I don't have a tripod (yet) and there was almost not light at all!
It was extremely cold! Part of the small lake around the castle was frozen.
Yet there were two beautiful swans swimming around!! (*___*)b
On my way back to the hotel I stopped by at Mr. Donuts (which was right next to my hotel and open until quite late, yay!!) and grabbed a Rilakkuma donuts.
Yummie!!!! Usually I don't eat donuts that late, but it was a long day and I think I deserved those XDDDD They were super yummie!! (*___*)b
I got up quite early the next morning and was already on my way back to the castle again.
The gully displays what Matsumoto is famous for: Temari
Although it was REALLY cold, there wasn't that much snow.
I never throw rubbish. Do you? I throw balls and stuff, you know?! XDDDD
There's a really famous shopping street which has a frog as mascot (more about it later) in front of it: those two huge frog statues!
Reminded me of Naruto somehow (o__O'') .... XD
Right next to it a small shrine.
Still empty and nothing going on there, so I went back at a later time again.
Frog statues everywhere around that shopping street!! ^-^
It was still quite early, so I moved on.
Over there you can see the clock museum (which I also visited later). I think you all know that nothing is open yet at around 8am in Japan! (x___X'') ....
Random. Kaguyahime?!
There are some nice small ponds in Matsumoto.
Finally arrived at the castle.
The weather forecast said it would be super cold, but clear today and until then it looked like they were right and I was happy to finally FINALLY have a day without snow/rain/clouds.
The swans were there again, too!
I slowly walked towards the entrance, knowing that it was still too early. I had to wait until the castle gates opened, so I could explore the castle from the inside as well.
Some parts of the lake were still frozen, but most of it was okay, so the swans could swim around without any problems.
I used the time to take lots of photos from many different perspectives.
What the hell is that huge grey cloud doing there?? Wasn't it supposed to be clear the whole day??? ARGH!!! ;o; Panic!
Getting darker and darker (-_-') ....
But somehow this gives the photos a nice colorings ^-^;
The clouds moved quite fast.
Finally the gates opened and I could enter. The moment I did it started snowing. CRAZY!!! Sunshine + snow!! This was a magic moment!! I walked around in the small castle garden, one of the only people there apart from the ones working there and was happy like a little child XD
Alright, let's go inside!
It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cold in the castle!!! Never enter a huge ORIGINAL castle in winter, early in the morning!!! NEVER!!!! The slippers were almost frozen, too, and I barely could stand being in there, but it was so interesting, so I wanted to stay.
Matsumoto Castle is one of the few castles that's still in its original shape.
Interesting items everywhere, but not much English explanations.
Lucky you! You guys can enjoy these exhibits without having to freeze like WOAH!! ;)
Some floors you couldn't enter (probably too old, this one had quite a low roof, so you would have hit your head anyways..)
The explanation on the sign says: "The 3rd floor: The third floor, a kind of attic to the second floor, is called "Hidden Floor" or "Dark Floor" because there are no windows. The lack of windows made the Main Tower appear to have five floors instead of six. This floor was mainly used for storage of food, gunpowder and weapons. The floor has two stairs going up to the fourth floor."
Nice view on the "Japanese alps" from the top floor of the castle.
On my way back: *lol* gotta love these signs!
Board game that looks similar to "Go"?!
Old coins.
Wha..??!!! XD
I think this time you can read the explanation?! ^-^;
And then I left the castle again. I took some more photos from the inner garden and the castle.
The clouds were gone again and it stopped snowing.
If only it would be straight!!! Other than that it looks really nice.
Slowly moving away from the castle (not without taking another 2342534 photos).
And goodbye castle, see you later again!!!
Next to the castle there's the Matsumoto City Museum. Entrance fee for the castle is 600yen, but entrance to the museum is included. It's a nice museum and if you have time, you should check it out as you don't have to pay exta for it if you went into the castle anyways!
As you can see they also have English explanations for the exhibits.
"Wii" and "Nintendo DS" a few hundred years ago ;P
Wow, that's cool!! Geta skates!!! (*__*)
Photo from a popular festival in Matsumoto City.
Scary(?!) dolls.
Awww, the grandmother of my camera!! ^-^
Old stuff rules! XD
Left the museum again. The weather was still very nice, but it was still extremely cold!
I left the castle, checked the time and then was on the way to my next destination.
Can you read the secret duck code?
Random small chapel/chruch.
My next destination: The former Kaichi school
Now, if you're wondering why students are running around, that was the new school, the old school is what you see in the background.
Finally there. Clearly a Western-style building.
Above the entrance door.
And inside. Old wooden building. Old wood makes a lot of noises when you walk on it. Some parts were closed to the public (probably too dangerous to walk on it).
I was tempted to write something on it XD
Here you can see the date of my visit (January 7th).
Old study material.
A lot of the old classrooms are exhibition rooms now.
The dragon in this door is VERY old, one of the oldest parts in the school!!
Outside again.
You already saw this earlier on a photo. It's right next to the former school.
It's the former parsonage. Entrance is free, but the inside is not really interesting.
On my way back: funny "sign" on the street saying: "Stop and look left and right (first)."
P.E. class was over it seems, at least no students outside anymore. In the background the former, in the front the new primary school.
Back at the castle. By now there were quite a lot of tourists, but I was just walking through the park back to sightseeing spots I passed in the morning.
I took the chance to take some more photos of the castle, of course. As you can see the lake was still partly frozen.
Symmetric?!?!
As you can see I stopped every few minutes to take photos again. Well, you have to admit that it's really a beautiful castle and the weather was great, too!! (*-*)b
Saying goodbye to the swans.
And a cute duckling!
It was noon. I headed over to the Timepiece Museum next.
Even the business hours are presented in a clock! Awesome!
They had a LOT of interesting clocks there. A lot of German clocks, too!
Japanese-style clock. I didn't have time to take that many photos as I was taking part in a quizz (I'm not sure if that was available in English, too).
More Japanese-style clocks in full size.
Uhm, yes, that's NOT a clock! XD
I liked this one a lot!
All the little details are so beautiful.
Woah!
And back in the shopping street from earlier. This time it looked a bit livelier, so I entered!
Some small restaurants and shops.
The street was very short and much smaller than I thought it would be. A bit disappointing.
However, the cute frogs made up for it ;)
Gotta love Japan's cute signs!
I went back to the hotel, grabbed my luggage and ate the stuff I bought in a conbini.
On my way to the station I saw the "sightseeing bus". Quite colorful. Never used it because it was easy to walk to the major sightseeing spots anyways :)
There's also an Animate close to the station! Haven't been in one in ages, though.
I took a train to Suwa and got off at "Kamisuwa Station". From Matsumoto Station that takes about 40 minutes by local train ^-^
Suwa .. what?? Well, it's not a famous tourist spot at all! There seem to be a lot of onsen and stuff, but I wanted to see yet another castle (what else?! ;P ...)
It was a ~20min. walk from the station to the castle.
Finally there. The lake around this castle was completely frozen as you can see!
Quite a small, reconstructed castle, but cute somehow :3
Featuring a nice Japanese garden as well!
Time to explore the castle from the inside.
Photos inside were forbidden and I barely can remember what was inside, but it probably wasn't that great and without any English. Of course they don't get foreign tourists often, so they were quite surprised to see me XD
Awesome view from the top floor!!! And can you see it? ...
Yepp, that's Mt. Fuji ... AGAIN!!! My first day started with Mt. Fuji and my last day surprisingly ended with it. Awesome! ^-^
Outside again. I still had a few more minutes before I had to leave again.
Poor fish :( ..... Everything was frozen there, but quite close to it there was no frozen water with fish happily swimming in it ;o;
Oh, the castle's name is "Takashima Castle" btw.!
Suwa City gully.
So awesome!!! A spa for your feet IN the actual station! First time I saw something like that! ^-^
I left Suwa around 4pm and came back home close to midnight. The rest of the day I spent in trains (x_X')
I had a short stopover in Nagoya where I went to eat dinner. Kind of funny as I spent my summer vacation in Nagoya and so I left Nagoya on my last day of summer vacation and now I also left it (more or less) on my last day of winter vacation XDD
Camera(s) used:
Pentax K-x and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5
And that's it. That was my busy, but awesome winter vacation!
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did when travelling (^___^)b
Coming up next: -nothing yet- (BUT spring vacation is around the corner, yay!!~
)
P.S.: For some time now my LJ Scrapbook sucks since the last LJ update! All my travel photos are uploaded to my LJ Scrapbook and they load so slow since a few days. I'm truly sorry and I hope LJ will notice and fix it soon *annoyed*