Day #8

I was so glad to have the bus stop at our final destination. It was just a dream come true. I couldn't take it on that bus anymore.....really! We were all completely exhausted and walked/dragged ourselves and our luggage a few blocks to Hope's apartment in Nagano. We basically just passed out on the 3 futons mattresses that took up her entire living area of her apartment. We napped until Hope had to go to work (she works at a learning center for kids who took English lessons after school). We walked to Nagano Station and Hope purchased our tickets for us then we followed her to her work so we knew where to meet her later that night. We hoped that we would remember the directions later on as we were so exhausted it was hard to concentrate. We walked back to the station and waited to board our train to Matsumoto Castle. We were worried about our first trip around Japan and not having Hope with us to talk to people for us and to read signage. We figured if we could do this than we could do anything! :) Between the two of us we matched the symbols on our ticket to the symbols on the train schedule and signage and boarded the correct train at the correct time. Hope had also told us where we could get a map (in English) for the Matsumoto Castle and the surrounding areas and we did that. We had to walk a ways to get to the castle from the train station but we found our way without even trying! It did start to rain though which was a bit of a downer but we still had our trusty umbrellas with us so no harm was done.

The castle looked like a large version of the temples we had seen all through Japan.




We were allowed to walk through the castle but was told...actually was shown via hand gestures (hehe) to take off our shoes and put them in a plastic bag to bring around with us while we were in the castle. The inside was mostly one large room. The stairs from floor to floor were REALLY steep, practically straight up and they were spaced out pretty far apart because it was harder for the enemy in full armor to get to the emperor (or whoever). Rach was having some problems because she is shorter than me plus her ankle was still sprained. The views from the top of floor (4th floor?) were incredible. There was a pond that surrounded the castle on 3 of it's 4 sides and there was an incredible zigzaging red bridge at the front of it.



We decided to take a different road back to the train station but we ended up a little lost for a bit. We stopped at a 7Eleven for lunch and grabbed a sandwich and some Sour Cream and Onion Pringles (one of my staple foods on this trip). Rach snagged this noodle sandwich that looked like worms!! ICK!



There was nowhere to really sit and eat our sandwiches because it was a pretty crowded area of homes so we ducked under an awning (it was still raining) at a hotel and set up our mini picnic.

We found our way back to the train station and headed back to Nagano station to meet Hope at her work. We got a bit lost finding her but we made it. We ended up eating authentic Japanese/Chinese food at this nice resturant and I actually liked the food....AMAZING!!