Today I left my capsule hostel one hour before my departure time to make sure I would not miss my train to Matsumoto!

The hostel recommended that I go to a Main Street and get a cab from there but it was raining so hard that I decided that an uber was the way to (well, an uber is always the way to go!) The only Uber options were black car, black van, and uber taxi so I picked the black car and it was soooo fancy! 

The driver was very nice but spoke minimal English. Since it was raining he kept saying "Shinkansen, B1, no stairs, ok?" And I felt like that waiter in Gili Air who had no clue and just repeated what I was saying, this time I was that waiter repeating after the driver! In my head what I thought he was saying was "I will drop you at the B1 exit and don't go up the stairs, the shinkansen (bullet train) is on that floor" but I was wrong!!!! What he meant was "I will drop you off at B1 where there is no elevator, only stairs and you will have to carry everything up the stairs yourself to get to your Shinkansen!" Haha.

I am so glad I got to the station like 40 mins before my train because that B1 entrance was so far and so confusing to get to that I made it to the platform with only 10 minutes to spare! 

Once I got to the platform my train had just gotten there and I was able to see how they cleaned the train and was amazed to see that all the seats are turned 180 degrees depending on the direction the train is going! So cool!
I've had my share of train rides in Europe, and Asia but I've never seen such thing, usually when the train is going the opposite way you are just seating backwards! Well, not in Japan!

After 2 train changes and almost 3 hours I finally made it to Matsumoto. It was raining pretty hard so first I went to get an umbrella so I could get to the hostel!

The hostel is super cute and I love the Japanese futon! 

After dropping my bags off I changed my shoes from my soaking wet toms to my zero fashionable Keen sandals and went to the Matsumoto Castle!

People can walk around the castle for free and look at the outside but if you want to look inside you have to pay 600yen. 

The whole castle is made out of wood and it was really nice. At the entrance they make you take off your shoes and carry them in a plastic bag.

The stairs in this castle are crazy big! I have a hard time imagining a woman in a kimono even attempting to go up the stairs. Inside there are displays with weapons they used to use and they tell you a little bit about the rooms you visit. To be honest, it is really hard for tourist to get a good idea about the places we visit because there are very few English translations.

I took a lot of pictures but exactly at the moment when I left the castle my SD card went crazy! I lost all the pictures from the last couple of days! Oh well! Put a new SD card and hoped for the best!

After the castle I decided to walk around the city and pretty much in every corner I was able to find a shrine!

In every shrine I now found the hand washing station



Also, every shrine has a place for these wooden plaques, Ema, in every Shinto temple. People pay 500Yen and then they can write their prayers and wishes in it and it is believed that the kami (the spirits) receive them (and probably make them come true.) In every shrine you find that the plaques have different drawings depending on the city or the kind of shrine.



A shrine doesn't have to be fancy, a found some literally in the middle of the street.

And even some little ones by the floor, people would just come and bow.





My favorite temples are the colorful ones :)




In Matsumoto there is a very famous frog street with tons of frog figurines and shops dedicated to frogs. I have noticed that many of the small towns around Japan have a symbol or an animal  specific for that town and you can buy many souvenirs with the specific figure of that town.




Japanese make everything cute... Even signs!

I'm assuming this one is for not throwing trash into the river, the cans don't like it and neither do the fish! haha

If you are a frog lover... You would love Matsumoto!



An Ema frog!!!

Even the lamp posts are decorated with frogs! Super Cute!


While walking frog street I saw a lot of Japanese traditional sandals shops!
Some of them seem very tricky to walk with! I bet you need a lot of practice! And forget about running with them!






I really just loved walking the streets of Matsumoto! I found these random but really cute statues:



























At night, my hostel recommended an udon restaurant so I headed there after checking out the Matsumoto Castle by night (with swans!!)

When I got to the restaurant it was empty and they told me it was closed! Apparently it was yet another holiday... the 2nd one this week! So I decided to go next door and try their Udon.
I sat at the bar and got a menu... in Japanese! No english menus so I had the owner choose something vegetarian for me which turned out to be really good!

Once my food arrived I of course had to take a picture!


Then the owner took my camera and said I needed to be in the picture.. so here I am!

It was a great day exploring Matsumoto, tomorrow heading to Takayama!!!