You already know what I think about the touristy places. Besides, I’ve already been to the major cities in Japan. Matsumoto is not a major city, but that’s why I decided to go there for Golden Week.

Best part about vacationing in Japan is, with a few exceptions, you can do it with very little advance planning. I was going to stay at home for Golden Week, until I decided I wasn’t. I looked up hotel rooms on Monday to leave on Thursday. I made seat reservations for the train to Matsumoto the same evening I decided to go.

Everybody remembers Nagano from the 1998 Olympics. That’s the city of Nagano. The rest of the prefecture got some spillover tourism, but otherwise the city of Matsumoto is its own place. I mean this as a good thing. International cities tend to be too polished for me. The Tokyos and Frankfurts and Mexico Citys of the world always have sleek tourist info kiosks and restaurants with bilingual menus and no shortage of tourist-friendly tourist traps. Those places that aren’t the big cities are a little bit more insular. And those are the places I like.

 

Matsumoto isn’t that far off the beaten path either. If you’re in Nagoya or Shinjuku (Tokyo), you’re one train ride away. But it’s just far enough away to not be worth a day trip. The train is rather pleasant, because you get a really nice view of the mountains and countryside living on the way to Matsumoto.

People complain about Amtrak being slow and old. I don’t care about that so much, but I do remember the train ride from Boston to Stamford being incredibly dull. There’s nothing to look at outside the window. Trains that pass through the central mountains in Japan, however, travel through some really nice scenery.

But you want to hear about the city of Matsumoto.

I dropped my bags in the hotel, changed clothes and went running almost right away. To the north of the hotel is Matsumoto Castle. I jogged one lap around the castle and headed east. Like most Japanese cities that aren’t Tokyo or Osaka, the downtown area is rather small, and the scene turns from busy streets to quiet country rather quickly. Because Nagano is in the mountains, a lot of the hilly regions remain untouched. You can’t see them from the city center, but travel in any direction away from downtown and you’ll be rewarded.

A 10K run east of Matsumoto Station is picturesque. Lots of houses to the sides and mountains right in front of you, then a river to run along on the way back. And with Matsumoto just a few degrees cooler than Nagoya, the jog was really comfortable.

Yakitori is typically the food people in Japan think about when they think about food on skewers. Cheese, however, does not hold its shape on the grill. It needs to be breaded in Japanese bread crumbs and deep fried. A lot of other foods, believe it or not, do very well being served as kushikatsu.

In a lot of restaurants in the major cities, the server gives me one look and assumes I must be given the foreigner treatment: speak slowly in English, offer them a bilingual menu, and point to the touristy foods that are supposedly the most Japanese. Not at this place. I was on my own, having to communicate with the staff in Japanese, being treated like I was just every other customer. Being treated like just another part of the atmosphere. And I love it.

Perhaps one drawback is that, besides the restaurants, things close rather early. Tully’s Coffee was shuttered by 8PM. Starbucks was ready to close up. A lot of smaller stores that hadn’t closed for Golden Week had already closed for the night. But that made for a rather quiet area around the station. Everybody thinks of Shibuya Station and the busiest crossing in the world. The area just outside the station is the opposite. Nice and peaceful on a cool evening. Pretty good to take a walk.

There will be more to talk about tomorrow, when I head further up the mountains. Hot springs are just a few of my favorite things.