The day after hitting up Inuyama (which I discovered today literally means "dog mountain"), I set out early in the morning for a town called Matsumoto--about halfway between Nagoya and Hakuba, the ski town I was headed for. Matsumoto is a relitively small town, the population is about 200,000 according to a local guy I ran into. The town's main claim to fame is, yes, you guessed it, a castle, which, along with the one at Inuyama, has been designated a Jananese national treasure.

After beiing dropped off at the bus station and figuring out where I was, I ditched my oversized bag in a locker and headed off to do some exploring (I had about 3 hours to kill before my train left for the mountains). I had a quick look at the main square, complete with a Nova school (no city, town, village or muicipality is without one), and a large Shop 99 (or shop QQ as we call them..."kyuu", pronounced like "Q" means 9 in Japanaese) which is sort of like a dollar store crossed with a convenience store.

After a quick lunch I hit up the castle, much larger than the one from the day before, but equally impressive. It was also an original (although heavily renovated) castle, and as such lacked an elevator and many other conveniences...what a shame. Overall, a pretty cool place.