Most of Japan is South of Hachinohe...

Alright.  Time to start wrapping this up.  Here's a post I wrote on 7/5/17 about the previous week (6/28)....

"I'm realizing that my blogging is a little heavy on detail, so I'm going to do less travelog and more story-telling [ha! MB 2/2/18].  Let me know if that's working....

Hachinohe was a pleasant enough place.  It appears to be a port city in decline, and probably for 15 years or more.  The entire Tohoku region has been losing youth to the bigger cities forever; Tohoku and everywhere else in the world.  So, I didn't hang out long, and took off Tuesday for Matsumoto, tucked in amidst the Japanese Alps.

The usual hash of reroutes and adjusted expectations didn't keep from getting there by mid-afternoon.  I did some laundry and shopping and came across, of all things, a Big Boy.  This is a Midwestern restaurant chain that has no earthly business in the valley cities of mid-Japan.  Yet, there it was.  Obviously, I had to see what that's all about.

It was okay, and...pretty different.  The full meal deal included salad, soup (miso), rice and a beef curry.  Hmm.  And the hamburgers ALL failed to have buns.  "Hamburg steaks" is how they're billed.    Most curious.  [as it happens, Big Boy has mostly disappeared from the US {79 stores}; almost all the remaining Big Boys are IN Japan {279 stores!} 2/2/18]

Wednesday was full.  Matsumoto Castle, across the street from my hostel, was great.  Virtually every castle or palace I've visited in Japan has been rebuilt to some degree and at some more recent time.  This speaks to the enormous fire risks Japan is subject to;  I assume that's a response to primarily woodframe construction. That and, you know, some wars.

But Matsumoto Castle is intact, going back to the late 1500s and the rise of the Edo period.  Somehow that feels important, even though the shuffling crowds and lack of any furniture make the insides of all of these castles...hard to grasp.  Still, there was enough interpretation to get it, plus, like, it's a friggin' 7-story building made of wood.  Standing in the middle of this ring of mountains with a full view of the valley.  Gives some insight on how these feudal estates formed.  If you think about that kind of thing...

And, of course, Matsumoto Castle ("the Crow Castle" from all the black siding) is totally photogenic:  it already graces the cover of my FaceBorg account.  No idea how I'm going to decide which photos to keep...

So, a full morning.  I took advantage of one local specialty for lunch:  soba, or buckwheat, noodles.  Pretty tasty, and, yes, everyone else WAS slurping.  The other specialty for the mid-mountain region (Nagano/Matsumoto-ish) I did not try:  basashi, or horsemeat sushi.  Yeah, raw.  Outside my current culinary capacity.

The afternoon was dedicated to getting to, and soaking in, the Asama Onsen, or natural hot spring baths.  I'm not going to wax too poetical about onsen....but they're pretty relaxing.  Getting there and back, somewhat less so.

Ah, and there I go into travelog mode.  Time for a break.