Matsumoto and a Ryoken

We checked out of our wonderful hotel this morning and caught the train to Matsumoto. We stored our luggage in a locker at the train station so we could explore. We walked the 20 minutes to the castle and grabbed some pictures. It's in a beautiful spot with mountains all around. The cherry blossoms are just starting to bloom there, too.

We paid the entrance fee to get into the castle and checked that out as well. It was similar to the one we saw yesterday in that it was mostly wood in the interior, and it was mostly focused on defending against attackers. There were special pathways around the castle for the samurais to use to guard the castle and several floors had only a few small windows only big enough to either shoot a gun or an arrow out of. There was also an entire "secret" floor with no windows that you couldn't tell from the outside was even there. There was also a pretty large gun collection on display with some pretty interesting guns.

Oh, and before we left I dueled with a samurai. I won, obviously.

We grabbed a quick lunch at 7-11, I got spaghetti that they warmed up for me there and Matt got a sausage. On the way to the train station we found a Mos Burger and he's been wanting to try that so we stopped there and he got a burger. He said it was pretty mediocre.

Then we had several hours of train riding to get to Osaka. And then a couple more trains. Eventually we got here and walked the twenty minutes to the Ryoken we're staying at tonight, called Hotel Kuramoto. We're only staying here one night because we wanted to experience the traditional Ryoken, but we didn't want to pay for it for multiple nights. A Ryoken is a traditional Japanese inn. It has Japanese futons on tatami mats. It also has an onsen area and yukata robes to wear. 

After we got settled we went out to find some dinner. It was raining a bit so we were in a hurry to get some sort of roof over our heads. We ended up picking a place that none of us were very excited about. We didn't get very much, which was good because after dinner it wasn't raining that much so we went to explore a bit. We walked around Dotonbori, which is a major street with lots of food vendors and just a lot going on. It was pretty to see at night with all the lights. Jack and I split some gyoza, which is basically dumplings, and they were really good.

Now we're back at the Ryoken and about to check out the onsen! We're staying in the Osaka area for the next 8 nights or so, but we move to a hotel tomorrow. Here's us in our yukatas before we go down to the onsen! (I finally broke out the selfie stick)