A Pause in Matsumoto

Matsumoto Castle at night

The next two days I spent in Matsumoto, the second largest town in Nagano prefecture, famous for a 500 year old castle. On Saturday I was mostly hunting for food or at orientation in Shiojiri, but I did take a night stroll around the castle. On the way to church on Sunday, I had breakfast in Flower Clock Park and observed many people watering and trimming their yards. The greenery here continues to amaze me, but in the city the impressive quality is its manicured perfection rather than its abundance. Oh, and there are drink machines on every block here! They typically sell about 20 different drinks, most of which are some variety of iced coffee, with a couple of juice, soda, or tea options. They cost 100-160 yen (about $1-1.5), but the cans are small.

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The Hanadokei (Flower Clock)

The mountains! East side of Matsumoto

I arrived at the church with about an hour to spare and sat at a nearby park. I wanted to make sure that I was going in the right place and doing the right thing, so ten minutes before the service I followed a few people inside. Everyone took off their shoes and put on slippers, so I did the same and then walked into the sanctuary and sat down in the back row. After a few minutes, two ladies came in and started excitedly talking to me, and pulled me out of the sanctuary. I was given a Japanese-English new testament, a Japanese hymnal, a bulletin, and was asked to sign their visitor book. While I was doing that, they panicked over not having anyone that spoke English (even though I had answered all their questions and followed their instructions). They suddenly remembered someone in the balcony who was a foreigner and asked her to come down and talk to me. I talked to her a little, but insisted that I knew enough Japanese to sit through the service without her help.

The service order was pretty traditional, though with more hymns than I’m used to. It was really cool to say the Apostles’ Creed in Japanese and think about the people throughout the world and time having confessed this faith! I could follow the sermon and understand the majority of it, but I was clueless about the songs. I was able to sing them because all the kanji (Chinese characters) had their pronunciation written in small Japanese characters above them, but I suspect that the vocabulary and style was poetic.

A random historical bit of Matsumoto--a town map

A generic street in Matsumoto

After the service I was invited to take tea and snacks (watermelon, chocolates, and pickles) in the church, and I did so. Most of the people left, but I was able to chat with the few people who stayed. The other English speaker was from Kenya, and she invited me to a barbecue after the service. She left before me to pick up her phone, telling me to meet her at the nearby Circle K convenience shop. I went to where I thought it was, and it turned out that the place I had in mind was a 7-eleven! (They are in great abundance in Japan). Panicking, I ran back to the church and made slow circles, but never could find it, so I missed out on meeting more people.

On Sunday evening I brought my luggage to Shiojiri by train. My boss picked me up and took me to various stores to buy necessities before we arrived at the apartment where I would be living. Once I’m a little more settled I’ll share pictures of the apartment. For right now I’ll just say that it’s cozy and will, I suspect, require a Japanese approach to the use of space. My bedroom is definitely big enough though.