UADarthmaul's Travels: Japan 2.7: A samurai town and a late night Zenkoji

Before I left Nikko, I had found out that the two art museums next to our temple hotel were under construction. There is not much to see outside of the major temple of Nagano, so I decided to look nearby. I discovered a lesser known town nearby named Matsushiro. I found that saying Matsushiro out loud was a tongue twister. Remember, "r"s in Japan are pronounced with a dull "d" sound.

We put our luggage in the coin lockers at Nagano station, bought a bus day pass, and took a thirty minute ride to Matsushiro. After stopping at the tourist center, we beelined it to a tunnel complex that had most interested me. On the way, I admired the beautiful old town buildings, and of course, their clay roofs. I love their designs.

The tunnels were built for World War II as a place to move Imperial headquarters, away from Tokyo, in the case of a ground invasion of Japan. 500 meters are open to the public. Korean slave labor was used and 1,500 died. A monument to them appears at the entrance. Nowadays, a part of the tunnel is used to measure seismic activity, making it the largest of Japan of this nature. We were made to wear hard hats. I banged my head within the first ten seconds of entering.

Next was the Yokota house, a samurai residence.

We walked back toward the tourist office where there is a three part museum, related to the Sanada clan, who played a significant role in the Sekigahara conflict. Funnily enough, I have a Sekigahara board game(and they have their own game piece in it), and had no idea that they were a part of the conflict until just now, when I did extra research! Along the way, we also found some neat wooden carvings.

First, was the Bunbu School. This was where the Sanada family trained fighters. There wasn't much to see here.

Next, was the Sanada residence. It was a nice house. At the end, we got to see people watching what must have been an ancient tv from that era.

The final one was the Sanada Treasure Museum, which was quite nice and larger than I expected.

We took an extremely brief stop at what remained of the Matsushiro castle and headed back to Nagano.

I stopped quickly at the local bus office to inquire about the following day's bus ride and was told that the second half of our mountain trip, on the far side of the mountain, had been closed down due to weather. Luckily, the path still open was the more scenic route. We used our bus pass to get to Zenkoji temple, where we would be staying for the night.

The place was a ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese Inn, and was located right inside the Zenjoki temple grounds. After settling in, we explored the grounds and had it pretty much all to ourselves. Zenkoji is the third largest temple in Japan and is known for its pitch black underground passageway that holds the key to nirvana.