Matsumoto, a town of about 200,000 inhabitants, is only twenty minutes by train, and although its provincial, yet wannabe-metropolitan culture is merely a slight bit different from our rural Shiojiri, it provides a welcome change of atmosphere. Still, one thing became immediately obvious the minute we stepped off the train: there are actually young people here! Whereas Shiojiri seems to have nothing but families with children, as well as elderly, in Matsumoto we could see people in their twenties. With their balloon-skirts, knee socks, long-toed shoes, rock-n-roll jackets and crazy hair-styles they were a modest imitation of various Tokyo subcultures.
Downtown Matsumoto offers a pleasant stroll through its shopping streets, where relaxing soft-jazz plays from hidden speakers, lulling the Sunday shoppers into a friendly delirium. The fact that it is Sunday doesn't deter the stores from being open. In fact, the young crowd who spends their Mondays through Saturdays at work, has finally time to walk along the downtown streets in their fanciest outfits, and maybe buy the one or the other new item. First we explored the department stores, which seemed horrendously expensive, although their style came quite close to being gaudy. Then we strolled on towards the castle.
Matsumoto castle was built, destroyed, rebuilt, taken over, expanded, and fortified by several lords, called daimyo, during the civil war period in the 16th century. Since then it withstood fires, earthquakes, and American bombings, and it can be observed today in it's original state. We took the tour and observed how well polished the wooden floors of the castle were, probably from all the tourists walking over it in their socks. After touring the castle and the castle museum next door, we walked down frog street between the traditional looking inns and taverns, hoping that we would find a nice place to eat. We weren't that lucky. Apparently all the inns and taverns had been converted into different kinds of souvenir shops, so we headed back towards the station to look for a Japanese restaurant. Shouldn't be that hard to find, we figured.
Eventually we found a place that looked decent, but we were turned away with the excuse that all the tables had been reserved. (So they wouldn't have to say: No foreigners here!) At the next place they told us, while apologizing profusely, that unfortunately they wouldn't serve dinner until 5:30, and we'd have to wait at an empty table. Anyone who can read between the lines could tell that this again had to do something with "No White Devils", so we decided against waiting. Finally we entered an establishment that was open, and eager to serve us too. We were starving by this time.
We were ushered into a comfy little cubicle, where the lighting and the colors of the walls presented a warm and cozy setting. Perfect for eating, drinking and chatting. We couldn't wait for the food. The menu was of course in Japanese, but we asked for beers and decided to give different things a try and share them among the four of us. To our surprise everything we ordered was the size of appetizers. So we decided to try some other things as well, only to be disappointed again. Eventually we had ordered every single item on the menu(!), including the Matsumoto specialty, raw horse meat, and two beers each, but our hunger was still noticeably present. We decided to pay and hit the next fast-food joint we could find. The waiter brought us the check, and were surprised that although we were still hungry, we had consumed more than 2500 yen each. Is this the way foreigners get ripped off? Not at all, as we found out later. The establishment we happened to walk into was an old Japanese tradition called isakaya, where people go after work to drink, chat, and eat appetizers. The place was not so much a restaurant as it was a bar!
As for actual bars, we have found merely two decent places. One is called Kurage (=Jellyfish), since it is owned by the same guy who runs the noodle shop by the same name. At the noodle shop you can get a tasty noodle soup with jellyfish, and at the bar you can sit around a table and drink beer. That's what I like, what more do you need? Such a simple pleasure, you'd think, but apparently not in Shiojiri. The only other place of this kind we found is the so called Good Smiles Market (no, it's not a brothel!) where you can even play pool and shoot darts. The only disadvantage is that it is almost in Matsumoto, meaning we always need a designated driver. As far as the crowd goes, Good Smiles is the best. Here you can see bare chested Brazilians arm-wrestling, or some chicks talking and laughing quite loudly to each other. Anywhere else this would be a scandal, but this is exactly what Good Smiles is about. I can't wait for Summer, to organize topless beer-bike-rides to Good Smiles! The Brazilians are actually Japanese, whose grandparents had emigrated to Brazil in the 30's, and whose parents had returned to their native Nagano. But the culture... oh man, it's such a contrast! Whenever someone honks their horn, plays loud music, whistles, or talks a bit loudly, they are bound to be Brazilians. And like us Westerners, they come to Good Smiles Market, to have a good smile!
Other than these two places, when it comes to going out, Japan has not offered too many excitements so far. Shiojiri itself has nothing more than a handful of isakayas, pachinkos, and snack-bars. The former of the three would be perfect to eat, if the food was more plentiful. But being closed off into our cubicle is not what I look for in a bar. Pachinkos are gambling places, mainly with slot-machines, which has never been a turn on for me. And snack-bars have not much in common with what a westerner would associate with that name. True, they might serve sandwiches and other "appetizers", however, similarly to the isakaya, they are not the highlight of the place. As one experienced foreigner form Canada had described, there are many levels of prostitution in Japan. The first ones, such as paying a woman to talk to you, are completely legal. (What a sad state does one have to be in to PAY someone to talk to you? But maybe this sad state is rural Japan.) The later ones nobody cares about. But the ladies at the snack bar tend to come out into the streets and try to persuade you to enter, especially if you are in a group of foreigners who can't seem to find the way to the Karaoke place. Unlike the "ladies in the window" in Amsterdam, or the street hookers anywhere else, these snack-bars seem to present a completely decent and harmless appearance. I can even imagine the shyness of both the Japanese businessman and the snack-bar employee when they start talking about the business of snacking...
As I already mentioned, the fourth alternative of going out in Japan is the Karaoke, which we visited last Friday. We ended up having such a blast, that it made up for the lack of a decent bar. Of course we were among ourselves once again, that is us Active teachers and a few English teachers from the JET program who came along. We were given a little room with couches to lounge on, two microphones, and a gigantic screen where we could read the words to the songs of our choice. Of course they served alcohol too. It ended up being extremely fun. Seeing the Japanese people at Karaoke I had the impression that their singing was surprisingly good. Of course, they practice all the time. But once we got going, singing anything from Guns 'n Roses to Oasis, and from My Girl to Video Killed the Radio Star, I noticed that we rocked as well. Man, did we ROCK. Rock out! Stayed until 3am, and I would have stayed longer too, if I didn't have to teach on Saturday. Oh well, it was worth it.
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