Japan 2019 - Day 6

I have a lot more photos to add to this, but need to transfer them from the camera rather than my phone. And technology isn't playing nice with me at this point. Anyway ... day 6 ...

After a long day yesterday, we had a bit of a sleep in ahead of a day of exploring Matsumoto. There were a number of sites that weren’t going to be open on Monday, so we decided to cram as many of them in as we could. With a route around town mapped out we set out first for the MatsumotoCity Museum of Art  which houses a collection by the polka dot famous artist Yayoi Kusama  and spent a couple of hours wandering around the exhibits.

We stopped by an old well

(nice 30 second diversion there) and proceeded to the Museum of Weights and Measures. 

Not something I’d come to town just to see, but somewhat interesting. It would probably be more so if there was more English available but I’m not going to hold that against them given we’re in Japan. The rear of the property was probably as cool to see as the things inside.

It’s located on Nakamachi Street which is recommended as one of the things to do, so we strolled the length of it, admiring the street’s aesthetics and peeking in shop windows.

That took us close to the Time-piece museum, but after the weights and measures we decided to give it a miss. We did admire there nice big pendulum clock out the front though. 

That took us close to Nawate Street so we had another stroll along there with Sam stopping to buy some Takoyaki to try. No one that tried them was a particular fan. I wasn’t feeling 100% so opted out on this occasion. I might give it a go in Akihabara when I can get some hot from a pan rather than reheated.

Our last two stops for the day were the Takahashi Family Residence, an actual Samaurai’s house from back in the day.

And from there, we walked over to the Kaichi Gakko Primary School, one of the oldest elementary schools in Japan having been completed in 1876, which again, had some English, but certainly not full translations of the amount if information available in Japanese. It certainly makes you wish you could read the language! Possibly the most interesting item in the school was an old pair of ice skates. Imagine getting out on a frozen lake on these babies!

What we did find at the school though was a vending machine (apparently added sometime after construction) with just the drink that I needed:

With the list of scenic diversions ticked off, we headed back to the centre of town because Thomas wanted to try some shoes on that he’d seen the day before. While Thomas, Emily and Caroline looked at shoes, Michael and Sam decided to check out the claw machines on the top floor. I tagged along with them because well, shoes vs claw machines, right?

There were maybe 40 of these machines and we wandered around looking at them, watching people throwing their money into them when an attendant came up and gave us each a voucher for one free try. Well that started a different discussion altogether about the merits of the different machines and the chances of winning any of them with a single try. Michael and I agreed that we’d have a go at one that scooped ping pong balls and dropped them into a tray where two of the receptacles were coloured to indicate a win. Michael went first and failed, but I stepped up to the plate and managed to dump several balls in and won. Given that the prizes in the machine were photos of K-Pop stars, I opted to let Michael pick and keep it.

We watched a young Japanese guy work his way around the machines, pumping money in but slowly and successfully winning prizes, but we didn’t spend any money. I found the rest of the family and they came up as well, each collecting their voucher for a free go. 

By the time that those had been used, something had happened. Michael had decided he should try and get the rest of the K-pop band and Thomas and Emily had set their sights on anime figurines. Out came the money. Emily managed to move the box she had to collect closer to the drop point, but with her last couple of attempts, failed. She was crumbling under pressure. And that’s when they get you. You’ve invested money, got it close and with just a little more … surely success would be yours. Into the breach I stepped, dropping some money in and taking over. 7 tries later, we had nice little dust collector for Emily. She was happy as and I am now the self-declared claw-master of the family. Seeing that didn’t help deter Thomas, but to be honest I think what he was chasing was a lost cause. Michael managed to obtain one more member of his K-Pop band, but that was all. We managed to extract ourselves before we’d dumped ALL our coin in the machines and now I just have to find a way to keep the kids away from the other four billion machines in Japan!