Arriving in Matsumoto

Now my memory has completely mixed up everything I saw from Nikko to Ueda — the so-called JAPAN ROMANTIC ROAD. This is yet another trademark that has stolen the inner energy from local landscapes, leaving only a pretty picture. Every lake, stream, waterfall is plastered with souvenir shops, cafes and ice cream stands, so out of place, so untimely, disrupting the color scheme of truly beautiful natural scenery.

Perhaps a bicycle isn't the best way to really taste these places, maybe it's all because of my prolonged hibernation, or maybe that's how it should be: I immersed myself under the influence of blue clouds and green rice fields, cozy wooden houses and pastoral landscapes. To sit in these fields with a blade of grass between my teeth, turning my cheeks to the sun's rays, squinting as I peer at the river's reflections, and breathe deeply, absorbing the colors — that's all I wanted. Day after day I contemplated everything, silently pedaling and watching the sunrise, how the wind rises, ruffling the rice stalks, and how mist gets caught in the treetops, then how day turns to evening — that was my romantic road. I stopped being afraid to sleep in wild places and began to sense tomorrow's weather forecast by instinct, without the internet.

As I approached Matsumoto, extraneous thoughts faded away on their own. From CS correspondence: — Dude, I'd happily host you, but I have an exam coming up, need to study... Write to a girl named Ai [surname], I hope she'll take you in, say it's from me. — Hi Ai, [travel story] writing to you from my tent somewhere near Ueda. [Name] recommended you, said you might be able to host me. — Yes, we can. We meaning me and my husband. We finish work at 8:00 PM, and leave at eight in the morning. — Can I stay and rest at your place or do I need to leave with you too? — You need to leave too — no one can stay at our place while we're at work. Sorry('▽'). — That's a Japanese emoticon, Japanese people are generally more sophisticated with emoticons.

Most hosts I stayed with simply gave me the apartment key and said do whatever you want. One guy actually accepted my request while somewhere on another continent, saying the key is in the mailbox, don't forget to put it back when you leave. So I don't really like it when they ask you to leave early in the morning with the hosts. Usually in such cases I prefer to sleep in my tent, but after long silence I really wanted to socialize, to be in company, and I compromised this principle.

At six I arrived in Matsumoto, needed to kill about two hours somewhere. On the map, the castle grounds stood out as a green patch with an icon. No one warned me this would be the most beautiful and ancient of all I'd seen. There was almost no one in the park except for solitary city dwellers relaxing, someone eating while sitting on a bench, someone doing yoga, and carp swimming in the moat around the castle, white swans bending their necks, dipping into the water. I probably took forty photos of the castle, each step presented it from a new angle, more magnificent. I don't strive to linger in any place — my memory stores many incredible phenomena, some replacing others. Then in moments of silence or during conversation in company, I sort through them like postcards. This castle will be imprinted in memory. Just like the waves of Lake Biwa, where I'm writing this post, but more about the lake later.

At the castle I met Murato, an art student at an Osaka college. The faculty has several directions, Murato went in the direction of... Manga — only in Japan. I found him by the bags on his bicycle, why not find out who else is wandering around Japan. He was drawing one of the townspeople with a pencil — such is the idea of travel, sometimes they'll give money, but that's not important at all. Murato drew my portrait too.

— Where are you sleeping tonight? he inquired. — Well, I found some local people. — I told him about couchsurfing. — Maybe they'll take me too?

It's not hard for me to ask, plus wanderers should help each other, describing Murato in the electronic message in the best possible way, half an hour later I was already able to show him a thumbs up — as a sign of positive response. At eight at Matsumoto's main railway station we met with Ai, her husband and the one who recommended them to me. Somewhere before that there was also a half-hour conversation with a Mexican dolphin trainer married to a Japanese woman — also a dolphin trainer. As one big group we went to an onsen. The topic of this bath was Israeli visas. It turns out that Japanese people who have been to Israel once can't get visas to neighboring Muslim countries while they have an Israeli visa in their passport. The issue is resolved by changing passports, usually Japanese say they lost it to get a new clean one.