Britain 1 Japan 0

We stopped off on our way to Tokyo at a town called Matsumoto. In case we were in any doubt as to where we were, a nice, young, female voice pretty much sang ‘Matsumotooo-oo’ as we arrived at the station. There are, as always, a few temples and Shrines around Matsumoto, but the main draw, and the primary reason we stopped off for a few hours, is the ‘castle’, or rather the castle keep, that is still standing and you can wander round inside.

After a foray around a small, local market on the way for the castle, where I managed to find some nice wood that I could use for my woodworking projects, from an American guy who had set up shop here, we made our way to the castle. It was very photogenic, especially in the midday sun, as evidenced by all the Japanese taking photos of it. And me. The large carp in the large ‘moat’ looked impressive and while the castle architecture looked pretty much like a pagoda to me, there was a large queue of (mainly Japanese) tourists wanting to go inside, so we thought we would join them. A bad choice.

British castles are big, bold and generally at least 500 – 800 years old, with great stories of battles, torture, sieges etc to excite the visitor and to encourage kids to run around battlements pretending to be knights or archers throwing burning pitch on attackers below. This one, from the inside, was dull, dull, dull. The inside was pretty much empty, other than the odd musket to show that the castle wasn’t all that old, but they still felt the need to funnel visitors round on a set route that meant you had to go at the slowest person’s pace. And with the very steep wooden steps inside the castle (which were probably the most interesting bit – imagining samurai in full gear trying to gingerly step down the steep stairs without falling over) that meant a very slow pace indeed. Most of the Japanese visitors seemed pretty bored too. We gave up halfway round and took a shortcut to the exit. I think the ‘must see' attached to this attraction should apply to the outside only. In good weather.

Still, I got some nice bits of wood out of the day. British castles are definitely better than Japanese ones.