We're gonna go see what their ticket price prices are like and I'm not sure if I'm gonna go inside, but this is definitely a day where you want to be outside and hanging out.

Alright, there's some people around here, so I'm gonna get my mask on.

So Matsumoto is a medium sized city, the capital of Nagano Prefecture is not gonna city.

Matsumoto has a lot of history and it isn't very famous for being a castle town.

Oh, let's see here, Adults are 700 yen, So let's go ahead and pay it job.

I hate to say mass uh you go, how does a mass?

Oh cool.

All right, let's see this in the sun here.

This is the ticket for Matsumoto Castle.

Very cool.

It's about $7, or 700 yen.

And they have a pamphlet in English, it's a national treasure and I'll read this as I go along.

Here's the Youtube channel for the Matsumoto Castle.

Yeah.

All right, here we go.

Mhm Yeah.

Mhm.

I always take the flyers and then give it a good stamp.

All right, welcome to Matsumoto Castle again.

At the end of this.

You want to stay tuned and I'm gonna take you to the best spot to get a picture on the other side.

Mhm So the origin of Matsumoto Castle goes back to the Fukushi castle which was built at the beginning of the A show era in the Civil war period.

During those troubled times, Lord ogasawara in Shinano moved his manor house from Igawa to the Hayashi district.

It's a lot of information on this flyer.

I'm trying to read it for you but refer to Wikipedia.

I don't know.

Oh, we're out to tower.

All right, okay.

I just know that this castle is an original castle and has a really long history that goes back centuries by original.

I mean that it's not a reproduction and a lot of fires, earthquakes, natural disasters.

A lot of things have caused castles to be rebuilt including War World War two destroyed a lot of castles and they were reconstructed mostly in concrete.

But now mm.

Okay, tender.

Okay.

But now these castles are, this castle here is just the way it was when it was first constructed renovated.

Of course.

Beautiful day.

So we're still under the protocols where we have to wear masks and alcohol our hands but there really aren't a lot of people today, which is, which is very good.

Again, it's a friday.

It's a weak day that I'm filming this.

I film until they say I can't film and if I can't film, I have to shut this off and possibly turn this back on when I get to the top.

So we're gonna see what they say.

Sometimes you can film, wow, it's beautiful.

As I said look at the mountains all around, right, that's what makes us castle so special, it's the view of the mountains in the distance.

Mhm What much we need to uh mm mhm All right now I'm leaving, I'm leaving the castle just I found out you're not allowed to film inside there, so no Youtube, no, no kind of social media they told me, but outside is fine.

Uh I can tell you a little bit about the castle as we walk along but and I did take some video outside the top, so you get a nice bird's eye view of the city of Matsumoto, but here's the castle from outside of the the gate here all This is 10 shoot castle keep exit there, the bags that they make you put your shoes in so everybody is shoeless inside there, which is a good thing and a bad thing because people can't Oh my gosh, Uh huh, wow, hi, wait, Mhm, wow, it's a spear, very cool, I'd get it kind of is waiting for me at the car off we go, what a really cool experience.

I know I'm not a lot of film inside there um but I want to tell you a little bit about the experience that I had, so the steps in there, there's uh I forget how many levels are right now that I think there were six, six or 7 floors maybe even more, but the stairs got steeper and steeper the closer you got to the top and they were uneven meaning I guess you really have to be careful because if you're not sure you're not familiar with the castle, you're going to fall down unless you're going super slow.

So I thought that, that was, I thought that was really awesome.

The wood in there is incredible.

There's no cement at least I couldn't find any cement, Osaka Castle, some of the other great castles around Japan that are recreations.

I didn't see any of that cement in there, which it's all would still, it's backlit there.

We're gonna move around to the other side where we're gonna meet Connie, let me get some other viewpoints as well for you, not a lot of exhibits inside of there.

Um, some things from the Edo period I saw but not too much.

I don't know if it's, if it's necessary to go inside the castle and I think you're going to have to make that decision when you come to visit but if you come all this way and you're spending thousands of dollars to come to Japan, I mean 700 yen to go inside of a castle for, I think it took me about 15 minutes to go in and out.

Not too bad.

Now that's pretty cool.

Here's the ticket booth and back out we go.

I got to go see my studies written here on the, on this little map we parked here.

So I'm gonna wrap around just a little bit here to the corner and then go back the way we came.

So now I pan over to the castle you're gonna see, it's just such a beautiful castle because you, I, if you have a zoom lens and you're zooming in from a distance, you always, you can, you can always get those mountains in the background now it's just too bright to get a good photo right now.

But that's what really when I first came here so many years ago was stunning.

Was the fact that it wasn't in the mountains.

It was like on the, on the surface on the down below.

This is, I think this is the way to Matsumoto Castle.

I drove here.

So it's totally different.

I'm gonna take you just a little bit around this direction.

Here's an old map.

Matsumoto Castle dates back to the early send Goku period, which is the late 15 hundreds I believe.

Yeah, 15 90 3 to 1594 And is designated a national treasure in 1952 and it really is a national treasure right here on the corner.

One last look from this direction before we go back to my favorite spot for this castle and where I'm gonna be taking a picture.

That's a pretty shot right there too.

All right, let's go, Hey pigeons.

I want to see a hawk with a japanese samurai helmet on it.

Hey jen rickshaw again.

Matsumoto Castle, the places that have a really long history, you'll also find sometimes they do have gin rickshaw drivers and their advantages to doing this.

The driver is also a historian that knows the stories of the area.

So you get kind of inside information whenever you have a guide, it's a lot better.

Oh, there's a really beautiful tree right there.

The autumn leaves 100% perfect at this time.

The colors are fantastic.

Look at it is a shame that the sun is only hitting the top part of it.

So the exposure is gonna be off.

But wow, that's what we're talking about.

Trying to find a way to expose the pictures with these leaves here, had to wait till somebody took a picture.

Wow.

Now this is the spot.

You can't even see the color, the fact that it's like such a beautiful uh, yellow red because the exposure is set for the castle.

All right, let me take you to the spot where china is probably waiting.

Let's give her a call.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's a nice shot right there.

The angle is perfect.

Wow.

I tried to call can I?

And she's not answering her phone.

All right.

This red bridge right in front of it is one of the best places to take a picture and if you ever see the pictures of Matsumoto Castle, like on guidebooks and professional publications, movies and things like this clips, you'll find it from this angle that I'm taking you to right now.

Thank you.

Just, they're looking at the koi Carp.

All right here we are, this is the red bridge, you can't actually cross it.

But right here you have that striking red color with the bridge.

I just love it and look at the sun is coming at the perfect angle, really illuminating the castle here, stunning.

So in this direction you have the, in this direction, you have walked towards the parking lot which is pretty close the gate where a lot of people apparently going to be entering in here but let me take off my mask but this has been a pretty awesome uh tour around Matsumoto Castle, thank you so much for watching this in eight K.

Uh I hope that this has inspired you perhaps to visit to Matsumoto Castle, learn a little bit more about japanese history and I really appreciate traveling outside of Tokyo to places like Nagano and wow, you're, you get views like this that you could just soak up which are perfect for that experience of coming here to Japan.