4. Hotel, Back Pain

Hotel

We stayed at Matsushiro Royal Hotel for 4 days from April 10. It was located in the distance of 30-minute bus drive from JR Nagano Station.

It is an international grand hotel with various Western and Japanese banquet halls and a beautiful chapel.
We were led to the Japanese-style room on the 13th floor viewing such mountains.

Morning, April 10

Evening, April 11

Meals were served at the restaurants in the hotel from dinner on the arrival day to breakfast on the departure day.
Every breakfast at "Four Seasons" consisted of Japanese, Western and Chinese dishes. We had bread, coffee and yogurt.
Dinners were: Japanese dish at Shinanoji on the 1st night, Chinese dish at Tenryu on the 2nd night and French dish at Azur on the 3rd night.
To my regret, I could not enjoy the French dish on the 3rd night because of my right-shoulder malfunction.

The bathtubs were two. One was a large indoor ordinary bath, while another was an open-air hot-spring bath.
Since I was suffering from the back pain around the right shoulder, both bathtubs were my favorite welcoming me all the time.

There were various notices on the wall of the locker room, on the doors and beside the mirrows. Some of them were conscious of foreigners in English, Chinese and Hangul, while others were not yet.

It is natural that nothing can care about all foreign people in my idea. English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Hangul, ...... There are many, even main foreign languages.
It may be one idea for the notices of foreign language to be in English only for now.

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Meanwhile on the wall of the corridor near the bathroom, several tens of lyrics of the familiar songs related much to this area Shinshu-Shinano lined in a row, like "Song in Praise of the Snow Mountain", "Uncle Issa", "Osaru no Kagoya", "Yuyake Koyake", "Soshun-fu", "A Little Stream in Spring", "Autumn in the Village", .....
Comfortable melody was heard here in a low sound. It was refreshing to my body feeling hot just after a bath.

The following are snapshots in the hotel.

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Going Home

Our couple strolled in the department store in Nagano Station for 1.5 hours.

Asama 616 Hokuriku Bullet Train started from Nagano Station at 12:27.
We spent time in the train just like on the way there, eating box lunch of local food and viewing the window sight idly, and the train got to Tokyo Station at 14:12.

Except for my back pain, our trip this time was mostly smooth and satisfactory, blessed by such a nice weather.
I especially thank Ms. M for introducing Iiyama Temple Town.
We will surely visit Matsumoto Castle in the near future.

Matsushiro Castle Ruins (Keep)

Zenkoji (Main Hall)

Iitama Temple Town (Statue of Nio)

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From Tokyo to Maihama Station on JR Keiyo Line. Then we got on the city bus to the nearest stop and arrived home at 15:30.

I opened the carry bag to take out souvenirs and sat on the sofa relaxed.
Where is the rucksack? Nowhere here around me!

I remember in the bus I put it on the rack just before me.
Therefore it means .....?
I called up the bus office and said, "I was on the No. 2 bus started from Maihama Station just after 15:00, and may have forgotten my rucksack on the rack of the first row."
I pretended to be calm, but how did the answering lady staff feel for my foolish talk?
She said, "This bus will come to the garage soon, so we can check it then. Please wait until I call you back."

In about 30 minutes, she called me up, saying "We found your rucksack."
I ran the bicycle there standing the back pain. I went through the procedure with embarrassment in the office and luckily received it at last.

At any rate, this happening disappoints myself.
I was dead tired at home. After drinking a little bit, I lay in bed looking forward earnestly to going to hospital the next morning.

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Back Pain

One month has passed since the trip. I am now writing the travelogue of Japanese version now on May 23.

As I mentioned in the 1st chapter, I had felt the strange pain on the back near the right shoulder since 2 weeks before this trip. It might be the cause to have been indulged in PC being crazy about the English translation work of my domestic travelogues, I know. But this pain is unusual. Even thinking of it, I still continued the work until the trip start.

It was the English translation of the travelogue to "The Turbid Hot Springs around Lake-Tazawa Heights in 2011" to have to stop unfinished.
I finally completed it on April 23 while going to the hospital for rehabilitation.
And my next work was this travelogue.
First of all I began arranging the 400 photos kept in the hard disk, which was rather an easy work usually, but now my memory there cannot follow the scenes. Even so, I managed to sort them according to the dates and each sightseeing spot with help of some leaflets and papers there. It was late April.

The back pain did not recovered yet as expected during that time, so I went to the hospital everyday except Sunday. Early May I began stretch exercise at the sport club DSC again, around when my rehabilitation was lessened to twice a week. I have begun the PC input and been doing it with frequent rests.

The problem is whether I can complete this travelogue or not with vague memory.
I am going to write the 2nd chapter of Zenkoji and the 3rd chapter of Iiyama Temple Town from now with imagination. (as of May 23)

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English translation work began early June and now finally I have managed to come to the goal.

"Matsushiro, Zenkoji and
Temple Town in Shinshu"
April, 2016 in Japanese
June, 2016 in English
End