We woke up to a relatively clear day, even with the threat of the typhoon moving towards the mainland. We were staying in Ota-ku, only a short drive from Haneda airport, and had until 9am until we were going to collect our hire car for the trip. From our lovely air-conditioned hotel room, we didn’t yet know the sweltering heat the day had built by 7:30 a.m. We wanted to have a walk around the area before our road trip, and so we stepped outside into a humid oven.

After 10 years away from Japan in summer it was a rude awakening. We quickly stopped off at a Family Mart to pick up a sun umbrella and some flannels to soak up the rivers of sweat on our necks. After an hour we were happy with the distance and headed back to the hotel to pack up and get ready to drag our bags up the road to Toyota Rent-a-Car. Usually we go for the cheapest option, but we wanted a spacious car for our 11 days on the road, so used Toyota to select a specific model; The Toyota Roomy.

The rental staff were really lovely, and as we were trying to figure out how to best put the luggage in the car someone came over and put the seats down for us, they stayed down the whole trip and it was so convenient. We set up the internal sat nav, which is set in Japanese, and set off on the road. As soon as we left the multistorey car park the rain started. And it was quite the downpour!!! It was at times quite scary driving with so much rain and standing water on the road.

After about three hours of driving, we got to Suwa city in Nagano prefecture, where we had planned to stop to get a bit of shopping done before our overnight hike the next day. We visited Uniqlo and Mont Bell and managed to stock up well with warm weather gear, and dehydrated rice packets to have food on the go. After some retail therapy, we did the last 45 minutes of the journey and got to Matsumoto. We were staying at Tabi No Hotel in Matsumoto City, and it was quite an adventure trying to find the hotel entrance. It turned out you had to take the lift in a shopping center up to the 6th floor to find the hotel entrance. We managed to get checked in and our room was down on the 5th floor, which was only accessible via stairs. Well, they are stairs now but used to be an escalator so it was very weird to walk down without them moving!

After settling into our small, and slightly unusual room, we wanted to wander around the city a little and found a local park that was completely full of cicadas. I really enjoyed spotting them in the trees and following the sounds, until they started flying near me and I did not like it anymore haha! My only aim for the rest of the day was to visit Matsumoto castle at night, I have visited twice before both in the day and I have always wanted to see it lit at night. It was just under a mile to walk to the castle from the hotel, and while we were walking we started to hear distant sounds of a festival. We weren’t sure whether it was piped music from the town speakers, or if we were going to stumble upon something amazing.

Serendipitously the obon matsuri was in the castle park, and I got to experience my first summer festival. It was a very quaint festival, with just one food van and a main stage. It was such fun to watch the songs being performed and the locals dancing in their yukata. It was wonderful to watch, I was so happy to be there, except for the hundreds of mosquitos that mobbed us haha.

Not only did I get to experience obon matsuri I got to see Matsumoto castle (arguably my favourite castle in Japan) lit up at night with stunning reflections in the moat. What a great day!