Because François and his ex once adopted two cats together, spontaneous weekend trips aren’t exactly easy for us. I mean, many of you will say that a cat can easily stay home alone for a day or two, but François doesn’t feel comfortable with that. So we need a catsitter.

When we had just started dating, that was easy: François’ ex was still living in his house, so he could come and go as he pleased. But once she found her own place, quite far from us, things got more complicated. For a while we searched for local catsitters, but most of them eventually dropped out. Sometimes, like during our honeymoon, we had a one-off guest who was happy to look after the two fluffy babies in exchange for a place to stay. These days we have a pretty good relationship with the ex. She occasionally comes over to our house to take care of the cats (after all, they were her fluffy babies too), and we head off somewhere. Like last weekend.

A few days earlier, while enjoying a katsu (think: Japanese schnitzel), we were scrolling through Google Maps. Where should we go this time? My Google Maps is covered in little flags from places I once saved. We also checked our Starbucks app – where were we still missing medals?

At first the plan became wildly ambitious: Matsumoto, then taking a limited express train from Matsumoto to Nagoya, maybe hopping over to Gifu for the stamp there… But in the end we decided to keep it simple. We’d spend a weekend in Matsumoto. Castle, thrift stores, good food – and just go with the flow. The best idea of all was that I’d go a day earlier. I have Japanese class in Hachioji on Fridays, and the Azusa limited express to Matsumoto stops right there. So after class I went straight to the station, and whoosh – two hours later I was in Matsumoto.

Matsumoto is in Nagano Prefecture, which I already had the Starbucks medal for – but François didn’t. Three years earlier, I had also taken the Azusa, back when we were still in the tail end of the pandemic, with travel coupons and zero tourists. It’s never particularly crowded there anyway. Only inside the castle did we run into a bit of a traffic jam on the stairs going down.

Anyway, back to Friday. I arrived, wandered around the Book-Off across from the station, and checked into my hotel. With a lighter backpack, I headed to the next thrift store: a huge building housing a Hard-Off, Hobby-Off, Off-House, and Garage-Off. I bought a T-shirt, a pair of overalls and a few more goodies. Then I took the train back to the hotel and had dinner at Gusto (a cheap, semi-Italian chain with robot cat servers) located underneath the hotel. I put on a podcast and crawled into bed. François would arrive the next day at 12:00.

I’ll continue the story in a bit, but wow – it was such a good idea to go a day early. Look, I’m not great at trips. I need time to adjust, prefer traveling alone, get overstimulated quickly, and sometimes turn into a bit of a monster because of it. Going a day earlier helps prevent most of that. I can arrive at my own pace, do my thing, rest – and the next day I’m just as fresh and cheerful as François, who (what a sweetheart!) got up at 6:30 that morning and then spent three hours on the train from Kawasaki to Matsumoto.

“So what’s the local dish here, actually?” François asked. Mr. McDonald’s suddenly likes going for authentic cuisine when we travel. On my own I’d never bother, but the two of us together? I love it. So off we went in search of a soba restaurant.

After that, we headed to the castle. I had already been there three years earlier, so I didn’t necessarily need to go again, but François really wanted to. We had just decided that the next day we’d rent a car to do something I really wanted to do, so this was a perfectly fair compromise.

I’d brought my analog Canon Autoboy, so as always we asked random passersby to take a photo of us. One older man was impressed. “These cameras used to be very expensive! And they’ve still kept their value!” he said. Then he proceeded to take the best photos of the entire roll.

After the castle, we walked back toward the station, where we took the train to the thrift store I’d visited the day before — François wanted to have a look too. While he spent a good half hour browsing through vintage video games, I decided to take a closer look at the rack of cheap CDs. “Ha, look, the Spice Girls! And the Backstreet Boys! Nostalgia!” But then my eye caught something truly special: the Sinterklaas CD by VOF de Kunst?! On a whim, I filmed a reel, which – as I’m writing this – has been viewed over 74,000 times. The lead singer of VOF de Kunst saw the video and shared it. What. The?!

Earlier at the castle, François had spotted a poster: there would be a projection mapping light show on the castle that evening! So we took the train back again, walked all the way back again, and ooooh, lights! It was beautiful, but afterward my legs were aching and I was hungry. The monster inside me slowly started to wake up… “I need food. Now!” I told François. We walked past an izakaya-style restaurant – a kind of casual pub where you can order all sorts of small dishes – and decided to just go in. It was delicious. (I didn’t take any proper photos here, just a few short videos you can find in my Instagram highlights.)

The next day we picked up the rental car. A while ago, I had seen this video by Tokyo Lens on YouTube, in which he visits a very unusual thrift store. That shop – located inside an abandoned love hotel – turned out to be nearby. From Matsumoto, it was about a 45-minute drive. I also spotted one of those tourist attraction icons on the map: “Narai, a post town of the old Nakasendo.” The Nakasendo is a historic route from Tokyo to Kyoto, just like the more famous Tokaido. But while the Tokaido runs along the coast, the Nakasendo takes you through the mountains of central Japan. Along the route were 69 post towns – little towns where travelers could eat and sleep. The photos looked picturesque, so we decided to head there as well.

We started at the thrift store. It was very special. Besides the gigantic porn room (I’m guessing they acquired the love hotel with all its contents still inside), there were rooms full of tableware, art, electronics and… well, you name it. We bought a stack of laserdiscs, including Back to the Future and Last Action Hero – the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie we had literally watched just a week earlier. (François had been begging me for months, haha.)

After that, it was time to drive on to Narai. We had lunch there first: tempura soba, in a cute old restaurant where, after seating three small groups of customers, the “closed” sign immediately went up on the door. I suppose the elderly couple running the place simply couldn’t handle more than that. After this delicious meal, we strolled up and down the old street which, as expected, looked incredibly idyllic. Unfortunately, the sun was harsh and we didn’t have much time. Oh, how beautiful this must be in autumn, or during golden hour. But we couldn’t wait around for that now – the rental car had to be returned, and at 17:00 our train home was leaving.

Unlike my Friday train ride there, in the middle of the day, the Sunday evening Azusa was completely packed. In front of us sat a couple with two small, wild children. Next to and behind us everyone was eating fragrant ekiben (pre-packaged lunch boxes for the train). And I’m pretty sure the heating was set to 30 degrees. So I still ended up arriving home fairly overstimulated – but at least once I was home, I could rest. In other words: a successful weekend trip.