Matusmoto & The Adventure of Typhoon Hagibis
We did manage some calm and fun before the storm, though. We ate soba noodles & sake, saw the cool castle, and played in an epic park. The city rents our bicycles for free, so Nick and I decided we would bike a few kilometers to this park we read about in a blog. What we failed to note was the elevation change in these few kilometers, and of course, these bikes were not electric assist equipped. There were a few times I was ready to turn around and give up, and after finally climbing the tallest hill in all of Matsumoto (really a foothill of the mountains), we arrived at the park. We couldn’t find the playground right away and instead walked through the locals playing a mallet form of golf looking at us like we were crazy for bringing bikes up this high.
But finally, we found the playground, and it was amazing. Amazing views to the surrounding mountains, climbing walls, obstacle courses, zip lines, you name it. Emmeline and Cora spent a solid amount of time playing here.
Afterward we went in search of the free zoo we had read about in the park and stumbled upon an alpine slide. Emmeline and Nick went down together and had a blast! We then found the zoo, which though a bit sad and run down, the girls loved, especially Cora. Found some fresh farm fresh apples on the way home, which were super cheap and yum!
Nick and Emmeline explored a bit more of the town and had a play at the park before we started the typhoon madness. We went to the grocery store the night before to stock up on a bit of food, and it was eerily reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey times. Bread and meat shelves pretty much completely empty.
Singapore Airlines didn’t delay our flight until 2pm on Friday, and despite our calls to try to get out on flights Friday night or Saturday morning, they refused because it was still “on time”. When they finally delayed, it was until 1pm Sunday, which we knew there was no way we could make as Tokyo was already saying their trains would be shut until noon on Sunday. After train station lines and many calls to Singapore Airlines, we decided to be asked to be put on an 11:30pm flight out of Osaka Sunday night, hoping trains would be running there on Sunday since it was farther west. We bought train tickets for mid afternoon Sunday and crossed our fingers!
The heavy rain didn’t really start until mid afternoon Saturday, so we spent the morning wandering the mall and playing some arcade games. We all had fun, and I even won the grand prize in one of the games (though what we thought was a bucket of candy ended up being a bucket of salmon and teriyaki Jerky
We went back to our airbnb (thankfully we were able to extend an extra night) to hunker down for the night. Around 4pm, Nick checked the river right outside our Airbnb and we realized it had risen super high since coming back at 2:30pm, and the typhoon hadn’t even made landfall yet. We decided to pack backpacks in case we needed to leave quickly, and started making dinner. In the middle of dinner, fire trucks started driving down our road making announcements. They came back a few more times and after sending video recordings to friend, Asumi, in Singapore for translation and calling Airbnb host back to help, we found out they were telling people to prepare to evacuate if the river got higher.
Apparently, Japan has a 5 level system for warning. 5 being a disaster has already happened. We were at a 3 when they drove around. We continued to monitor the river through the evening and night, and moved everything upstairs in our Airbnb just in case. Luckily, it never went higher and by the time we went to bed the worst had passed. Little did we know that just a few miles away in Nagano (a place we had considered going to for the night if our place in Matsumoto hadn’t had availability to extend another night), there was a level 5 call when the river there overflowed it’s banks due to a burst levee, flooding tons of houses and Shinkansen trains. The pictures out of this area are reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, and we are so glad this didn’t happen to our river in Matsumoto!
Because the storm seemed to do less damage in Tokyo than they were predicting, we just assumed that we would be able to get our train Osaka in afternoon Sunday. How surprised we were when we showed up to the station Sunday morning to be told no, no trains at all were going to or from Matsumoto the whole day! I was very impressed with the way Japan handled everything regarding the typhoon. From loudspeaker announcements around town the day before warning people to be prepared, to posted signs at the train station, and even the orderly way they drove around in fire trucks, I was thoroughly impressed. Because Mastumoto is a fairly small town, not a lot of train station workers spoke English. However, they were all prepared with iPads with google translate to talk back and forth to people. Well done, Japan!
We did find out if we could get to Nagoya, the train from there to Osaka was running, so after a mad scramble across the street to try and book tickets on the bus, we finally had a plan! Tickets to Nagoya on a 3.5 hour bus, 45 minute bullet train to Osaka, 1 hr train to airport. After this fiasco, we managed a quick walk to the museum in town to see the artwork of Yoyoi Kusama, who Emmeline had just learned about in her art class. Yoyoi was born in Mastumoto, so it was very fun for Emmeline to see her work in person and report back to her class!
Needless to say we were exhausted by the time we got to the airport. We crashed in the lounge while our kids squeaked from over tiredness and probably annoyed everyone else. Saw the Ferrari F1 team come into the lounge, creeped them a while, and then boarded the plane almost asleep.
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