A Return to Nagano
It's December 28, with only a few days left in the year. I got back from Japan in early October and since then I've been swimming in design work and the decaf coffee business. I'd like to finish my 2025 Japan Journal, so here’s the first of the last three entries.
It was a two day drive from Onomichi to Nagano. That much time driving through fresh terrain on an unfamiliar road system is pretty tiring on this old noggin, but being alone on the road is equally refreshing. Nothing to negotiate. Cleaner calculus. Fewer decisions. Just me and novelty, one hour at a time.
Along the way, somewhere in Gifu, I pulled over to search for the nearest coffee shop — a place to break and refresh. While browsing, I spotted a little gem of a Kissaten that immediately jogged a memory that wasn't mine. A tiny midcentury place called the Canadian Coffee House that was also featured in Craig Mod’s book Things Become Other Things. So I couldn't not drop in and see what it was all about.
First seeing the CCH feels like taking a midcentury, Swiss, geographic, time sandwich, except it’s in Japan, and it’s called Canadian. A little confusing, but charming as hell. Dark wood interiors. A little patina’d with time. I used my best Japanese to order burakku kōhī o hitotsu to piza tōsuto onegaishimasu (a Black Coffee and Pizza Toast) and then I sat there admiring old men nursing cups and smoking. I imagined them swapping old stories about their work, some gossip about their wives, and asking which of their friends were still alive. The tenshu (owner) behind the counter quietly shuffled around doing side work. I imagined the place growing like a plant around him as he worked. In the end, I paid, bowed, and got back in the car to continue my journey. The rest of the drive to Nagano through Gifu was beautiful. The whole region is really special, farmland giving way to foothills.
Landing in Iijima
Iijima sits in a wide valley in southern Nagano, fields opening out toward the mountains. I stayed at a small place run by Muir Japan. It didn’t feel like an Airbnb so much as staying inside someone's good design decisions.
The house was the kind of simple that's not achieved easily. Everything thoughtful. Everything where it should be. Windows that opened to fields and sky. At night, enveloped in the darkness you only get in the country. Crossing bells chime. A local train slides through. Its interior lights flickering past like a zoetrope.
On my first afternoon, I walked the tight roads that bisected farm fields. Apple orchards heavy with fruit on one side. Rice fields cut and tidy on the other. Narrow canals moving water with quiet purpose throughout it all.
My nervous system recognized Iijima immediately. Oh, we're in the mountains again. that place where we chill out, immediately. Yes, now I remember. Maybe it's being from Colorado that makes that happen? Maybe it’s being neurospicy? I'm not sure, but the mountains are medicine.
Days in Iijima were unstructured in the best way. Morning light. Cool air. Decaf at the house. Talking with the owners at Muir who quickly became favorites. Walking to the grocery store. Eating simply.
At night, I walked a kilometer to dinner. Italian food with a Japanese accent. A Napoli-style pizza surrounded by an early Halloween-theme. Decorations everywhere. Ghost noises echoing through the restaurant at random intervals. A couple at the next table laughed with me (maybe at me) every time I jumped.
Atera Valley
On my last day in Iijima, I drove out and up to Atera Valley. The shift was immediate. The farm valleys gave way to something a lot older. Maybe it's the moss. I think if I were covered in moss I might seem really old and wise too. The water in Atera Valley is impossibly clear, tinted green from minerals and depth. Boulders the size of small houses curate the river into lines and pools. Foam blooms and disappears. The trees play the morning mist like a silent flute. I stood for a long time just watching, breathing.
I’ve heard that rivers are never the same twice. New water, same path. Somehow here it's not that it's a different river, but that it's a ribbon of un-ending water, an eternal dragon of rapids.
The geography of Japan pulls back the curtain on the timelines that exceed a human life, maybe all human life. Water without deadlines. Mountains with stories about the beginnings of all things.
At the end of my hike, I swam in the raw cold tributaries of the Kiso River. The chill wakes up every part of me that loves to play. I can’t not whoop when I’m alone in a river. It feels a little risky in the politeness of Japan, but full Matthew finds his way out.
Matsumoto
Only my last day in Nagano, I spent a short stretch in Matsumoto before leaving Nagano. A ski town in late summer, between identities. Shops open but unhurried. Walking paths between city buildings and temples. People moving, but without urgency. I wandered, ate, watched, and wrote. Looking forward to seeing more of it again soon.
Leaving Nagano
Eventually I packed the car again and headed south toward Kamakura. That’s the next entry. Thanks for following along.
The full edited photo set can be seen here.