Matsumoto - 学都, a bumper harvest place for me

Matsumoto City is located in Nagano Prefecture in Honshu, the main island of Japan. This picturesque castle town is nestled between the Japan Alps and Utsukushigahara Heights. Matsumoto boasts a surprisingly metropolitan atmosphere while maintaining historical sites and traditions. The streets are clean and the people are friendly. The region is famous for many aspects, such as delicious apples, soba, music, and surrounding scenic mountains. But for me, it's a heaven for learning and training. Thanks to Professor Shigeaki Kobayashi's invitation and financial support by Aizawa Hospital, I enjoyed my six months here, learning and training, with a bumper harvest. Before I came to Japan, I had been a neurosurgical attending doctor for 5 years, so I thought maybe my experience and technique would not lose to the Japanese neurosurgeons, at least in my specialty of endovascular surgery. But after several weeks' observing, I changed my mind. The gap between me and the senior neurosurgeons here was not in the volume of surgical cases, but in the idea and concept of surgery.