I had to cancel the first part of my planned summer trip because I lost my voice for about a week and a half and I was coughing a lot. The coworker I was going with doesn't speak too much Japanese and it would have been difficult to get around, not to mention not so much fun to wander around not being able to speak. But we were able to do the second leg and spent 2 nights in Kanazawa, a city about 2 hours northeast of Hikone. We stayed in a Airbnb place that was simple and cheap, perfectly adequate and in a great location - we could walk to all the buses easily as well as to the famous garden and castle area. Our host even picked us up at the train station which was very nice of him.
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| Kanazawa train station. Pretty cool. |
Kanazawa is known for having one of the top 3 gardens in Japan - Kenrokuen. It's a beautiful garden and most famous for the bamboo teepee like shelters that are placed over the very old pine trees to protect them from the snow in the winter. There are also a lot of azaleas, iris and maple trees so the spring and fall must be very beautiful. There's nothing blooming during the summer, as is the case in many Japanese gardens. It was still very beautiful with the trimmed bushes, beautifully shaped pine trees, ponds and bridges, but not the best for picture taking as there weren't too many focal points.
Kanazawa used to have a castle. Now there are just some turrets and interesting stone walls. Interesting because the walls are constructed in different styles. And if you look at the upper wall in picture below you'll notice a 'tiled' look. Parts of the stone walls, turrets and buildings are original and parts have been reconstructed - it wasn't always clear which were which.
This nice little pond was next to our most used bus stop.
Loved this poster.
We arrived, dropped our luggage at our room and headed out to find some lunch and then to visit the 'ninja temple'. We had lunch at a cafe in one of the small 'old towns'.
We walked around the Teramachi (temple area) and went to the Ninja Temple at the appointed time for our tour.
You are only allowed in on a tour, and it actually has nothing to do with ninjas. It was the temple that Lord Maeda - the lord of the castle - prayed at, and evidently, people were always trying to murder him so there are a lot of hiding places, traps and tricks for the enemies. It was quite interesting, unfortunately photography wasn't allowed.
I liked this poster about manners.
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Please have: pet manners, smoking manners, trash sorting manners and greeting manners.
Good manners, the face of Kanazawa. |
Dinner the first night. Yummy hamburger and great fries!
Kenrokuen - the famous garden.
This is Lord Maeda, the lord of Kanazawa castle.
We wandered through a fish market.
But ended up having cold udon with sudachi and shaved ice for lunch.
Then we took a tour of an old samurai house.
And walked around this area for a little while. The houses behind most of the walls are newer but some of the walls area original.
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| The walls are like the adobes in California. |
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| Emily |
Then up to the castle area.
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| I highly doubt there was a lawn in samurai times. There are very few lawns in Japan even now. It was nice to see though. |
I like most castle gates and doors but I really loved these.
The following forest walk looks like it would be peaceful but it was unbelievably noisy! Between the cicadas and the birds it was deafening in places. Added to that was drumming from a festival down below in the town. Still a nice walk though.
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| This was one of the coolest spider webs I've ever seen. |
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Dinner - katsudon (fried pork cutlet with onions, egg and a slightly sweet sauce over rice.
With miso soup and pickles.
Then back up to the castle area for an illumination show in the garden. |
And that was it. We took the train home and had a couple of vacation days left to relax.
