Samurais and Ninjas

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We’ve just about run out of clean clothes, so we put some dirty shirts and pants in a bag and send them off to the hotel laundry. This costs us a small fortune. They come back individually gift wrapped in cellophane, and they’ve also been ironed. Most of my shirts have never experienced ironing before. I think that all hotels should offer a cut price laundry service where you pay by the kilogram, and you give them a bagful of dirty clothes, they chuck them in a washing machine, and they then come back to you in the same bag, only now hopefully slightly less dirty.

I’m too stingy to get the hotel to wash our socks and undies, so we wash these ourselves in the hand basin, and then hang them up to dry. We put some of them on a line pulled across the shower, and the rest on the shower curtain rail. This makes getting into and out of the shower during the couple of days it takes for them to dry a bit challenging. Issy’s noticed that the mirror in the bathroom has a heater behind it so that it doesn’t steam up while you’re having a shower, so she hangs a few socks and undies on a coat hanger, and then hangs it above the mirror so that the clothes will dry more quickly. They seem to have a bit of a problem with fires here in Kanazawa, so we hope that our undies don’t catch fire and burn the hotel down.

The hotel bathroom is like an oversized version of a toilet on a plane. There are no tiles, just sheets of plastic on the floor, walls and ceiling. Even the door is plastic. The only thing missing is the sound that the toilet on a plane makes when you flush it, that gets you thinking that you’re about to be sucked into outer space.

We head to the train station to buy a ticket for a hop on hop off bus that does loops of the town. We catch the bus to the Nagamachi Samurai District, and go into the Nomura Samurai House, which is a restored house from the Edo era. It includes samurai era clothes and ornaments, a traditional tea room, and a spectacular traditional garden. We leave and wander through the very cute backstreets of the District.

Next stop is the Ninja Temple. We read that this is renowned for its maze of passageways and secret doors. We knock on one of the secret doors to try to arrange a guided tour, but the mysterious voice on the other side tells us that today’s tours are only in Japanese.

The ninjas and the samurais all remind me of "The Samurai" Japanese TV series which screened in Australia in the 1960s. The lead character was a Samurai called Shintaro. He fought bad guys with the help of a black robed posse known as the Iga Ningas who beheaded their enemies by throwing star shaped metal disks at them frisbee style. They all had the ability to jump several metres in the air and hover there for a long time, and I remember thinking how unfair it was that I wasn’t also able to do that.

We have lunch at a small cafe. There is Japanese man sitting at the bar who looks like he’s probably in his eighties, and he bows and smiles at us as we walk in. He has a lot more gaps in his mouth than teeth. Issy asks him if we can take his photo, as she tells him that he is "very handsome". I don’t think he understands any English, so I’m fairly sure she could have told him anything and he would have still agreed to have his photo taken.

We move on to the D.T. Suzuki Museum. Mr Suzuki lived from 1870 to 1966 and was responsible for introducing Zen Buddhism to the western world. The main feature of the museum is a room for peaceful contemplation, which is surrounded by a large pool. I think that it is a bit of a stretch to call this a museum because it has hardly any exhibits. Issy tells me that I am being too pedantic and close-minded, and that I should just sit down in the contemplation room and contemplate.

We catch the bus back to the hotel. As we’ve noticed everywhere we've been in Japan, bowing and thanking people both seem to be a big part of the culture here. Every time we walk into the hotel, the half a dozen or so staff members in the lobby all bow and thank us profusely for either staying in their hotel in the first place, or for coming back to it. One of them chased us down the street as we left this morning and asked us if they could clean our room, and then spent several minutes thanking us for allowing them this very special privilege. One of the attendants at the Suzuki Museum asked me where I came from, and then spent a long time thanking me for telling him that I came from Australia. I think I now know how royalty must feel. Actually I don’t think I’ve got any idea how royalty must feel. I suspect that the novelty of all of this probably wears off for most of them shortly after they learn how to talk.

I decide to climb nearby Mount Utatsu. I read that there are several shrines there, and you can get good views from the top out over Kanazawa. Issy isn’t into climbing mountains so I set out on my own. I pass several shrines on the way up including the Three Shrines of Utatsuyama. These look a bit neglected but the walk through the forest is very pleasant. It’s overcast and drizzling so the views are a bit limited. The drizzle gets heavier, and I start to think that wearing thongs and a T-shirt to climb a mountain in the rain mightn’t have been a great decision.

We head out in search of somewhere to eat. We go into two sushi restaurants, but both are full. The third restaurant we get to serves European food, and is completely empty. We’re starting to notice a pattern here. We decide that either the people of Kanazawa aren’t very adventurous eaters, or the European restaurants here serve really bad food. If the Italian restaurant we ate at two night ago is anything to go by, the second reason sounds the more likely. We’re hungry, so we go decide to give the European restaurant a go. The food is excellent.

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