Japan Day 7

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Day 7

First, I need to clear something up. One of the readers of my travel blog pointed out that I had a "tone," which I didn't know I had. He or she read the previous posts, and concluded that I'm not really that happy in Japan. That would be very wrong and so I'm adding another picture, one taken at the Golden Temple, you remember, where the crowds of school children had my fight or flee instinct engaged. That place. Well, I wasn't as miserable as I might have sounded. I'm having a great time.

Now on to Day 7. This was a travel day with a trip to the train station and a two-hour train ride. But we are old hats now and breezed through the process. Taking our seats in our not high-speed train we settled in with a little less luxury, a little less service, but an on time, smooth and uneventful ride to Kanazawa in Ishikawa region. I added the region because it sounds nice. Kanazawa in Ishikawa. We were met by a driver and Kiyo, our new guide. Our first stop was 7-Eleven. There are twice as many 7-Elevens in Japan than in the US, basically one on every corner. 7-Elevens all have ATMs and they, according to Gary, who knows this stuff, give the best deal for getting cash in Japan. They are easy to operate too. From there we drove into the city of 425,000. It is charming, and resembled what I had assumed Japan would look like. And for good reason. A lot of movies are filmed in Kanazawa, reinforcing this charming stereotype worldwide. We stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant. I don't want to take up much space about it but each of us had a different pasta, and each of us thought ours was wonderful, rivaling any good NY Italian restaurant; any of them. It was excellent and a much needed break from less familiar Japanese cuisine.

After lunch we toured the big castle, or at least the grounds, and one room that was open to visitors. It was not what we westerners think of as a castle but it had the same elements; huge, walls, enormous gates, a moat, small windows to shoot from, and openings up high to drop stones and hot oil on invaders. It also had living quarters for the lord (feudal, not religious), his wives, his concubines, some of his children, etc. It was high up and the town was down below. We walked a narrow street through a neighborhood that was home to Samurai, when they were warriors and later, when they became middle class bureaucrats. A preserved and restored house helped us understand some of the history. We also got to see some neat Samurai swords. From there we shifted gears and went to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. The museum occupies an important location in the city, just across from city hall. It's a fairly aggressively contemporary building, pleasantly out of character with the rest of the center of the city. We enjoyed our visit. Our guide pointed us to an Olafur Eliasson work outside and proclaimed it the most valuable piece in the museum. Interesting that she knew and was interested in that. As the sleepiness from our pasta took hold, we declared that we were ready for our next and final destination on this trip, Kayotei, a Ryokan, set in a hot springs village.

After an hour and a half drive, we arrived and were greeted by the general manager, a Japanese man who spoke almost perfect English. He was friendly and made us immediately feel at home. We were shown to our room by a young woman dressed traditionally. Our room was four little rooms; a little sitting area looking out over a small river and deep forest where the trees are changing like New England, A main room with a square table that sits one foot off the floor, a floor covered with bamboo mats, two chairs for the low table, another small room, a large foyer, a tiny bathroom and, and this is the key thing, a hot spring bath with water constantly circulating at 41 degrees Celsius (105.8). Love that. There is no bed. At night the staff moves the big table, and sets up sleeping futons with big down comforters. We also were given Kimonos and socks with the big toe separated from the other toes, designed for thong slippers that they also provided. After a soak we headed to a private dining room for another Kaeseki dinner, one a little less "sophisticated," with fewer unusual items, but each of excellent quality and the meal, equally filling.

Sleeping on the futons is not hard. We ordered double futons which gave a total of about 5 inches of padding. The pillows are futonesque and we ordered two of those also.The fluffy down comforter made it feel very bed like. As I said, sleeping is not hard, it's the getting up that is challenging, especially getting up in the middle of the night, in the dark, when you don't exactly know the direction you are seeking. You don't just throw your legs out of bed and stand up. Grace is not part of my futon rising process. Fran taught me this technique; roll over, downward dog, then up. I can't see some of my friends successfully managing that, especially multiple times in a night, but it's just another learning experience. Right?

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