From Matsumoto we travelled by train to Kanazawa. My first impressions of Kanazawa were that it was larger and more cosmopolitan than Matsumoto and the relatively tiny Takayama. It felt as if we were leaving 'rural Japan' and returning to the more urban side, the epitome of which was Tokyo. That said, Kanazawa was rich with cultural treasures of old Japan. We stayed at a Ryokan called Sumiyoshiya, complete with communal Onsen again were nice, and fortunately, always quiet. The Ryokan offered breakfast and dinner although we never actually tried either, the scars still fresh from our previous Ryokan culinary purgatory. We picked up a great, and very cheap sushi lunch from the fish market, and ate it in the castle park, and spent the afternoon walking through the old Samurai district, which has a number
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