Kanazawa

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Spent yesterday travelling here, took nearly 6 hours. All quite easy and comfortable by two trains. Kanazawa’s train station entrance is impressive and modern, supposed to look like a giant welcoming umbrella.

Had a walk around the Geisha district and through the castle grounds in the afternoon. I went in to a geisha house, Shima, that was open. It was formerly a tea-house. Well preserved, all rooms quite small, but gave a good indication of what it would have been like. Decoration in Japanese places is so simple, it’s all about the correct atmosphere. There was Lovely but tiny garden that one of the upstairs rooms and the proprietress’s room looked out onto.

Today walked to the famous Kenruoken Gardens. They are beautiful, supposed to be the best in Japan. All really well laid out, meant for strolling around. Lots of lovely trees and mossy areas, big lakes with pretty bridges and stepping stones and lots of stone lanterns to add interest. As with all other gardens we’ve been to nothing was flowering. Very pleasant way to spend a few hours, fortunately we were leaving as the bulk of the tour groups were arriving.

From there walked out to the Samurai district Just a few interesting looking streets. Went into an old Samurai house, Nomura. It was interesting with a beautiful garden that had a stream running through it. All beautifully laid out so that the main living rooms and the upstairs tearoom look out onto the garden. In fact there were little bits of garden in various other corners, all very peaceful.

In the evening went on the ‘Light-bus’, an evening tourist bus that does a loop around the interesting parts of the city. Got off at the Geisha district again and were surprised to be met off the bus by a volunteer guide. He was quite insistent (in a very pleasant an polite way) that we stay together, about 6 other Japanese tourists got off the bus with us. He only spoke Japanese so we had no idea what he was saying but he took us around. There was not much going on at all, just a few groups like ours wandering around. One of the restaurants there is very famous in Japan and the others were taking pictures of the name!

On to Ito now.

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