Yamanaka & Kanazawa

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Today was our first shoot day. We started off with breakfast at the hotel, then made a quick stop at the Kayotei Inn, a Japanese traditional style inn that Jiro, one of our guides, manages. We stopped there to use their wireless internet. We would have stayed there overnight the night before, but they are just finishing up some renovations, so it wasn't quite ready for us. The inn was beautiful though, and the traditional Japanese hospitality was amazing. We were there just long enough to check e-mail though, and then we moved on to the shop of a guy who does lacquerware design and art. He showed us a few pieces he was working on, and they were pretty amazing. His cheapest pieces are in the hundreds of dollars. There were items for over $100,000. He owned a dog who was very Japanese--it bowed when we arrived, no kidding. From there we went to the shop of a man who makes beautiful wooden bowls. It was amazing lighting in his shop, and I think that was the strongest footage of the day. Daylight was pouring in through windows, with only a couple other light sources here and there, providing for some great looking stuff. The work he does is also great looking, and also expensive. Our next stop was back at the Kayotei Inn, where we sat down for lunch at 12:30pm and didn't leave until 3:15pm. The meal was a special menu created by the inn's owner, who we called The Chairman, and included 9 courses, and the food just didn't stop coming. The Chairman (Masanori), and our interpreter, Noriko, were both with us for lunch, and everybody really enjoyed the meal and the company. We were running behind by the time we finished eating, and headed off to our next stop, a candy factory. It was more like a small shop, though, which was probably better, though. They showed us their main candy, a taffy-like candy made from barley and rice. It was pretty good, and they sent us home with some. Next up was the Fukumitsuya sake factory, which was pretty fun. We watched a little video on how to make sake, put on little lab coats and boots and hair nets, and took our little walk-through. Of course, afterwards, we got to sample some sake, and like the candy factory, they sent us home with a couple small bottles each of sake. From there it was to our hotel for the next couple nights, the Nikko Hotel Kanazawa, and after a little down time, we wandered off into the city to find some late dinner. We found a nearby, very upscale mall, and in their "food court" (more like a collection of nice restaurants), we had a little something at a small little place where luckily the menu had pictures because we spoke no Japanese and they spoke no English. The best part was our waitress, who continued to throw all sorts of Japanese at us whenever she came to our table, knowing full well we understood none of it. We walked back to the hotel, cutting through a rather impressive train station plaza, and went to bed just before 11.

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Comments

[mother-in-law]

CANDY FACTORY
You know the candy factory caught my eye right away. It sounds so wonderful. Lynne misses you.