Kanazawa - Day 1

Craving more familiar breakfast fare, we started our day at café that was opened by Seattle natives before heading out to explore the city. After enjoying our coffee and breakfast sandwiches, we walked through Kanazawa Castle Park. The cherry blossoms here were showing some signs of life and the weather was beautiful for strolling through the park and castle ruins. Kanazawa castle burnt down several times through the centuries, with the latest fire not leaving much behind. The city recently (in the 90s) began the project of reconstructing the castle from the ruins. They're using traditional techniques and materials to restore the castle to its original appearance and we felt the explanations of these things really enhanced the experience of visiting a reconstructed site.

The next area we explored was the samurai district, which contains several former samurai houses that have been turned into small museums. The amount of English information at these museums is almost overwhelming, and we learn all about the hierarchy of samurai and what their lives were like at each of these levels. One of the houses has a beautiful zen garden that we got to enjoy for a bit. We also stop at a very inconspicuous tea house for some matcha and wagashi and enjoy being sandwiched between a zen garden and the owner's collection of traditional dolls.

Next, we head to Omicho Market for a very late lunch at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. While Kanazawa is known for crab, neither of us are much of a fan of the raw crab sushi or the crab miso butter roll, but otherwise, everything is delicious! When you order specific things, rather than pulling them off the conveyor belt, they arrive on a tiny sushi shinkansen, which I thought was super cute.

We then chilled at our ryokan for a bit before heading out for dinner and evening exploration. We get some tasty yakisoba and okonomiyaki for dinner and then wander the empty streets of the geisha district. We thought we'd be able to walk through the illuminated castle park, but it seems very closed, so we just walk the perimeter of it before calling it a night.Read more