A Sunny Day in Kanazawa

Perfect weather today for our adventure around Kanazawa - blue skies, sunshine and 21C. We were a bit late to get going this morning and missed breakfast, but no matter - a hot canned coffee from a vending machine would rectify that problem.

Following a stroll around the samurai district, our first major stop of the day was at Myōryū-ji (Ninja Temple). We had a 11am tour here. Whilst the vast majority of everything (including our guided tour) was in Japanese only, we did get a few English notes. It was an amazing place really - basically everything inside moved (walls, panels, windows) and there were hidden hatches, trapdoors, openings and secret passages and rooms everywhere!

Next, the fish markets in the city centre to explore and find some lunch thereabouts. There were plenty of weird and wonderful things on display here - crabs, squid, big fish, small fish, eels, a giant fish head and more. We grabbed some apple slices and then opted to try some grilled eel on skewers. It was absolutely delicious.. one of the tastiest fish Ive had. The marinade on it made it even better. Later, we also decided to try some sea urchin. It was a lot better than expected!

From here we continued on by bus and foot to the Kanazawa castle ruins. Most of the original structure was destroyed here but a few buildings have been restored as they were. It was an impressive structure with remarkable craftsmanship, moat, walls and defenses.

Just next door was the Kenroku-en gardens, one of the "three great gardens of Japan" set up in the 1620. It was a pretty spot where we wondered about for an hour or so. Having arrived at 3pm, I felt the lighting didnt quite do it justice, being a bit on the dark/shadowy side. The sun really starts to set at 3ish and by 5 its quite dark. It was still a pretty, albeit crowded place.

We're back at the hotel getting ready to head out to dinner. A few other points about Japan as we come up to the week point of our trip -
- Politeness and courtesy here is really second to nowhere else on earth. People also seem extremely genuine about this.
- I'm yet to see any drunken or unruly behaviour
- Japan has no public bins... anywhere. A few of us today had to carry rubbish around with us for hours. Even at the markets there were no bins?..
- ...and yet Japan is the cleanest country I have ever seen by miles.. We've barely seen any litter and no graffiti or vandalism. The ground nearly anywhere (streets, shopping centre.. etc) looks clean enough to eat off.
- I've found hotel rooms small but comfortable. Matresses are generally very comfy and there's usually a single, hard (awfully uncomfortable in my opinion) pillow.
- Japan is not a place for tall people.. but we all knew that. I've had to walk around hunched and ducking alot!
- there are vending machines everywhere (which have preheated hot items)
- toilets are always impressive with dozens of buttons, lights and options..
- trains run on time to the minute.. all the time.. (no really)
- You're going to sit on the floor.. a lot.. and take your shoes off.. a lot. The floor thing gets a bit tedious and uncomfortable. I understand thats a cultural difference and something you'd have to get used to.
- Theres very little English tour/attraction translation (much less than anywhere I've ever been). Many museums, temples, the zoo etc. Dont have English subtitles at all. Which is fine, just frustrating at times
- The "salary man" culture is dominant. Japan must sell more "standard size, standard black" buisiness suits than anywhere in the world. Seems a little pretentious (with heirarchies, excess work hours and status) to me.

***Again just reiterating these photos are just a couple random mobile snaps at this stage as it's an extra effort to move photos from my SLR memory to my tablet, and then individually sort and convert them to JPG's as required by this website.. I think ill just keep using mobile photos and update/create an album of quality SLR photos on my return.Read more