Kanazawa was probably my favorite place to visit in Japan. Although they list a population of more than 400,000, it’s relatively compact. The cities in Japan are generally densely populated and Kanazawa doesn’t sprawl. The best way for us to get around in Kanazawa was either by bus or walking.
Saturday morning, October 5th, we took a bus to Kanazawa Castle. Google said we could walk there in about 30 minutes, but we knew that once we were there we’d have plenty of walking ahead of us. There are a few different bus lines operating in Kanazawa. The JR (Japan Rail) West line is the only one that accepted our Suica cards. This worked out fine for us as it had a stop near the Hotel Torifito on the busy Kanazawa Ekidori Avenue. This bus made a stop within a few blocks of the entrance to the castle grounds.
The castle dates back to the 16th century although it burned down and had to be rebuilt a few times. Currently there is renovation work in some areas and some paths were closed due to damage from the Noto Peninsula Earthquake earlier this year. Admission to the grounds is free although some buildings have fees to enter.
We found one of the gates to enter from Ohori Dori Avenue and crossed a pedestrian bridge over the outer moat.
The grounds from this entrance resembled a large park – lots of grass with people lounging around.
It was a bit of a hike to reach another moat before following the walkway into the castle courtyards.
We wandered through the grounds, unguided. Once again I was awestruck by the woodwork – the scale and the carpentry skill was unbelievable.
Much of the walkway had bamboo fencing. The bamboo was tied together, no nails or screws!
After a while we found ourselves at an entrance to the Kenroku-en Garden – a garden park first established during the Edo Period (1603-1868). There is a small fee to enter the garden grounds – it’s worth it. Rather than trying to describe it, I’ll post a few photos.
We retraced our steps and skipped the bus. We followed signs directing us toward Omicho Market. This is a large indoor market with stalls selling seafood and fresh produce along with food stands. I found it much more interesting than the Tsukiji market in Tokyo or the malls in Kyoto. I think I like it because we were able to check out each stall without fighting our way through crowds of people.
We also saw the merchants prepping fresh fish brought in the from the port a few miles away. Most of the shoppers appeared to be local Japanese buying fresh food to prepare at home. There were far fewer foreigners than in Kyoto or Tokyo.
We grabbed a quick lunch at a counter – some kind of skewers is all I can remember about it now. We realized weren’t very far away from Hotel Torifito and we walked back to take a mid-day break.
After resting for a bit, I started looking online for a happy hour place and dinner. I was having some trouble, there were izakaya in the area but nothing seemed to appeal to me. I was looking out the window of our fourth floor hotel room when I noticed a couple of people on the rooftop area of a building kitty-corner to our hotel. I asked Donna to take a look and see what she thought. She echoed my thoughts – it looked like a rooftop bar.
We walked over there and found a four story building with a different restaurant on each floor including the one with rooftop seating. We went up there and sat outdoors for a drink. Looking at their menu, we went for an appetizer. This soon turned into a tapas-type dinner for us as we added a few other plates to our order. We had an enjoyable evening – the two businessmen that we had spied on the rooftop left shortly after we arrived and we had the place mostly to ourselves.
One the things I was hoping to find in Japan was old Japanese barber straight razors. I have a modest collection of straight razors and I shave with them. I like the history behind some of the razors which were once found in almost every household. There’s a small cadre of straight razor enthusiasts today and I enjoy the ritual of face lathering with a bowl and brush and shaving the old fashioned way.
Unfortunately, our timing didn’t coincide with the flea markets I’d heard were a good place to look for razors. Sunday morning we took a bus to go shopping at a couple of antique shops that were open. When we walked to the bus stop across Kanazawa Ekidori Avenue, the JR Line bus was just leaving. We missed it. As near as I could decipher from the schedule placard, it looked like it would be 20 minutes until another JR Line bus would arrive. By the time I figured that out, another bus heading in the same direction we wanted to go came.
I told Donna we should get on. Once the bus starting moving, I realized the Suica cards wouldn’t be accepted on this bus line. I had a moment of panic when I remembered reading that you need correct change for city buses. When we got to what I thought was the Hashibacho district I had observed other people paying with paper money and receiving change from the machine when they got off of the bus. Whew! End of panic. I paid after a little confusion when I put in a 10,000 yen bill thinking I had used a 1,000 yen bill. That made for a lot of change coins.
We found a couple of antique shops but I didn’t find any razors. In one shop I tried to convey to the proprietor what I was searching for. I made a scraping motion across my face with my finger and said “Razor?” He just gave me a puzzled look. Then I used the Japanese word kamisori. Uncharacteristically, he laughed and said “Convenience store.” So much for finding an old Japanese razor on this trip.
A funny thing happened after the first few days in Japan. Many Japanese words and phrases were familiar to me. Donna noticed that I understood much of what was spoken and I often used a Japanese phrase to answer someone. I can’t explain it, just hearing many words and phrases I learned from my mom when I was kid came back to me. I used words and phrases I hadn’t spoken out loud in 50 years. Odd. Donna even started to greet people in proper Japanese.
When we gave up on the antique shops, Donna said she saw Geisha at the previous bus stop a few blocks away. We decided to walk in that direction. I wasn’t exactly sure of where we were. I used Google maps on my phone and figured out where we were and it wasn’t that long of a walk to cross the Asano River to the Higashi Chaya district. This area had traditional tea houses where Geisha perform and also has some tourist attractions.
There’s the old Geisha House Shima, a heritage building. This is also the home of gold leaf artisans and there are many museums in the area. While we walking toward Higashi, I saw an interesting sight. We walked past a firehouse and I saw a fireman prepping some gear in front of a fire engine. The interesting part was the size of the firetruck. In Japan many of the streets, especially in residential areas, are very narrow or dwellings are only accessible through narrow alleys. So, the firetruck was sized to drive down these streets.
In Higashi Chaya there are authentic geisha but we also saw many of the fake geisha that I described in my last post. I think some of what we saw may have been maiko, a young geisha in training. I think the local businesses pay these young women to attract customers to the area and specific stores or restaurants.
We had lunch at a small restaurant with a few tables and chairs at the counter. Two geisha’s were at the table next to us. The place was full and by the time we left there were people waiting for a table. We wandered through the area with no real destination.
We found an ice cream parlor that featured ice cream coated with gold leaf sprinkles.
The gold leaf is really gold! Edible gold leaf has a high purity level, it’s almost pure gold. Who knew?
We walked back to the hotel to take a break and rest. It was my birthday – October 6th marked my 68th revolution around the sun. We went for a celebratory dinner at Sushi Tora. This was a small sushi restaurant a short walk from the hotel. This sushi bar has only about eight seats. It’s run by the “oldest sushi chef in Ishikawa Prefecture.” He’s 82 years old – I didn’t get his name – and he’s been in business here all his adult life. He makes the sushi while a woman takes the orders and serves the food. I don’t know if she was his wife or daughter, I’d heard it was a family run business – she didn’t appear to be an octogenarian, but then he didn’t seem that old either.
The woman seemed to enjoy telling Donna about the various cuts of fish in the sushi. She would describe them with the Japanese words, then try to translate to English. I knew many of the names, like toro for the fatty tuna from the belly of the fish, but she also had descriptive words that were new to me.
I went for his signature ten course sushi platter while Donna opted for an eight piece plate. I was a little put off by the uni nigiri – sea urchin sushi. I’d only had uni once before in Seattle. It tasted like I was drinking from a tide pool. But I braved it and what a difference! I don’t know if it was the freshness of the urchin or the preparation but it was very tasty. I wonder if I can get uni this good anywhere in the states.
The meal was outstanding served with a bottle of Kirin beer.
After dinner we walked back to the rooftop bar for a nightcap. We were welcomed back by the staff – we were the only customers there. There was the same male bartender from our previous visit and he appeared to be in charge of two young women servers. The women seemed to be shy at first but they wanted to work on their English language skills and we were soon engaged in conversation.
They asked us where we were from. Then they showed us a world map on the wall with pins in it depicting the many places visitors had come from. They placed a pin in the Phoenix area for us.
I asked for one of my favorite Japanese whiskys – Hakushu – and they gave me a full adult dose. Most Japanese bars are somewhat stingy in their pours. Not this one. Two drinks and I was at my limit. We had a fun time talking with them but after a while we realized they were only staying open because we were there. It was Sunday night after all and no one else came in. So we said good bye and they insisted on a selfie before we left.
Thus ended my birthday evening out.
It seems like I’m missing a day with this narrative, but after more than a month, much of the time is a blur and I didn’t take any notes. This is just my recollection of how the trip went.
I had booked seats for us to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. At one point on Sunday, we walked over to the Kanazawa Station – again booking seats alone didn’t get you to the platform. You must have a paper ticket to feed into the machine to access the boarding area. We went to the station to get our paper tickets in advance to avoid any possible delays when we departed.
It turned out to be a good idea. The JR West ticket counter was crowded. You had to take a number and wait. I was number 136 and I think they were on 103 or something. One person waiting told us they waited for nearly an hour! I noticed a small line outside of the office with people getting ticktes from a machine. I got in line and observed what was going on. I had an open machine in front of me in no time. I was a little puzzled by the instructions for using the machine, but a JR security woman came over and walked me through the process. Voila! We had our tickets. Donna gave our number 136 to someone else with higher number in line.
We were heading back to Tokyo on Monday. While we were at the station, I reloaded our Suica cards anticipating the charge we would incur taking the train to Narita Airport when we left Tokyo in a few days. Then we bought Bento box lunches for the train ride. It’s about a two and a half hour train ride over the mountains near Nagano back to Tokyo.
I’ll close the loop with our final days in Tokyo in my next post.
