Summary: With nearly 500,000 residents, this capital city of the Ishikawa Prefecture, is known for it's historical sites, cuisine, and art. We spent the day here while on our way to Takayama. We visited some of the City's highlights by enjoying the gardens, touring one of Japan's largest wooden castles, built without nails, and taking a Japanese art class.
[This blog is part of a 15-days in Japan series].
Getting There. We traveled from Kyoto to Kanazawa via the Shinkansen, arriving at Kanazawa station in just over two hours. There, we rented a car for the next part of our trip. Although it's possible to reach Takayama by train and bus, our schedule involved day trips that necessitated a car, so we opted to rent one in Kanazawa.
Kanazawa. Home to nearly 500,000 people, this capital city of Ishikawa Prefecture is renowned for its historical landmarks, cuisine, and art. Our day began with a visit to Kenroku-en, an expansive garden celebrated as one of Japan's most stunning attractions. We spent roughly an hour there, as the heat in Kanazawa that day was overwhelming.
Kanazawa Castle. First built in the 16th century, Kanazawa Castle has burned down several times of the years. The current version dates back to 1881 and has since been restored. The Castle offers a free tour departing several times throughout the day. The tour starts just inside the front gates where the visitor's center is situated and lasts approximately 30 minutes.
To see the inside, buy entrance tickets for a modest fee and take your shoes off at the door.
After visiting the Castle, we walked back to central Kanazawa.
Art Class. Our next stop was the cool, air-conditioned lacquerware studios, to learn "Shikki," a form of Japanese art that has existed for thousands of years. We love engaging in hands-on activities like this during our travels, but this time we overlooked an important aspect: language barriers. Our instructor didn't speak any English, making it both an amusing experience (more on that below) and a lesson in how art can be appreciated without words.
The Process. The first step is to paint the glue onto the board. Next, the metallic powder is applied using a brush, where by the powder is carefully pushed onto the glue.
Here's a short video of our kind (and patient!) instructor. Not captured here was one of the most hilarious moments of the trip that left us in tears. All of us, including our instructor, were using our phones' translator apps. At one moment, she must have had the app on when she was reprimanding herself about something, and when the app read back her statement in English, it included both instructions and something like, "this isn't how you do it, stupid." There was something about it that just had us rolling with laughter, especially after we translated back to her what she had said.
Final Product. These made for fun souvenir especially since we'll always be reminded of how much we laughed that afternoon.
Higashiyamahigashi (Higashi-Chaya). This well-preserved geisha district was our next stop of the day.
Little shops line the district today, including souvenir shops with prices far better than the tourism heavy Kyoto we just came from. We also found a little friend along the way (little grey cat).
Taste of Home. After a week in Japan, we were ready for some pizza. Us older adults also enjoyed this restaurant's beer, brewed right there in Kanazawa.
Drive to Takayama and a Shopping Confession. After dinner we made the two hour drive to Takayama, stopping in central Takayama for groceries to stock our AirBnB for the next few days. Takayama as a huge super market with very cheap prices and an abundant selection of Japanese sweets. We....went a little overboard but hey, why not? We needed to try everything right?!
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