Kanazawa

I decided to start the day with the traditional Japanese breakfast. I am one of those food freaks with a myopic idea of what breakfast food should be, toast oatmeal, tofu scramble etc., so I thought this would be a challenge. The hardest part was the fact that this was a huge amount of food. For breakfast I was served: a large bowl of miso soup, a huge bowl of rice, steamed greens, fish, fried egg, some sort of pickled vegetables and a whole pot of green tea. I can't believe I ate the whole thing. It was actually very yummy, and gave me an understanding of why we saw old folks drinking first thing in the morning, this meal prepares you for anything.



Even though it was a grey and damp day we walked to Kenrokuen Garden from the inn. It is a huge traditional garden and is approximately 400 years old. Kenrokuen means "garden combining six," referring to its six focal points of beauty: extensiveness, quiet seclusion, artificial construction, antique elgance, abundant water and wide prospect. Yeah I guess it had this stuff. They stilt alot of the trees over winter to preserve them, but at this time of year the cherry blossoms were beginning their peak. Which is good, at the time of booking our rooms the innkeep was very stressed out by the fact that we could miss them.



The garden's twisty paths and lake made it seem bigger and more serene that it actually was. There were a fair amount of people there but it wasn't as busy as we thought it might be. The design of the garden did make it seem very quiet despite the other visitors.



I decided to have a drink after wandering around a bit.



Just across the bridge from the one end of the garden was Kanazawa Castle. As with many of these castles alot of it was rebuilt but it was pretty, especially framed with all of the blossoms.



After these sights we headed to old Kanazawa, Teramachi, across the Saigawa River with our target being Myouryuji, also called the Ninja Dera. From the outside this temple appears to have 2 floors, but in fact it is made up of four. It seems unlikely ninjas lived there but this temple was built in the 1600s to act as a hiding place for the castle's lord should anyone attack. All of this I learned from brochures as the tours of the place are in Japanese. Us and the other western tourist tried our best to figure out what we should be looking at but found ourselves more entertained at the Japanese tourists astonished reactions to every surprise revealed. No photos were allowed.

After this we got on the bus to look for some Hell Scrolls in a temple that didn't answer their phone or doorbell. We wandered in and stood around impatiently, contemplated stealing a brolly but just left. Then we carried on in search of the Kanazawa Phonograph Museum, yes a combo of two great aspects of Japan, record selection and quirky museums. The brochure describes the allure of records:

"Many people have never seen phonographs or heard their sounds. However, since their warm sounds are said to be conducive to relaxation and healing they are gaining renewed attention."

This place rocked. We missed the tours but were shown around by a very enthusiastic staff member. I got to set up a 1934 Edison player, they also had 1914 Edison and a 1927 Victor. No freakin photos allowed.

Over at a turntable listening station I checked out 2 records pulled on the basis of their covers, one with trains on it and the other with baseball logos. The sporty one featured the incredibly unenthused Japanese commentary of a game - slower than slow it reminded me of why I hate baseball, but at least the sound quality was good. The train one was hilarious, it featured the sounds of various locomotives pulling out of stations, some complimented by school children yelling 'bye-bye' in broken English.



For dinner we went to a crappy over cooked thai resto and wandered around a bit. We saw this dog in a window and it made us miss Nanook. This was followed by another amazing bath and sleep.