Exploring Kanazawa & Shirakawa-go

Community Highlights Asia Exploring Kanazawa & Shirakawa-go

Our first full day in Kanazawa brought blue skies and sunshine. Perfect for strolling around the historic area’s of Kanazawa.
First of all we had to negotiate the huge breakfast the hotel provided. It was very challenging, way too much, lovely all the same.
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Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture and is known for its well preserved Edo - era districts (the town was spared the ravages of WW2), as well as the garden and castle, we had explored the evening before.
Since the Shinkansen was extended to Kanazawa and beyond, more business and tourists are now accessing this part of Japan.
We had a couple of routes to follow, so off we went to see the Samurai area - which was really the nobility and aristocracy in this case. The house of the Samurai were dotted along a small river in the centre of Kanazawa
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Once we’d ticked off examining these abodes, we walked across town to the Geisha District, the largest of 3 districts in Kanazawa. 99% of all gold leaf is produced in Kanazawa and it’s everywhere we had some in our yoghurt for breakfast even!
There were quite a few shops in the area which sold jewellery with gold leaf, or cakes, sweets pretty much anything and everything had gold leaf on it - if you wanted it.

Because the District was for “entertaining” the windows are few and those that are there have ribbed screens across them to prevent prying eyes.
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That evening we tried out a very small and unbecoming restaurant. We hadn’t a clue what was available, it seemed to be run by a young lady and a very elderly, bent double chef who wore whites.
Luckily, the lady had transcribed the menu into English on her phone so we could at least see it in words we may understand (Google Tanslate camera was hopeless on the menu as it had been handwritten)
We still don’t know what we ordered or ate - but it seems we didn’t order enough of anything - so we had a couple of bowls of rice to fill us up.
We did have some Sushi to share, a grilled whole fish that looked like Snapper - and some kind of fish ball in soup/sauce/gravy/broth?
It wasn’t particularly busy - and we were the only “westerners” - but another couple from Australia did come in as they had seen us - and they were also at a bit of a loss too - ah well, thats what its all about!
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The next day we walked to the bus station and jumped aboard a packed bus to Shirakawa-go village, just about 85 minutes away. We’d got the tickets the day we arrived in Kanazawa as Hannah had said the buses get booked up quickly.
I think we managed to get two of the last seats there and back at the times we’d preferred.
This village was built using a long outdated technique called gassho zukuri. Which as far as I could gather meant they were steeply raked thatched houses (using Pampas) and every piece of timber used to construct the house is attached using rope or wooden pegs. There are no nails or any kind of metalwork used in its construction.
It was a very pretty village - some houses you could go into - for a fee and shoeless, which on the whole was worthwhile. There were loads of signs everywhere telling people not to smoke and have no naked flames (for obvious reasons).
We walked up to the observation point and back around, in and out of the village until we’d seen pretty much everything. We then moved onto the open air museum at the top of the village which was very much worthwhile. Although it was still a collection of properties, these had been saved from other nearby locations and brought together for safekeeping. So you did have a good range to look at.
The 5 hours went by quite quickly and before long we were on the bus back to Kanazawa.
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By the station I called into a barbers for a haircut, which was quite an experience!
I was sat down and given a men’s magazine of model haircuts. Having chosen one the lady started cutting away - the scissors flashed before my eyes (point on) which was a little disconcerting - I did though get through is unscathed.
She then offered to shave my neck(with a cutthroat razor) which I agreed with, what I wasn’t expecting were my ears being shaved too - that’s a first!
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Not wanting a repeat of last nights dinner, we went to a Chinese restaurant we’d spotted the night before and had a wonderful filling meal.

The following day were said goodbye to Uan Hotel, our bags (theyre being moved to Kyoto via the baggage service) and Kanazawa and made our way via Shinkansen to the end of the high speed rail line at Tsuruga. Where we had 6 minutes to catch the next train to Kyoto.
It all went very smoothly and soon we trundled into Kyoto in the rain.

As we were quite near Nijo Castle, we decided to visit it as we wouldn’t really get another chance given the packed agenda Claire had written up!
Sadly, it was bucketing down, but hey ho, you can’t have everything so off we went after dropping off our back packs and picking up a couple of brollys from the hotel.
Clearly, this place is seriously busy at peak times, thankfully though I expect we were visiting ting in the quite season and it was chucking it down.
It was very big and very impressive
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We decided to walk back to the hotel. What should have taken 30 minutes through a packed shopping arcade selling everything under the sun including all sorts of food and drink, took well over an hour as we kept stopping to amaze at the food on offer.
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That evening we once again dived into some sort of basic restaurant which appeared very popular.
We had delicious meals, loads of been and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 5 big beers, 2 larges bowls of food (1 was pork Ramen - not sure what the other was!) came to Y4200 - about £22 - wonderful.
Claire managed to recite the word “delicious” in Japanese to the lady who did the serving, clearing, ordering and welcoming and she was delighted and gave Claire a big hug.
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The next morning after a lovely long sleep, we headed out onto the Temple & Shrine route.
We were using the info and route provided by a couple that have a website called Nerd Nomads. It is a great source of information and excellently presented.
I can’t recall all the temples and shrines we’ve seen - but I do feel a little templed out now!
The route got busier and busier as we progressed, culminating at the end of the route where it was absolutely heaving.
(Especially at a particular photo spot which is the most photographed in Kyoto.)
There were lots of photographers taking shots of ladies - and gents in Kimono costumes - maybe for engagements/wedding?
In hindsight, we should have perhaps walked down a main road to the other end of the route and done it in reverse.
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Here’s the photo I took of the most photographed spot:
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and here’s what it looks like without anyone there!

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Making it back to the hotel, I am writing this - whilst Claire has gone for a run along the river.
Hopefully, she’ll find her way back!

This featured blog entry was written by Norfolk Boy from the blog Japan.
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By Norfolk Boy

Posted Fri, Oct 04, 2024 | Comments