As we only had the morning to look around Kanazawa we got a nice early start, had some tea in our 11th floor room, checked out and on our way by 8.30am.
We found a bakery for some brek in the station. We ate and waited there for the tourist office to open so we could pick up info, maps and bus tickets. Then hopped on the loop line bus with the other (Japanese) tourists to our first stop in the old Geisha district in the east of town.
Kanazawa is the only place outside of Kyoto to support the old style training of Geisha and the Higashi Chaya district is a famed Japanese Geisha area. It was so much easier to find your way around than in Kyoto as it was a much more bite sized area. It was also very pretty though with rows of the well preserved traditional wooden latticed houses.
A couple of the houses have set themselves up for visitors and so we stepped up and paid up and had a look inside.
We paid quite a lot extra to take ea in the house as we were really eager to see/take part in a tea ceremony. We had looked for somewhere to see it in Kyoto yesterday but had no luck so were glad to find somewhere today. So after looking around the house and exploring the entertaining rooms we proceeded through to the tea room and sat quietly in anticipation.
After a little while the lady came in and placed a little colourful pile of something in front of each of us along with a bowl each with green froth in. She then bowed and left and never came back. Eventually I persuaded a disappointed Rob that she definitely wasn't coming back with more and that the green froth was our tea and we realised this was not going to be our chance at a tea ceremony. It was interesting to have tried the tea and traditonal "sweet" that comes with it (note the use of interesting instead of tasty).
Feeling thoroughly Geishaed we hopped back on our bus, and jumped off again at the next stop which was the castle. We hadn't been intending to visit the castle after having recently been to Himeji however it all looked so pretty from the bus window that we thought we'd at least take in the view.
Our intended second stop had been the Kanazawa Contemporary art museum so we headed there next. After taking in some pieces outside and then discovering the price of tickets to go inside we decided to give it a miss. We liked what we'd seen so far though.
Stop four of the day was slightly off the beaten track south of the town centre and took some finding. But then what else would you expect of a Ninja temple!! The Myoryu-ji is built near the entrance of the city and was placed there in a defensive position. Legend has it Ninjas used to live here surveying the landscape for enemies. We had wanted to go inside the temple to explore the hidden passageways and concealed chambers so we had tried to book this morning from the tourist office. Unfortunately though you have to pay for a private Japanese guide for this so it was no good for us. We liked to think it was because they don't want foreigners learning their ninja secrets.
Down the road we popped into a little local shop that sold some ninja souvenirs. In here we were presented with our third cup of green tea of the day because it was cold outside! People really are so kind here. Of course we had to buy something after that.
Our last visit of the morning took us into the Samuri district in the West, an area that has always been wealthy. Many of the old Samuri and merchant's houses still exist and although most are private homes some are open to the public. We thought we'd take another look through the keyhole and paid up to visit this house. Inside was an original samuri suit.
The house was beautiful. I prefered it to the giesha house because it had a variety of rooms which you could imagine peple living in rather than the series of waiting rooms and entertaining rooms found in the Geisha house. Also it had a beautiful garden with a lovely carp pond.
Just before we left we spotted a sign pointing upstairs to a tea ceremony room which got us excited. We took a peek and it said on the wall that you could pay to take tea at the tea ceremony and so we went back down to pay up for this. Again we waited patiently and then again we were brought a bowl of green froth (green tea number 4) and a beany morsel. Again no ceremony!!! Damn it, it's obviously not meant to be. Oh well, I'm sure all this tea must be doing us good
By this point our morning was up and so we got the bus for the last time back to the station to get or bags from the hotel, buy some lunch from the baker and go and get our train. Our journey this afternoon made a change from the other days as it went straight up the West coast on a local train with the Japanese alps to our eastern side and then we changed and took a train back down the other side of the mountains. This meant the trains were a bit more rickity but the views were lovely. As we approached our destination there was snow on the ground.
And when we got off the train it was freezing. We headed straight into another tourist office they are so good here and the only people who speak English so we're becoming reliant. They were as helpful as ever and gave us a map and bus info and details for how we get to the monkey Onsen tomorrow (we're very excited about this). It was nice and easy to find our accommodation this evening; a very traditional old Ryokan. The old couple that run it were sweet when we arrived and it was nice to know the ropes by now and not get things wrong in their nice house. After getting a brief tour we were shown to our room and the lady made us some tea (cup 5).
We were ready for diner by this point and so went in search of a rough guide recommendation which I was looking forward to. As usual the map was a bit off and the restaurant wasn't where it should have been. I know it exists as I showed the name to a shop keeper who nodded and pointed down a lane, but we never found it. We had wanted go there as it sold soba noodles plus all the other places on the high street looked very posh.
But we had to go in one of these in the end and was very glad too. The restaurant turned out to be beautiful inside with a gorgeous old dining room overlooking a lit up garden. Although the drinks were expensive our small pasta dishes weren't and we were given lots of free bread.
It was a lovely and unexpected meal and we even shared their famous apple pie for desert. Then we hurried through the cold to our Ryokan room and I visited the bath to warm up and have a soothing soak while Rob researched how we will go about finding the monkeys tomorrow.
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