Day 14 - Tuesday November 7, 2017 - Kanazawa
Kanazawa
Posted on Tuesday November 7, 2017
Today we leave Kyoto for Kanazawa. We were up, packed and ready early so headed down to the station, stopping for coffee on the way.
A few photos of the apartment before we leave.
As we had plenty of time, we stopped in the ticket office and got seat reservations for the shinkansen from Kanazawa to Tokyo on Thursday (Kagayaki # 508, leaving at 9.46, arriving at 12.20). As the airBNB apartment in Tokyo is in Shinjuku, it may be easiest to get there on the JR Yamanote loop line. Question is, do we get off the train at Ueno and go round the loop anti-clockwise to Shinjuku or do we stay on the train to Tokyo and go round clockwise? Answers on a postcard, please.
This morning we’re on Thunderbird #13. It’s 225 kms to Kanazawa, in 2 hours 8 minutes, with two intermediate stops (at Fukui and Kagaonsen) so an average of 105 kms/hour – not exactly shinkansen speed but we’ll get there soon enough.
We’re staying at the Holiday Inn, opposite the Omi-cho Market — which is the first stop on the ‘Left’ (as opposed to ‘Right’) Loop Line bus, so we’ll give that a go to get us to the hotel.
We arrived on time and headed out in search of the bus. Easy to find and no difficulty in buying a day pass. We got in line and, after a few minutes, the bus duly arrived and we clambered on, with everybody else. Like most Japanese buses, you get on in the middle and get off at the front. As we were getting off at the first stop and it was soon standing room only, we opted to be right at the front of the bus – otherwise, you find yourself + bags trying to fight your way through your fellow passengers to get to the front when it’s time to get off.
The hotel is on floors 11 – 18 of what is otherwise a department store building; reception on the 16th floor and our room, which was available when we arrived, on the 13th floor. We dropped the bags, talked to ET for a little while and then headed out. We walked back over to the bus stop (stop LL1) where we had got off earlier and waited for the Left Loop bus to reappear. This time, we got off at LL9, the stop for the Kenroku-en Gardens and Kanazawa Castle. We walked over to the entrance to the Gardens (although initially it wasn’t entirely clear where the entrance was) and got our tickets. That proved to be a somewhat frustrating experience, as I got stuck behind some wretched Italian woman and her female friend. First she wanted to know what time the Gardens closed – it’s now 2 pm, it’s ‘winter season’ so I would hazard a guess at 5 pm (…. correct). Having been satisfied that the Gardens would still be open for long enough to make the required ¥310 investment worthwhile, she proceeded to get her purse out. A teeny-tiny purse crammed full of coins. She then proceeded to scrabble about in the purse until the lady behind the counter almost reached out to grab it to help her. Eventually, she produced the required amount and got her ticket. Her friend, who had been standing beside her the whole time, then decided it was time for her to get her ticket. Aargh!! She then plonked down ¥300 – not enough…. as the ticket lady pointed out. Problem was, she didn’t have any more change so the first woman had to get her purse out again and scrabble about again to find the required ¥10. By this time, I was ready to scream. Ever thought of one of you buying both tickets and then sort it out later? Traveling with people who take that approach would drive me absolutely batty.
The really annoying part of this – having plonked down the required ¥620 for our tickets as quickly as possible – was that, in my haste, I failed to realise (as I later discovered) that my advanced age meant I could get in for free. Aargh!
The Gardens were very busy. Hordes of people meandering about, all of which rather detracted from the experience. Most of them taking photos …. with little awareness that lots of others are trying to do the same thing. For f*;+s sake, take the picture and get out of the way. No, don’t stand there looking at the photo you just took – get out of the way and look at it later. At one point, I had stopped to take a picture of a view over part of the city so was standing there, off to one side out of the flow of people, with the phone raised in my two hands …when a woman comes and stands right in front of me. Excuse me, what the f*&k do you think I’m doing? I know I’m old and grumpy but sometimes people’s complete lack of any spatial awareness or what’s going on around them astounds me.
The gardens are variously described thus –
“Ranked as one of the top three gardens in Japan, this Edo-period garden draws its name (kenroku means ‘combined six’) from a renowned Sung-dynasty garden in China that dictated six attributes for perfection: seclusion, spaciousness, artificiality, antiquity, abundant water and broad views. Kenroku-en has them all. Arrive before the crowds to increase your chances of silent contemplation. It is believed that the garden, originally belonging to an outer villa of Kanazawa-jō, was developed from the 1620s to the 1840s and was so named in 1822. It was first opened to the public in 1871.”
“The most famous sight in Kanazawa, the Garden of Six Attributes is considered one of Japan’s top 3 gardens. Once the outer pleasure gardens of the Maeda Lords, it gradually expanded to take over the entire block. While not completed in its final form until the waning years of the Edo Shogunate, it still represents one of the peaks of Japanese strolling garden design. The way in which water is piped from many kilometres upstream to fill its streams and ponds before going on to fill the castle moats is one of the great engineering feats of the Edo period. In part of the grounds, and with a steep separate ¥700 entrance fee, is the Seisonkaku Villa, built by a Maeda lord for his mother. Only part of it remains today but is a rare example of existing daimyo palace architecture. The upper floor, with its bright blues and reds, is in distinct contrast to the muted earth tones of Kyoto style.”
We wandered round, eventually heading for the less crowded parts of the Gardens and passing Seisonkaku Villa, a distinctly upmarket ‘granny flat’. We didn’t venture in but, even today, it would be delightfully situated with the Garden on your doorstep.
Eventually, we wandered back and over the road in the direction of Kanazawa Castle and its park. We concluded we were a bit ‘castled out’ at this point so just navigated our way round the Castle and through the park, aiming to come out on the other side, in the direction of the Omi-cho Market, the far side of which is opposite the hotel.
“Between Kanazawa Station and Katamachi, you’ll find this market (Omi-cho) reminiscent of Tokyo’s Tsukiji. A bustling warren of fishmongers, buyers and restaurants, it’s a great place to watch everyday people in action or indulge in the freshest sashimi and local produce.”
We walked through the market (in some ways reminiscent of the South Melbourne market) emerging by the bus stop (LL 1) across from the hotel.
Before dinner, we went to the bar for a drink, if for no other reason than that they had given us a drink voucher at check-in. “Bar” is somewhat of a euphemism as it was really just a lounge area where, eventually, somebody came and took our drink order. After delivery, we never saw them again ….
I wandered off to the restaurant to try and find a menu, as we’d decided we would give the hotel dining room a go. We had seen various adverts in the elevator and outside the restaurant for something that cost ¥5,000 and sounded like it might be some sort of buffet but we weren’t entirely sure. I attempted to explain to the nice young lady in the restaurant that we were in the bar having a drink and did she have a menu that we could look at? The inability to speak Japanese is embarrassing enough at the best of times but particularly so in this case – the young lady, hearing the words ‘bar’ and ‘menu’ promptly took off like a bat out of hell (with me trailing behind) out of the restaurant, past the elevators, across the lobby and the check-in desks, into the bar and a backroom, from which she emerged triumphantly and all smiles with – the bar menu!
Sadly, I had to try and explain that, no, that was not what I was after but the restaurant menu. I took that back with me but it still didn’t really explain about the buffet etc. – rather just an a la carte menu of what Western hotels (like Holiday Inn) think their customers want – spaghetti, hamburger, club sandwich etc. We figured we’d try it anyway so in we went, at which point we discovered there was, in fact, an English (supplemental) menu that explained the ¥5,000 deal. Yes, you got the buffet (nice enough but modest by Western standards), a special ‘unprocessed’ ham and cheese plate (meaning prosciutto and ham and some cheese, all very nicely presented on a slate plate) …. and as much wine as you could drink in two hours. Needless to say, that sealed the deal.
We had no intention of staying two hours but by the time we emerged, two hours were up. We grazed on the cold nibbley bits (several times), had our ham and cheese plate, a few goes at the hot stuff (penne, spaghetti, some really nice potato and salmon in little ramekins) and several goes at the steak and duck that the chef manning the grill cooked to order (small portions but you could just keep asking for more if you wanted it), a couple of goes at the dessert station and finally a couple of goes at the ice cream. The ice cream was chocolate and what the label said was sweet potato – though it tasted much more like apple. Whatever it was, it was nice enough. By the time we were done, two hours had passed. I thought the advertised price was + tax (usually 8% – sometimes it’s included, sometimes it isn’t) but it must have been included so, with the 10% off coupon they gave us when we checked-in, the bill was ¥9,000 for the two of us. Not bad at all …