Shirakawago and Kanazawa

We woke up several times during the night Sunday night/Monday morning because we were freezing.  The small space heater they put in our room, which made it uncomfortably hot when we checked in somehow turned off during the night.  We could not understand how to use it (everything in Japanese) so we just assumed it was on some kind of timer and would come back on by itself.  The thing also sang every so often when it was on and we didn’t want to mess with it because you could hear it singing throughout the whole house.  (By singing we mean it actually played music...very strange).  It grew colder and colder.  The blankets they gave us kept us very warm but they were not long enough for our bodies so there was always some part exposed.  Finally we could not take it anymore.  At one point we heard someone else’s heater singing so that was our queue to get this thing working regardless of what it was saying or how loud it was saying it.  Chris got up and started playing with the thing.  There were two temperatures on there, one said 20, which meant 68 F, which is probably what it was set to, and other number, which had said 20 when we went to bed, now read 7.  7 C is only 44 F.  We think it actually was that cold in the room.  He played with the thing and got it working without it singing.  Within a few minutes our skin started gaining color again and we were warm.  By 6:30 we finally woke up for good and started getting ready for breakfast.

The singing heater in the corner

Breakfast was much like the previous night’s dinner except we only had to kneel for about 30 minutes instead of an hour.  What we were served was probably also traditional Japanese:  some kind of small egg which was probably cracked open and cooked for about 1 second before being served (it was quite runny), more fish only this time they were tiny (maybe about an inch long) and dried, some pickled vegetables, miso soup, rice, more hoba leaf with miso paste, seaweed and some other stuff.  Besides the egg everything was pretty good.

Shoes lined up outside of dining area

After breakfast we packed our stuff up and headed outside.  Before we left we found out why it was so cold the previous night, besides the fact that the heater was off.  We learned that besides being paper thin, one of our walls was not a wall at all, but a sliding door which opened right to the outside!  We might have well had been sleeping outside.

Our "wall" to the outside

We did not have to check out until 10 AM and our bus did not leave until 10:20.  There were only two busses each day going where we wanted to go so we had to make the 10:20 bus.  We wanted to head up to a viewpoint above the town where you get great views looking down on all of the houses.  The walking path up to the viewpoint is closed during the winter but they do provide a shuttle bus which runs every 20 minutes to the top for 200 yen.  We wanted to be on that first bus so that we could be up and back with time to spare to check out and make our bus.  It was only about 8:30 so we had some time to kill.  We headed down to the bus station to pick up our tickets which the concierge back at the hotel had reserved for us.  The concierge told us that the bus company took credit cards, when we went to pay we realized that they did not so we had to use cash.  After getting our tickets we headed back into the village to catch the shuttle bus.  The town is tiny and it was only a 5 minute walk from the bus terminal, past our house, to the shuttle bus stop in the center of town after leaving the house at 8:30, picking up our tickets, and walking back it was now only 8:45.  The bus was already there and the driver let us wait on the warm bus before leaving exactly at 9.  The bus ride up was quick, maybe only 7 minutes.  The bus then turned around and left at 9:10 to head back down to the village and repeat all day long.  We thought that despite the nice scenery the bus driver’s job must get old fast, making the same 7 minute trip continuously all day long.  We took a bunch of pictures and were ready to go back down on the 9:30 bus.  The only other person who had been on the bus coming up with us was also on the same bus back down.

Shuttle bus

The drive back down

We got back to our house by 9:45, gathered our stuff and checked out.  We were at the bus terminal waiting to leave by 9:55.  We were headed to Kanazawa for two reasons: first there is a famous Japanese garden there and second, we had never been to that part of Japan before.  Our highway bus was a little bigger than Sunday’s bus but there was less room inside to store stuff so we put our backpack in the storage area under the bus before leaving.  The bus was fairly empty, maybe there were only about a dozen people or so on the bus.  The scenery, like Sunday, was amazing.  The first 30KM or so was mostly in tunnels but between breaks in the tunnels we managed to take some good pictures.  Once we got out of the mountains we were pretty much on an expressway until we got to the city. 

Some of the scenery from the bus to Kanazawa

 

The bus dropped us off right outside of the train station a little before noon and we headed inside to find some lockers to drop off our stuff and to find an information center.  We found both quickly and picked up some English guides to the city as well as bus information.  Rather than take the most direct bus to the gardens we bought an all-day pass for a loop bus which looped you around the city stopping at most of the touristy sights.  We figured this was a good way to get a feel for the city and even though we would not be staying overnight we would know if this was a place we wanted to return to someday.  Plus you could get on and off all day if you liked.  We boarded the bus and headed for Kenrokuen Garden, which even with our indirect route was only a 20 minute ride.

The garden was kind of interesting.  Being the middle of the winter it was not as impressive as we had imagined.  There was no snow on the ground to make for some great pictures and there was not much green but they did do some interesting things with their trees.  Because the area gets heavy snow during the winter, the gardeners perform something called yukitsuri, which means “snow hanging” on the trees.  This prevents the branches from breaking under the weight of the snow.  They basically tie ropes around the branches and tie them in such a way that prevents snow buildup and breakage.  This method of protecting the trees seems to be used on just about every tree in the garden but we also noticed it being done on some trees around the city as well.  It almost seems to be a symbol of the city.

They call this Tortoise Island because of the shape

After the garden we were hungry.  We got back on the loop bus and started making our way towards the train station but we had read about a market in the city which was similar to, but much smaller than, the fish market we visited in Tokyo.  We decided to go there and find something to eat.  Oumichou market is the biggest market in Kanazawa. It is especially famous for its fresh fish and seafood. Kanazawa is on the Sea of Japan in an area where hot and cold water flow meets which makes for many different kinds of fish being caught in this area.  Besides fresh fish they also have all kinds of processed seafood.  Besides the seafood they also have meats, produce and other stalls selling nonfood items as well.  This place was not nearly as crowded or busy as the market in Tokyo.  In fact we commented that the people working here would not last 2 minutes in Tokyo’s market.  Besides being much smaller it was also much less chaotic and far more organized.  We did not fear for our lives while walking around this market.  We ended up buying a few stuffed hash brown type things.  Each looked like a hash brown and was stuffed with potato and some other filling.  The fillings we tried were crab, beef and onion, and vegetable, each of which was really good.  For our meal, instead of eating something from the sea we settled on a small restaurant that had a nice display of gyoza and dumplings outside.  We enjoyed our dumpling lunch/dinner with a beer while we chatted with the owner. 

Outside of the market

Much less congested than Tokyo

Hash brown lady

Part of our lunch

After getting some food in us we headed back to the train station, this time walking instead of taking the bus.  We actually took some time to explore the outside of the station which had an old style Japanese looked and a very modern look at the same time.  There was a cool water fountain outside which also served as a clock.  The water shooting out of the fountain displayed the time and it also alternated with the words “Welcome to Kanazawa”.  We thought this was pretty cool.  We then went inside, grabbed our stuff from the locker, and bought our tickets for the 3 hour train ride back to Nagoya, where we arrived a little after 9.

Front entrance to Kanazawa station