Kanazawa and Toyama

A couple of weeks ago Chihiro had some days off work, and we went travelling to the Northern side of Japan to see a friend of hers who has moved there to study glass art as a post-graduate at a special institute. To save some money and be a bit adventurous, we decided to get special all-day train tickets for the regular train system rather than bullet-train tickets. It was only $30 rather than about $200, but it took us 8 hours to get there instead of 4 on the bullet-train! Along the way we had to change trains many times, but we took the opportunity to grab a quick lunch at one of the cheap stand-up noodle bars on the platforms. They're quite popular because the noodles are fresh and tasty and you can order and eat them within a few minutes while waiting for a train. The second photo is Kanazawa train station with a cool digital water fountain clock out the front.

Kanazawa luckily escaped a lot of warfare, including ww2, so there are many very old districts and buildings that remain relatively intact. The castle grounds are very large and the outside walls seem quite old, but inside the castle buildings look very new (still impressive though!)

Next to the castle is a large park that is one of the top 3 landscape gardens in Japan. It's very large, and was constructed over a period of two centuries, not open to the public until 1871. It features various ponds, streams, waterfalls, bridges, teahouses, trees, stones and flowers. The water for the many streams and rivers of the park is still brought there from a distant river by a sophisticated water system constructed in 1632. The name Kenrokuen literally means "Garden of the Six Sublimities", referring to spaciousness, seclusion, artificiality, antiquity, abundant water and broad views, six attributes that theoretically make up a perfect garden.

I managed to snap a picture of two extremely shy creatures while they were resting and busy communicating with each other. I also made some friends with the local koi (carp). One in particular seemed a little too friendly.

After spending the afternoon with Chihiro's friend hanging around the 21st century art museum and the downtown area, we were ready to hit a Yakitori Izakaya (a bar specialising in various grilled chicken parts). Amazingly enough on our way there we ran right into a full-scale festival with drumming, dancing, parades, banner-waving and deafeningly loud music.

I tested 3 different types of sake at the yakitori (no, I'm not drunk at all am I?), and the night before we tried jingis khan, a kind of coal-fried self-bbq. On the last day we went to Toyama to visit Chihiro's friend's glass workshop which was larger than I'd expected and really interesting to see how much cool equipment they had as well as all the experimental artworks. Can't believe I forgot to take photos (-_-)