Samurai, Geishas and Old Japan

 What a lovely way to finish our taste test of Japan.

We didn't anticipate Kanazawa being quite so far away from Hakone, but the bullet train ride (the Shinkansen) made it more than bearable.  I caught up on some work (such a business woman that I am now 😁) whilst Jake relaxed with my feet up reading a book.  Oh well....someone's gotta pay for our trip hehehe

After a relaxing but simple accommodation in Kawaguchiko infested with mosquitos, we welcomed the floral scented lobby of our hotel and the crisp white bed sheets.  Though, the bed made Jake walk like a cripple - it could be just be his age...

Another city, another garden.  Serene, peaceful and beautiful.  

We got to experience a Geisha serving us tea at a teahouse there.  Jake wasn't impressed with:

1. sitting crossed legged on the floor

2. drinking the creamy, traditional matcha tea from a bowl.  

He literally said to me: 'given they have had thousands of years to practice this shit, why can't they just perfect a cup of English Breakfast?!'

After this delicious treat, we saw some castle ruins, which were nothing to write home about and had some petty good mint chocolate soft serve to finish off the morning.

We did say, it is a cultural place...so in this vein, we also visited the D.T. Suzuki Museum.  Suzuki was born in Kanazawa and was a famous philosopher and a spiritual teacher.  Suzuki is a pioneer in bringing the Eastern philosophy / Buddhist teachings to the Western world.  The place was unlike a typical gallery or a museum.  It had  only 3 rooms, none overloaded with information and was more of a contemplative space than anything else.  It really resonated with me, and Jake didn't even hate it.

Next, off we walked to the Samurai district.  Yes, we walked pretty much everywhere here.  The options are limited to walking, buses or taxis (which apparently are hard to come by these days).  

Look, we didn't see any samurais, or swords or anything like that...but it was a cool little place to walk through.  Very quiet.  It took all of 10min 😁

We don't usually like to describe things in a chronological order, but it seems like the right thing to do here.

So, the next (and the last day), we took another walk (actually 2) to the train station to get our tickets back to Tokyo so we can get home. Bit of a saga, but not all trains showing on the net, then not all machines take payWave, so took about as long to get the tickets as the Shinkansen does to get back to Tokyo.

Last afternoon here was spent wandering the markets. Very much an Adelaide Central Market vibe, but a bit smaller and VERY focused on seafood.

We finished off with a gold leaf ice-cream - something Kanazawa is famous for.  It was our the culinary highlight of the markets.  

Last on the list was the Geisha district.  Apparently there are 3 of them in Kanazawa, but we could only be bothered with one, so we chose the most convenient and picturesque one called Kazuemachi Chaya District.  Again, we saw no Geishas and I spared Jacob having another tea, but we had a good look around and took some pics:

All in all, Kanazawa was pretty slow paced and there was not a huge amount to actually 'do' but it was a nice slower pace place to just be for a few days, and to get a bit of the history fix we hoped for.

Bloody hot here - very humid and 35 degrees - so returning to the southern hemisphere winter with some colour in our skin.  Oh, we know you are very jelly :)

See you soon Adelaide - the most beautiful city in the world.