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For the beginning of April I was lucky enough that my mum and dad were able to take the time to come visit and we took 2 weeks (and a lot of trains!) all around Japan. (This photo is of the wall surrounding Kanazawa Castle)
April 5th - Ueno Station and Park
Our hotel was near Ueno Park, so we walked to Ueno station first to pick up JR Rail passes and some Suica cards. The Suica cards are like a PRESTO Pass (or the PASMO passes that Jesse and I have), they let you tap on and off of the majority of Japanese public transport which means you don't have to buy a ticket at each station or when you transfer. According to the group chat that Jesse and I are in from the Sharehouse, they were out of Suica cards at most of the locations that sold them just a day or two after we picked up ours, so we were quite lucky.
After that we walked around Ueno Park. Mum chose the perfect time to visit, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, so we took lots of photos as we walked around the park. (I will try not to overwhelm you with cherry blossom photos!) The park was full of folks walking around, buying food from the stalls lining the paths, and having picnics under the trees. The previous day had been sunny and when I had come by the park had been absolutely packed!
Japanese Culture Walking Tour
For the afternoon, Mum found some walking tours of Tokyo, and we signed up for the tour that focused on Japanese Culture. We had a lovely time! There was an older woman who was the head tour guide, and she had an assistant who had just graduated from university. We took the Toei Oedo Subway line (which I learned is the most recent subway line, hence why it is noticeably deeper than the others) to the Hamarikyu Gardens. Japanese gardens tend to focus more on sculpted greenery, and often have very old trees surrounded by immaculate lawns, and feature ponds with arch bridges made of wood. There is an interesting contrast between the skyscrapers that tower over the greenery with faint sounds of construction, and the quiet and pristine nature as you walk across and around the placid lakes.
There are often tea houses in Japanese gardens, and we were able to stop and have some matcha tea and a namagashi dessert. They are small and soft desserts made from a rice flour and bean paste mixture wrapped around red or white bean paste which is then shaped to look like flowers or fruit or other pretty things.
After the tea we continued to explore the gardens, and then we took another subway to a paper making workshop at Ozu Washi. We began with an informational video about the wood that is used to make the pulp for the paper. It is quite a long process from harvesting to papermaking. Only a subsection of the stem is used to make the paper, so the harvested wood needs to be soaked, and bleached, extra material removed, and then mashed, before you have a vat of pulp to finally dip your tray into.
The instructor was very dynamic, and even though he had only a little bit of English, between his directions and the guides' translation we understood the steps. It was quite tricky though! He made it look so easy, but dipping the tray at the right angle, and not ruining the layers of paper you were forming was much harder than it looked. We all ended up with some custom paper by the end though.
Tokyo Skytree
We rounded off the busy day with a trip up the Tokyo Skytree at night. It had been a cloudy day, so I was a little worried about the visibility, but thankfully were were still able to see most of the city.
April 6 - Imperial Palace Gardens
Our train wasn't until the afternoon, so for the morning we visited the Imperial Palace Gardens, and then walked back to Tokyo Station through the Ginza neighbourhood. The Imperial Palace Gardens were nice enough, but some of the others we visted stood out more.
We also walked through the Ginza Shopping district. It's one of the neighborhoods with fancy shops, and we happened to be passing by the Yurakucho Mullion Clock when it was opened. It was build by Seiko, and on the hour the clock face moves up and four figures come out of the wall and appear to play a series of pipes along with a tune.
Captions (from left to right): Some trees at the Imperial Palace Gardens, A music hall with pretty mosaics near the Imperial Palace, (top) a small shrine on a roof visible from our hotel room, (bottom) a GIF of the Seiko clock
Travel to Kanazawa
In the afternoon, we took a Shinkansen to Kanazawa. It is the first city on the north/western edge of Japan that I have visited! We arrived in the late afternoon and were given a tour of the house we had rented by the owner.
It was a really interesting traditional Japanese house. Most of the doors were sliding doors, even the front doors into the house. There was one bedframe, but the mattresses were all futons either laid on the frame or on a tatami floor. One of my favourite parts was the heated mat under the carpet in the living room which made sitting at the low coffee table nice and cozy.
I expect the initial building has been added onto throughout the years because there was an odd gap between an upstairs room and the kitchen, and to get between the front and rear rooms upstairs, you had to step through what I think may have previously been a large window.
I tried to see if I could walk around the outside for clues, but the houses are all so close to one another that even walking around the block didn't allow me to see the back.
(left: the view looking into the house from the main front room. The stairs to the left lead to the upper front rooms (a sitting room and bedroom), through the doors is the living room and then the kitchen, to the right is a hallway that leads to the bathroom and the stairs to the upper bedrooms and small sitting room at the back of the house.
April 7 - Exploring Kanazawa
It was a lovely and sunny day, plus our house wasn't too far from the downtown area so we were able to walk everywhere. We started by walking to the Kenrokuen Garden. It was a gorgeous garden and absolutely full of folks out enjoying the lovely weather and the cherry trees.
We also took the chance to explore the grounds of the former Kanazawa Castle next door. While the castle is no longer standing, the various walls, moats, and some secondary buildings are still standing or have been rebuilt.
An interesting thing about the Kanazawa castle area is that because different walls were built during different eras of history, you can see multiple different construction techniques in the same place. The oldest walls are made from rounded stones with gaps between them, while the most recent walls (relatively speaking) have stones that are cut and shaped to interlock perfectly.
(Left: Mum at Kenrokuen garden, right: a rebuilt tower on a section of wall from the middle of the castle's history)
Kenrokuen Garden Photos
Other Photos from around Kanazawa
We ended the day by getting supper at a ramen shop down the street from where we were staying. One of the best things about Japan and one of many factors that makes it so walkable is the mixed zoning laws. They mean that residential areas aren't purely houses, they also have tiny restaurants, small grocery stores, and more in residential neighbourhoods. It is marvelously convenient to be able to get reasonably priced food very close to home.
April 8 - Nishi Chaya District
While the weather wasn't as nice, it was kind enough to hold off on the rain for most of the day. We started by walking around the historic Nishi Chaya District. Like many of the old neighbourhoods in Kyoto, this area has historic buildings that line narrow streets. Some are really just walkways, they are so narrow.
For part of the afternoon we attended a gold leaf workshop. There are a number of artisans in Kanazawa that specialize in gold leaf production and the workshop we did was a quick introductory crash course. We first chose what we wanted to decorate from a selection of items, and then we chose template stickers to form our design. The stickers allowed us to brush on the adhesive and stick the gold to only what would become our design. From there we were able to add coloured glitter accents, although any bit of static electricity meant the glitter sometimes had a mind of its own. After the employees added a protective layer of lacquer we were done!
As we were leaving we decided to stop by the nearby phonograph museum. Over more than 50 years, a record shop owner named Hiroshi Yokaichiya collected a range of phonographs and records which are now on display as the Yamachiku collection. Twice a day the museum also plays a selection of the phonographs and SP records on a number of their machines which we were able to listen to. Depending on the design, some of the phonographs were impressively loud!
April 9 - Takayama and Okuhida Onsen
I think if we had started a BINGO card with all the possible forms of transport here, we might have ticked most of the boxes by the end of the trip. To get to Kanazawa we first took the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Toyama, and then changed to a local express train to Takayama. After a short layover there, we got on a local bus to Okuhida Onsen which was a tiny town in the mountains.
Jesse and I haven't seen any snow since we left Sendai in early February, and we were comfortably walking around Kanazawa in t-shirts just 2 days before, but as the bus drove further and further into the mountains there was snow! It seems that in addition to the hot springs (remember, "onsen" is the Japanese word for a hot spring, as well as a bathhouse fed by a hot spring, and often a town/area with lots of natural bathhouses), Okuhida Onsen also has a couple ski-hills nearby. However, they are such a small town that there was only one restaurant for supper. Thankfully it was quite tasty, and a small cafe was open for breakfast the next morning.
(top: the view from the bus-stop of the surrounding mountains, left: the view from our window, right: the short walk to the bus from the ryokan)
April 10 - Travel to Kyoto
We retraced our steps back to Takayama and spent a little longer exploring the town. Despite feeling quite isolated it has a bustling tourist district along some historic streets. Then, rather than taking the Hida Limited Express train back to Kanazawa, we continued in the other direction to Nagoya and took a Shinkansen to Kyoto.
After checking in we walked to the Gion district and were lucky enough to see a geisha walking through the streets to her next appointment. For supper we had shabu-shabu which is a meal where you have thinly sliced meat and an assortment of veggies that you cook yourself in a flavourful broth. The restaurant that we found had a number of staff who spoke some English which is always helpful and a very cute mini-menu. While it was a large meal it was also very tasty!
After supper we walked to Yasaka Shrine and explored the park behind it with its fancy homes and restaurants. On our walk back we encountered Toyokuni-jinja, a shrine dedicated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who I remembered because he has an entire floor about him at the Osaka Castle Museum. When he died he was interred on a mountain to the east of Kyoto and a mausoleum and shrine were erected. However, after the Toyotomi clan fell the Tokugawa shogunate (who are mentioned absolutely everywhere in Japanese history) anulled the enshrinement. The original shrine was reconstructed at the location we found in 1880 and the gravesite has also since been reconstructed.
(For more photos of Yasaka Shrine, see Oct 12-15 - Kamo River, Pontocho section)
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