Sunday 24th June - Onward to Kanazawa

After checking out of Takayama Ouan on the 24th, I hit the bus station again to reserve seats on the highways bus to Kanazawa. Well two highway buses to be accurate - one to Shirakawa-go and then one to Kanazawa from there. At the bus station I ran into a really nice chap from San Francisco who was holidaying in Japan with his wife, her sister, and his little daughter (who was pretty cute). So it was nice to have a chat for a while and laugh at him almost getting on the wrong bus (a bus arrived and he started flapping that his wife was in the bus station. However, it turned out they were actually going my way but he nearly ended up going back to Matsumoto until his wife informed him he was an idiot haha).

There was more gorgeous scenery on the way to the rest stop at Shirakawa-go - I really can't get enough of the breathtaking mountain views and the "oh shit" feeling when you get a glimpse from below of the road you just travelled on (or are about to) precariously clinging to the mountainside. We dipped down to enter Shirakawa-go, as it's nestled in a valley where the farming is good.

Shirakawa-go is an original village with the same style of housing as that on display at Hida Folk Village - it's a big tourist draw although in this case, people actually live there and some of the homes opeerate as shops or guest houses etc. I had debated spening an hour or so there and catching a later bus, but my feet were as sore as hell from all the walking so I decided to be prudent and give them a rest, just poking about from the rest area instead of stomping about for two hours in the blazing sun. If I ever come back I will definitely give it my tourist £££ though as it was a lovely place, if a tourist trap.

While I was sitting in the shade drinking water and admiring the views, an older gentleman came and sat near me and promptly engaged me in conversation... in Japanese. Argh! It's very nice when a native Japanese approaches for a chat as most shy away, but then I always feel bad that I can't chat with them properly. Anyway luckily I had learned enough basic Japanese to tell him "Sumimasen. Watashi wa nihongo ga chotto wakarimass" (Sorry. I only understand a little Japanese) and to spot that he asked me what country I was from, to which I was able to respond "Igirisu dess". This seemed to be the right answer (?) as he nodded very animatedly about that and promptly turned to tell his wife (I think) that I was English... and then I lost track of what else he was saying but she smiled and nodded at me too. I apologised a couple more times for my crap language skills but he didn't seem to mind, and positively seemed happy to sit there until it was time for his coach to leave. I'll take a stab and say he was on holiday from a rural part of Japan as he didn't look like a city dude and in common with the UK, the folks who don't look like city folks (or definitely aren't) seem the most amiable and chatty to strangers.

Also at Shirakawa-go I had a chat with a solo female French traveller who was in Japan for several weeks (I was quite envious of her for that) - she was also going to kanazawa but since we had reserved seats we didn't sit next to each other on the bus, even though there were only about four people on. Japan seems very ordered about that sort of thing and I didn't want to cause any fuss with the driver.

The scenery calmed down on the way to Kanazawa after that though there were a LOT of long tunnels - and by long I mean tunnels of several kilometres apiece. If you can't build a road on a mountain, build one THROUGH it, I guess! I'm glad I did the buses for this part of the trip as if I'd taken the train I'd have had to go round the mountains and missed all the views.

It all got a bit more urban coming into Kanazawa - and let me tell you that when it comes to the outskirts of cities, there's a uniform pattern that seems to apply globally - factories, offices, out of town shopping centres, ringroads... you know the drill.  If it weren't for some of the architecture and the signs in Japanese, you could be driving into Manchester, Leeds or Bradford. Most cities here aren't built on a grid system either so even more like the UK in that respect (as opposed to the US).

Kanazawa buses rather conveniently stop at the train station, just like at Takayama, which meant I could pop into the Tourist Information Centre for a map and some info on the city before I went to the ryokan/minshuku I was going to be staying in. and huzzah - there was an English speaking volunteer guide on duty (as there was every single time I popped in) who gave me a bunch of info, explained how to use the buses, get a taxi to my accommodation, and offered some advice on a side trip I wanted to make to Natadera temple in a neighbouring area.

My first encounter with a Japanese taxi was as smooth as silk, and although I had learned a few basic phrases on the bus, I didn't need them, because at Kanazawa Station the cabs pull up one at a time at the command of a smartly uniformed dude who asks where you're going and then tells the driver. Luckily the place I was staying at is a historic building that has been run as an Inn for centuries so I only had to mention the name and he was all "Ahhhh, Sumiyoshiya! Hai!". I felt a bit cheated of my chance to try out some new Japanese haha.

It was super early when I arrived at the hotel, and I had intended just to leave my bags there and go out until check in time, but I was pounced by the tiniest and smiliest little old lady in a kimono you have ever seen, who ushered me to my room (after I had taken my shoes off, naturally) and made me sit down, drink a cup of tea and eat a sweet. Awww. I know this is common practice for ryokan but Sumiyoshiya is a much more casual establishment than the expensive formal places so it caught me off guard. I was absolutely horrified when she scuttled off while I was drinking my tea (I wasn't quite sure what to do next) and came back with my bags. JFC - I mean, *I* can carry my bags just fine but I wouldn't wish them on a teensy little old lady to carry! I practically tripped over myself to thank her as she took me on a quick guided tour of the place to show me the laundry and the baths. She also kept apologising in broken English that she couldn't speak my language but that "the young ones" can (who seemingly were out shopping). Bless.

After that she left me alone to relax, and relax I did for an hour or so until I decided I had been plenty lazy for one day and that it was time to start hitting the sights (by this point I also knew that the midday sun would have passed, which is always nice). The younger element were back from their shopping by this time and did indeed have a very good grasp of English, explaining to me how to get to Kenrokuen Garden and marking the exact location of the hotel on my tourist map. So Kenrokuen Garden it was - 15 minutes walk or so through Kanazawa Castle Park which was literally round the corner from the hotel.

I didn't stop at the castle this day as it closed at 4.30 and it was already almost 3, plus I knew that Kenrokuen was only open till 6 and figured I could take my time more in three hours than one and a half. And I had three nights in Kanazawa to look forward to anyway.

Kanazawa, by the way, is a very tourist-oriented city, though seems to mostly receive non-Western visitors due to the fact that it is not yet on the bullet train route. An extension to Kanazawa is currently being built (you can see stretches of it from the trains) which will connect it to (I think) Kyoto or Nagano, and make it much quicker to get to than it currently is. And Kanazawa appears to have embraced this imminent bright new dawn with gusto. The station is a gleaming beauty which is both incredibly easy to navigate and very well signed in English as well as Japanese, all the buses have information (wriiten and spoken via announcements) in both Japanese and English (also I think Chinese and Korean), and there are maps and guides to most everything in English too - including an excellent tourist website. In addition, it's the first place I have encountered where accessibility for disabled visitors seems to be prominent - the reconstructed castle gatehouse which I popped in to on my way to to Kenrokuen, has been rebuilt to incorporate a ramped access (as has the castle itself, as I found out the next day - that has ramps, an elevator and also stairlifts). One thing though - everywhere you go if you ask for information, expect to be asked where you are from. The entire city seems to be doing a survey on where its visitors come from - I am guessing so that they can better tailor their tourist offering before the advent of the bullet train!

Another thing about Kanazawa is that the locals seem rightly proud of their city and its arts/culture. There is a museum for every conceivable aspect of Japanese craft, history and art, no lie, and the tourist office is very pro-active about designating things cultural properties (including my hotel) and promoting them accordingly. Buses are a breeze to negotiate and there are little animated maps of the tourist-oriented Loop Bus route, showing you in real time the location of the next bus. I could easily have spent a week there and not run out of things to do, but as it was I had picked out a few highlights plus noted a few other things in case I had time in passing.

Kanazawa also has more than its fair share of gardens. If there's one particular cultural thing that Japan does exceptionally well, it's gardens, and if you're going to see a garden in Japan, you may as well go see one of the best, right? And in fact that was how I first found out about Kanazawa as a city (despite its aspirations, the fact that it is currently bullet train-less means it isn't prominent on English language tourist sites), Kenrokuen came up on a search as one of Japan's top three gardens. And indeed it is lovely - at less than 3 quid to get in and see it. I spent a good two plus hours walking around there, it's one of those places where you can wander round and round and keep finding new things, or new angles to see the same things - just as any major garden should. It's a gorgeous example of its kind and I can totally see why it's one of the top three. It has a long history, having been created many years ago by a local toff, and it has mostly been preserved exactly as it was. The only thing that I found jarring was that they have gravelled all the paths, and I know why - it's much easier to maintain and is common to many places worldwide. But in Japanese gardens, sound is an important part of the aesthetic and sometimes the sound of the gravel crunching under your feet had a tendency to drown out the more delicate sounds of water, wind and insects. To combat that, I took the chance to sit down on one of the many benches dotted about to admire particular areas in depth. Gardens are like a living art gallery, and watching other tourists (mostly Korean, Chinese or Japanese) dashing about and taking snaps before moving on in a hurry was kind of sad to me. But hey, it meant I got the benches to myself mostly so there is that!

After Kenrokuen I took an roundabout route back to the hotel to test out the map and my general sense of direction. GREAT SUCCESS - I found it, and on the way I found a Lawson convenience store in which I picked up a few snacks (no lie, I was still stuffed from that enormous breakfast at Takayama, plus I had ordered a home-cooked breakfast for the next day in Kanazawa so didn't want to overeat before bed). My futon had been laid out and there was free oolong tea in my room, but first I went to make free with the shared bathroom (Japanese style again), which really is the best thing ever for easing tired muscles. After a good scrub down at the faucet you can submerse yourself completely in hot water for as long as you like (it stays hot). It seemed like I was the only female in the place staying in a room with no private bathroom so actually I had the bath to myself all the time I was there, morning and evening. It was bliss!

The relaxation however did not last, because I got back to my room to discover I had somehow lost my iPhone cable at Takayama Ouan. Argh! My phone battery was almost flat and I also couldn't get the pics off apart from wirelessly (Sumiyoshiya may be traditional, but it has wireless Internet!) and that was apt to drain the battery even more. Thank goodness the younger manageress spoke English, because when I went to reception to explain my predicament, she called up Takayama Ouan (they had found it and it was in lost property), arranged for them to ship it overnight on the next day and in the mean time told me where I might be able to buy one locally (because I didn't want to be without a camera).

While I was loitering at reception waiting for Ouan to call and confirm this was okay, one of the maids (who despite lack of English was very friendly) wandered by and observed that I was wearing the provided yukata over a pair of light cotton pyjama bottoms. "Good idea!" she exclaimed, but I felt forced to explain in basic English that I was actually wearing it that way because it was a tad on the revealing side for me to wear otherwise due to my relative size versus Japanese women (I didn't want to flash my legs or cleavage  every time I moved and also had a camisole on underneath though she couldn't see that). Basically I told her I was fat and sadfaced haha. She laughed and then since it was all women there at the time (I doubt she'd have done it if a guy had been present) she made a gesture with her hands against her own chest to indicate big boobs accompanied by an expression of admiration that made me laugh out loud.

That encounter cheered me up over the cable snafu and after a nice cup of oolong I fell asleep and had no trouble with the futon or the bean pillow whatever. I did, however, discover that my toilet seat was heated and had absolutely no idea how to stop it. So I spent three days being shocked by a hot seat whenever I went to pee. Ah well :)

• More pics as usual on Flickr, and the song of the day for the 24th was The Cure's A Forest