Wednesday 27th June - an excursion into the country

I deliberately got up early, just in case the taxi I had asked for failed to arrive or needed to be ordered still. But in fact by the time I rolled out into the lobby a quarter of an hour early the cab was already there, and so I ended up having to hurry to check out so as not to keep him waiting.

As I left, the lady who ran the place offered me a phone-dangler in the form of a mizuhiki, which  she had made herself and is apparently a traditional craft in Kanazawa. I can't put things on my iPhone, so after some debate at Kanazawa Station while I was putting my luggage in coin lockers for the morning, I decided to hang it on my day bag next to my compass, to bring me good luck and help me not get lost. I have since emailed her a pic of this and an extra thanks because I wasn;t sure I thanked her enough at the time what with the taxi driver clearly wanting to be off and all the staff coming out to bow to me as I left.

On that note, I find this aspect of Japanese culture when it's taken to that length to be a bit discomforting, to be honest. I understand that it's a show of respect and in general I am perfectly down with it as a general thing, but a bunch of people bowing to me like that just makes me want to go "oh God please stop". I'm sure some tourists love it, but hell, I'm not a bowing and scraping-to kind of person. I actually appreciate that in Japan you carry your own bags most of the time - even getting them in and out of coaches and taxis - because it makes me feel a lot less awkward. And that's an odd paradox right there to my eye anyway. But I digress.

After a tasty breakfast of pastries and coffee at the German Bakery in Kanazawa Station - go there if you are ever passing through - it was off on my adventure to Natadera Temple.

The train to Kagaonsen was a breeze at 20 minutes each way - so glad I went for the limited express and not the local train, which would have taken much longer. Once there, all I knew was that I had to find and take the CAN Bus, which is a loop bus that routes around the Kagaonsen area, but that I had to be sure to take the one that travels the Mountain Route and not the Coastal Route. Fortunately, since I had made a couple of notes of the appropriate Japanese thanks to the helpful folks at Japan Guide, I managed to navigate this just fine, and hopped on the first bus of the morning at 9.05am.

The Kagaonsen area is part of a wider spread of little onsen towns that are not much visited by Westerners, it seems - and based on the loop tour I got on the bus, they had the feel of slightly down at heel seaside resorts in the UK. The station wasn't especially well-kept (the first time I had seen weeds being allowed to grow in public plaza areas), and nor was it busy, though granted it was a weekday but... it was also rush hour in any other place.

There were some really odd attractions out on the CAN loop too - like the bizarre German chalet on giant scale that housed an international glassware museum, or a tiny craft place. So again, like the odd attractions you get in places in Britain where they hype up everything even if it's kind of unentrancing. I got a good look at the area while I was being driven around (you can only take the loop bus out to my destination of Natadera temple, so you have to pay the 1000 yen fare which ordinarily you would pay to hop on and off as you please, but since I had not paid extra for the rail trip I didn't mind) and it was definitely on the poorer side of things, with closed and abandoned hotels and pachinko parlours looking like old bingo halls left for dead. But oddly enough I started to feel kind of fond of it all and if I ever come back, I'd like to spend longer there and give some of these random, struggling attractions my tourist money. Also I heard that at least one of the onsens is totally worth a visit on its own and whoah what IS that giant gold statue that overlooks everything anyway????

But as it was, I only had time for Natadera, and the lady doing the announcements on the bus was solicitous to make sure I got off at the right stop, despite not having much English beyond "Where?" when I got on. And at Natadera itself there was a similar lack of English, and one or two surprised looks from staff, though in a good way - one elderly lady who was (I think) a member of the gardening team greeted me as I walked past with a nod and a big smile and "thank you for visiting us!". I can't personally imagine why more people don't take the time to visit Natadera, it truly is an amazing place, with parts of the temple cut out of the rock face that towers above it all.  I spent over two hours roaming the place and enjoying all the nooks and crannies that you could wander down as you liked. I am sure I could have spent longer if I had unlimited time, because there were trails into the countryside leading to little shrines and such off the beaten track too.

It's hands down the best temple I visited, and I say this a few days later after seeing a few more - I can absolutely see why Basho (the famous haiku poet) wrote a verse after visiting there. If I were an artist I'd have set up an easel and drawn all day long. It's also wonderfully shady for the most part, so a perfect way to while away a hot day. I won't try and describe it any further - just take a look at the pics on my Flickr feed to see what I mean.

Another nice things about this trip was the amount of times Japanese tourists (mostly elderly and not city-types at a guess) said hello to me and smiled as we passed while I was there. They didn't seem to care one whit that I was foreign, or be concerned that I might address them in English. They just did that perfectly natural "well hi there, we're tourists too, nice day we're having" thing which I am used to from the UK. It was really pleasant all in all. I avoided the green tea service again, though I'd have loved to see the garden they served it in, but lacked the Japanese to say "I don't want the tea but can I see the garden" and was leery of paying another 200 yen and then feeling obliged to have the tea. To make up for it and since the entrance fee was so low, I made sure to put coins in a lot of the offering boxes and light some incense and candles where appropriate. It seemed the polite thing to do when you're taking a picture of a God's home that needs a lot of upkeep, even if I am not myself at all religious.

The CAN bus comes round about once an hour, so by the time I left the temple I had a little time to kill, and I did so by ingesting green tea in a much more palatable way - as ice cream at the quiet little rest stop outside the gates.

Then it was back to Kagaonsen and to Kanazawa to pick up my luggage then head back in the same direction but this time straight through to Kyoto. I took some German bakery goodies with me on the train along with a small bowl of what turned out to be rice, cheese and teensy little prawns from a convenience store. I was pretty hungry after having barely eaten the day before.

At Kyoto I changed to a local line for Nara, and got to see the countryside change and flatten out more and more as we travelled. I also got a glimpse of the sea on this journey, which was great, and then of the huge wide river that borders Nara as we swung in to the last stop.

Once in Nara I literally only had to navigate across the street from the station to my hotel, and was thankful for it because after a long day I really, really did want that shower and a comfy bed. The Comfort Hotel gets plus points in all ways - great rooms, decent breakfasts, wireless Internet and a great selection of amenities including free hot coffee in the evenings. And all at a bargain price, too.

• Photos from Natadera are on Flickr here with all my other trip pics - in reasonably chronological order.

Music for this day was Sunspots by Julian Cope, who I listened to while I walked around Natadera.