Because of the rearranged schedule, this was a pretty light day in terms of things I wanted to do, although there was still a lot of walking involved. But since the temperatures had soared up towards 30 degrees centigrade overnight, I was quite glad I didn't have a lot to tackle.
The only journey I had paid for on top of that was the one from Tokyo to Matsumoto (I don't count the trip into Tokyo from the airport as I wanted the train/SUICA deal anyway for convenience later, though you can also get that rail journey covered on your pass if you wish). and the train ride to Matsumoto was not enough to justify my buying a 14 day pass instead of a 7 day one. Thanks to smart advice from Cayce over at Blog-Tick Phenomenon on this, by the way - if she hadn't cautioned me about checking the travel prices I may have spent extra money I would not have recouped.
You can exchange your voucher (sent to you in your home country) and many stations throughout Japan, and you just tell them what day you want it to start. So for convenience I set it up the day before I was due to travel, as well as booking seats on Thunderbird express trains to and from Kagaonsen and later the same train through to Kyoto. On reflection, I could have not come back to Kanazawa at all in between, but I was unable to find out concrete info on the coin locker situation for luggage at tiny Kagaonsen, and since I had all day I wasn't taking any chances.
After that, I celebrated with breakfast at Starbucks, before buying another Loop Bus pass (and this time I was determined to make it pay) and heading off to the Higashi-chaya Geisha District for my first stop.
In the course of my wanderings I happened upon a security guard at a shinto shrine, who directed me to a Buddhist temple up the hill with great views, and offered me a peppermint and a map of the area in English as well.
The temple, naturally, was up a hill, and a ridiculous amount of stairs. It was also badly signed and mapped (well what a surprise), and both myself and a Japanese couple got a bit lost trying to find it (we all ended up in a children's playground). I could tell they were looking for the temple too from the looks of resigned confusion - I am sure I was making plenty of them myself. But we independently figured it out, and I headed off ahead of them up the last flight of steps.
There were indeed some fantastic views from the to[p looking down on Kanazawa, and while it was a small temple, it was pretty picturesque with an impressive statue. As I was loitering in the small graveyard, the Japanese couple caught up to me and the husband started animatedly gesturing at me and pantomiming taking a pic. At first I thought he wanted me to take one of him and his wife but NO, he had spotted I was alone and wanted to take one of me so I had a souvenir. Haha. Well, I hate to be photographed but it was such a kind thought that I couldn't turn him down, so I duly handed over my iPhone.
"iPhone!" he exclaimed, looking positively excited, then gestured to me to choose a spot for a pic. Well, I didn't know, so I chose to stand in front of one of the fancy stone lanterns, and showed him how to take a pic. he took two of me there, and then insisted I move to the temple and stand in front of that while he took some more, and then out to the bit with the city views for even more. Haha. At this point his wife was kind of facepalming at him and practically rolling her eyes at me in a kind of "he's like this all the time!" way. It was incredibly funny, but they were both so very lovely that I just rolled with it.
Inevitably, we had the "Igirisu desu" "Oh, English! London Olympics!" "Iie, Manchester desu" "Ahhh soccer! Manchester United!" conversation. He also wished me a happy time in Japan, which pretty much exhausted his English (I'd already exhausted my Japanese!), and then he and his wife went off to continue their hike with much bowing and thanking you on both sides. Incidentally I found out later that Manchester United had played a friendly in Japan at some point recently and also featured in a TV ad for an airline, which is why they are so well known.Back down in the Geisha District, after a wave to my security guard again, I was checking the map he gave me and debating my cake opeions when.... all idea of cake went out the window. because right there on the map was marked "Yamada - English tea shop, 50 kinds of tea". TEA. PROPER TEA. TEA I HAD NOT HAD IN DAYS. Let me tell you now that I ran, not walked, to that shop, and this being a weekday and very quiet I was the only person in there and just didn't care. After checking the tea menu I ordered Assam - with milk - (to which the lady replied "Of course!") and off she went to make a proper cup of tea in a proper way, warming the (bone china) cups and the pot and all (I watched). I could have had English Breakfast or Afternoon tea if I'd wanted, or a million other fruit or regular teas, but I do like a nice cup of Assam.
The place was indeed donw out like an English teahouse, with a welsh dresser and stripped pine chairs and tables - but of course all the ornaments on the dresser were Japanese, and I have rarely been offered such beautiful china anywhere in the UK. And let me tell you that it was an awesome pot of tea, and came with some lovely little continental biscuits. if you are ever in the Higashi-Chaya area of Kanazawa and are pining for a good cup of English tea, get yourself along to the Yamada tea shop, it's totally worth it. She probably does cake as well actually but I was so fixated on TEA that I didn't pay attention. Mind you, if coffee is more to your taste, Kanazawa is some kind of City of Coffee, with a coffee house eon practically every corner and two on some. I am not exaggerating.
Anyhow, thus unexpectedly fortified in a totally British way in a very Japanese area of Kanazawa, I set off to hop back on the Loop Bus (only one more journey after that and I would make the ticket worthwhile this time)!
Next stop was the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, which I'd read about online and settled on as a must see if I wanted an afternoon out of the sun to just enjoy some culture. And I do like a good art gallery, it has to be said. When I arrived, I found that the Loop Bus pass also got me a discount there, and in addition, they had a special exhibition on of "Art Crafting Towards the Future" which I promptly paid extra for. This was partly because I felt spending hours in a modern art museum was not a strictly Japan-related activity but also because one or two of the porcelain pieces featured on the pamphlet looked amazing.
I won't bore you with tales of all the exhibits as they do change from time to time anyway. But I got to watch some films, either art in themselves or recordings of art being created, I got to walk underwater in a swimming pool and also to share a laugh with a young Japanese guy. we both ended up accidentally standing next to one another as we watched a "visual drawing" that partly involved the artist shoving a vacuum cleaner nozzle down his pants. I think the guy was a little embarrassed at first until he looked at me sideways but hey, art is a great leveller and dirty visual jokes even more so.
I also got to sit around on massive leather seats in chilled conditioned air and admire beautiful art while the sun baked down outside, so that was another plus. the future of traditional arts and crafts was as gorgeous as it promised to be and I lingered for ages over some of the blue and white porcelain and the ornate white skulls that symbolised predictive dreams. Obviously you can't take pics in the galleries but just take a look at the artist's website and tell me these are not some of the most beautiful works of art you have ever seen. It's just a shame that pics can't get over how immensely delicate these things are.And then I finally got my cake, in the museum teashop with floor to ceiling windows so you can admire the general artist space outside. It was worth waiting for too - a confection of pineapple, cream and fatless sponge that melted in the mouth. And a fine cup of coffee too.
In fact it was so good that I ended up not wanting a full dinner, and instead once I got off the bus I returned to the lady in the food court at the mall from the day before - the one shose food I had tried and not bought - and got myself some take-out Japanese pancakes "okonomiyaki" to have back at the ryokan, along with some fruit I treated myself to. And they were pretty good as well, so I reckon all in all this was a satisfactory food day, even though I had eaten relatively little (the amount of water I had consumed in the heat probably accounted for my lack of hunger).
My original iPhone cable was waiting for me in a neat little package from the Takayama Ouan when I got back and after packing my bags, asking for a taxi in the morning and taking a long, long soak in the communal bath, I fell into my futon for a good night's sleep. Futons, by the way, are a lot easier to sleep on than they look, though the pillows take some getting used to.
- Photos from Kanazawa of Higashi Chaya and the 21stC Museum of Contemporary Art (plus pics of me taken by the friendly Japanese chap) are on Flickr here with all my other trip pics - in reasonably chronological order.
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