Anuvicarati: Kanazawa...

Kanazawa sits on the sea of japan bordered by the alps. We trekked our way there as it was supposed to be good for samurai and geisha stuff as well as beautiful gardens. Our first afternoon was quite rainy so we trekked to one of the malls for food as well as to just walk around. We found a cinema with Iron Man 3 playing in english! The cinema looked brand new, fully comfy seats and it was practically a private showing as only 4 other people showed up. I quite like the way their tickets work you buy a ticket for a specific seat. There is no need to show up early for a good seat!

The next morning was lovely and bright. We bought a day bus pass and made our way to Omicho market. It's known for it's fresh fruits and vegetable and seafood. OMG the seafood.

Every other stall was some sort of seafood

Next we made our way to the castle. The wall construction was really cool. First bamboo lattice then 6 layer of mud (and straw mixed I think)

We walked to Kenroukuen, one of Japan's three most beautiful landscape gardens. This used to be the outer garden of Kanazawa castle. There are number of ponds, streams, waterfall and bridges, of course super well maintained.

The water fountain may look a bit piddly but this is a natural fountain due to the level of two rivers and the height depending on the river water levels.

The Kanazawa hop on/off loop bus.

Random fish drying on a light post.

This was the ninja temple...it really had nothing to do with ninjas, it's called that due to all the hidden door/floors etc in the place. It has something like 7 floors and 28 rooms but it seem to have 3 floors. When it was built they were restricted to 4 floors max. Way inside one of the rooms has 4 tatame "rugs", 4 is the number of death rarely used in anything in Japan. But this particular room was basically a suicide room, if the general/shogun lost the battle he goes there to kill himself.

The tour was in full japanese but they gave us a folder that covers the basics of the talk.

We meandered around after and stumbled across this european looking area that had a

French chocolate shop!!! Unfortunately we had just had a snack and didn't indulge. Though the place was run by Japanese people, they were pretty snooty...Michelle asked that they fill up her water bottle and they said sure, but just a little. Made no sense as they just had to open the tap. Sheesh!