Kanazawa Day Two
FYI I wrote the post below last night, right after my first Kanazawa post. This morning I’m on my way to Toyama, starting a 3-night journey into the mountains.
I decided to break up my Kanazawa post to keep it from getting too long. The hotel I’m staying at is an Onyado Nono, from the budget Dormy Inn chain. It’s bustling with people coming and going, and everyone has to take their shoes off at the hotel entrance and put them in a locker.
This morning I took it easy in my room before heading out sightseeing at around 10am. I’ve been doing at least 15-20 minutes of yoga in my room before going out in the morning. All this walking is definitely making me sore!
I skipped the hotel breakfast this time and went to a local bakery called Hippo.
The one that looks like a pretzel knot was made with shiso leaves, dried fish and black sesame seeds. It was great. It would be hard to eat vegetarian or vegan here. I keep ordering things like this and finding out unexpectedly that it contains meat or fish. In this case I didn’t really taste the fish, I had to ask them what was inside.
It was supposed to rain all day but the morning turned out to be fabulous. I went to the Kanazawa Castle grounds and took about a million photos (again!)
There’s that tension between wanting to preserve memories or capture how beautiful something is vs. just enjoying it in the moment. I keep remembering the days before digital cameras and cellphones, when you really had to choose your moments.
After the Castle, I went to the Kenroku-en Gardens as the sky started to darkening.
I love how they keep really old trees going as long as they can by propping them up.
I made my way to the Ninja Temple, which the restaurant host the night before had recommended. Along the way, it started to rain a lot more. I went into some shops along the way. Japanese men are real fashionistas. There almost seem to be more menswear offerings than women. There were also a lot of vintage stores, but once again they are mainly selling American vintage.
I ended up stopping into a cafe that advertised “farm fresh” to get out of the rain. I got a bowl of pumpkin soup and a stew that was mostly mushroom and potatoes. Nourishing!
The Ninja Shrine is close to the third Geisha district - Nishi Chaya.
The tour of the shrine explains all the different trap doors and hidden features of the temple. I don’t think I would have picked it if that woman hadn’t told me about it but I was so glad I went.
The sun was briefly out right after the tour, but it was already dark by the time I got back to the hotel. I stopped by (yet another!) shrine behind my hotel.
Tonight I had cold homemade buckwheat Udon noodles with tempura. They served the tempura with Matcha salt, which I hadn’t tried before. Also good, but I prefer the sauce. Not the greatest photo, but you get the picture 😄
