Still jetlagged, we got up at 4:00am and walked to Oyama Shrine in the dark. Passed an early morning walker who greeted us with an おはようございます(good morning). The streets were otherwise empty and made for some good liminal space photography. We kept quiet because there were likely people still asleep in the residences above the shops. Oyama shrine is famous for the stained glass in its gate, but they don’t run the lights all night. On the way back we stopped for some snacks for the day ahead at a Lawson convenience store (for which I learned the correct pronunciation is ローソン, not ラーソン).
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| Stone lantern in front of Oyama Shrine. |
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| Early morning Kanazawa |
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| Torii gate in front of the Dutch-designed main gate. |
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| Main worship hall |
After breakfast in the hotel, it was back on the bus and on our way to Shirakawa Go, a group of mountain villages that is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s famous for its gassho-zukuri (合掌造り) houses which are thatched multi-story wooden buildings with sides so tall and steep that they look like hands in prayer - hence “gassho”. This design keeps the snow from piling up on the roof, and the upper floors can be used for growning silkworms. Our first stop was at a small museum where we could see the construction techniques - no nails but rather beams and rafters tied together with wet rope that tightens as it dries. Next we went to Ogimachi village, which to access, we walked across a suspension bridge over the Shō river. This village is very picturesque. We paid 500 yen to enter Myozenji Temple complex. The priest’s residence is a gassho-zukuri house, which is attached to a thatched roof temple with a thatched roof bell tower. We were free to wander the temple and the upper floors of the house. On the ground floor, there was a fire burning in the いろり(irori - traditional sunken hearth).
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| Shirakawa Go gassho-zukuri houses |
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| Shirakawa Go manhole cover |
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| Details of how the roof is attached to a gassho-zukuri house |
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| Irori hearth |
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| Myozenji altar |
While we were there we got some gohei mochi (五平餅). This roasted mochi on a stick. We were told that it was a “samurai energy bar”.
On the bus back to Kanazawa, just inside the city limits, everyone's phone suddenly blared an alert: “Earthquake! Take Shelter!”, with a similar message in Japanese. Then a few minutes later the English message was repeated, but the Japanese message said “Alert Cancelled”. It turns out that a magnitude 9.9 earthquake was accidentally reported!
We had lunch at Omicho market. We decided to eat at a restaurant upstairs where the atmosphere was more relaxed. I ordered a 海鮮丼(kaisen don - seafood bowl). It was really good, but had less gold leaf on it than it did when I had the same thing ten years ago. Japanese apples are some of the best, so I bought some huge red apples at the market, but they were so big I had a hard time getting my mouth around them!
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| Omicho market |
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| 海鮮丼(kaisen don - seafood bowl) - note the touch of gold. |
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| Kanazawa Yuzu Cider |
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| Ordering on tablets has become very common in Japan. |
After lunch we had a pleasant stroll around Kenrakuen - one of Japan’s three great gardens. It is said that this garden contains the six attributes of a perfect Japanese garden:
Spaciousness (Kōkai / 広大)
Seclusion (Jūko / 幽邃)
Artifice / Human Effort (Jinko / 人力)
Antiquity / Natural Age (Sōkō / 蒼古)
Water Features (Suisen / 水泉)
Panoramas / Distant Views (Chōkō / 眺望)
I’d like to add one more attribute that I encountered at Kenrakuen.
Soft Serve Ice Cream (sofuto kurimu / ソフトクリム)
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| This is Kasumigaike Pond (霞ヶ池), looking toward Horai Island (蓬莱島, Hōraijima). The island is supposed to look like a turtle, thus representing longevity. Two of the six attributes are present in this view: Spaciousness and Water Features. |
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| This is a statue of Yamato Takeru no Mikoto. It honors the soldiers of Ishikawa Prefecture who died during the Satsuma Rebellion. It was discovered that the reason birds rarely land on this statue is because of its high arsenic content. Dr. Yukio Hirose won the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. |
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| This is the the famous Karasaki Pine, believed to have been planted from a seed by the 13th lord of the Kaga domain in 1837. It has been intentionally pruned so that its branches spread out over the water. Because of this, it needs the crutches to support its heavy limbs. |
We learned that the leader of the Maeda clan in this area was concerned that the Tokugawa Shogunate might find Maeda’s power and wealth threatening, so he played the fool. His lavish spending on art and culture convinced Tokugawa that he was no threat and resulted in the area’s reputation for culture.
On the way back to the hotel we poked our heads into the lobby of the Henn-na Hoteru (Strange Hotel). At the front desk are animatronic dinosaurs. You don’t really interact with them - there’s actually a touch-screen to check-in. The dinosaurs just thrash around and roar at you. And since it was almost Halloween, they were wearing witch’s hats.
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| A guest checking in to the Henn-na Hoteru. |
We found a restaurant on the 8th floor of the Daiwa department store. I think I had udon with shrimp tempura. Then after dinner we went back to Oyama shrine to see the illuminated stained glass windows at night.
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| European stained glass in the gate at Oyama shrine |
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Inside the main worship hall. The sign to the right describes praying etiquette: bow twice, clap twice, bow once.
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