Kanazawa, the castle, samurai district, and the Oyama Shrine.

We made a decision in the morning to stay only the one night in Kanazawa.  We had been thinking about a second night but weather reports showed a typhoon approaching with a path that would take it directly over Kanazawa.  Since we were travelling by motor bike we took heed.  

From Kenrokuen we walked across the road to the Castle Park where the castle has been restored with great attention to detail. From there we went to the old samurai quarters and onto the Oyama Shrine before heading off to towards Shirakawago via Toyama prefecture.

http://www.pref.ishikawa.jp/siro-niwa/kanazawajou/johshi_e/index.html

The restored castle

The samurai district with its prominent canals reminded
me in someway of Suzhou, China.

The Samurai district

The Oyama shrine - the stained glass in the window is a feature
point of the shrine.

The garden within the shrine precinct.

Kanazawa

Kanazawa is lovely city,  and probably one of Japan's most liveable. A  castle town that was favoured by the Tokugawa Shogunate, it was fortunate to have a daimyo (feudal lord)  who appreciated arts and culture.  Though since the daimyo's  wealth came from the rice crop of the peasant class, it's quite likely that the local peasantry were less enthusiastic about the Maeda clan's refined tastes.  Although the castle has gone,  much of the old town remains, notably the samurai district, Kenroken garden and the Higashi Chaya (tea shops) area.  According to a volunteer attendant that we spoke to  Kanazawa was fortunate to be spared major fires - the last major one in 1759- which would have destroyed the old wooden buildings in the city.   Like Kyoto and Nara, it was spared American bombing during World War Two on account of its heritage value.

History is integral to Kanazawa's identity and charm, but the city has also forged a modern face.  Tourist information about Kanazawa from non Japanese sources,  often seem to describe it as a backwater, far from Shinkansen lines and of minimal relevance.  While it's a relatively small city - about 400.000 people, 'backwater' is myopic. Admittedly here was a surprising lack of chain fast foods in central Kanazawa, but I don't see that as such a bad thing and shudder to think that modernity would be judged by the number of  KFCs and Yoshinoyas!    The history and architecture is well preserved and a sightseeing loop bus makes getting around  very simple.   The modern highlight of Kanazawa is undoubtedly the   Museum of Contemporary Art,  reported to be among the best in Japan http://www.kanazawa21.jp/en/  (anfortunately we were there on a Sun afternoon / Monday when it was closed - a great pity),  also the Castle Park area.  Ishikawa Prefectural Government has taken over the  Castle area, formerly the site of Kanazawa University  and has turned it into public parkland.  There is a positive vibe in the city and it was no great surprise when Hiro said  Ishikawa regularly tops the list of 'most satisifed with my prefecture' surveys.

Sushi shop near the railway station
Good and not expensive, on the sushi scale.
The highlight was flounder with a dipping sauce with
flounder liver.  On looking at it, it was apparent it was an
eat first, ask later dish.

Kanazawa's impressive railway entrance

Higashi Chaya district

Higashi Chaya district
Chaya's kanji mean tea shop - I was surprised to see it
translated as Higashi Geisha district - though the tea house
do have a strong association with geisha.

Overlooking Kanazawa from Honsenji in Higashi Chaya

Pocket park in Higashi Chaya

I was impressed with the underground watering system to thaw the snow in winter
I am not sure how they stop the water from freezing in the pipes though.

Noto Hanto - and down the other side... to Kanazawa

The pictures that follow are of the Kongo Coast down to Chirihama driving beach.  The Kongo of Kongo Coast according to an information sign there gets its name from Mt Kongo in North Korea because of geographical similarities.  Since Mt Kongo in North Korea is inland bordering China, I am curious to know more about the similarity.  Alas there aren't a whole lot of North Korea photos on the internet to find out...

Kongo Coast

Ganmon

Yasenodangai



Hatogaiwa

  

Food stalls on the beach



Chirihama beach.
This is a beach and road.
I expected it to be grotty, and expected that having cars driving
along a beach would give me ecological angst...
but it was remarkably pleasant.  It was late afternoon of a
hot Sunday and there weren't many people. But the
people who were there had driven down and were having
BBQs on the beach - all with mochikaeri (take it home with you)
  rubbish



Sunset in Kanazawa

Noto Hanto - across the top

Near Rokkozaki  lighthouse

Salt making is one of Noto Hanto's traditional industries

Window rock

Biking along




Onions outside a home in Wajima machi

Rice harvested and hung to dry

 



Senmaida stepped rice fields on the north coast of Noto Hanto.
Noto Hanto is very hilly with few large flat rice fields, making
it hard to plant and harvest by machine.  Hand farming is great for
tourism, but a tough life.  I wonder how much of it will remain in twenty years.



A settlement in Wajima machi. Conspicuous concrete reinforcement on the
coastlines gets a lot of flack from foreigners.  The construction companies have an
undeniable vested interest in making concrete jetties, and seawalls. The
number of concrete toori (gates making a Shinto shrine) in the water
left me wondering if there was a god of concrete... undoubtedly.
That said though, driving through these low lying villages that
are only just above sea level,  I think I would feel safer in a storm knowing that
there was a sea wall barrier set out 50m from the coast.

x

One such seawall - built in the centre of the bay it gives protection to
boats and to the village.

 

To Noto Hanto by bike - up the peninsula



Biking down the Japan Seaside

From Renge Onsen we went back to highway 148 till we reached the coast then headed south along the coast through Toyama prefecture and then Noto Hanto (peninsula) in Ishikawa prefecture.   The mere fact of it being a peninsula, jutting out into the Japan Sea gave it appeal as a holiday desitination, that combined with its relative remoteness and reputation for retaining traditional life made it somewhere we were both keen to go.  Regular trains have stopped running up the peninsula, making it an ideal destination for a motor biking holiday.

Pictures of  the Noto coastline in tourist brochures look pretty, but in the age of photoshop even Shanghai has blue skies....until you go you can't be sure!

We travelled around the peninsula anti clockwise with a detour through Noto Island  and stayed at Suzu  Machi. The following day we continued around the coastline to Wajima, some detours inland, a drive along Chirihama Beach, and on to Kanazawa in the early evening.  Having been, I think 2 days is the bare mimimum of time one would want to spend there.  I could have happily spent the rest of the holiday there, but there was biking to be done. ..

We didn't spend very long there, but Noto seemed quite different to other parts of the Japan Sea side that I have visisted - Aomori, Akita, Yamagata, and to some extent Niigata in several respects.  The beaches were strikingly free of rubbish.  The Japan Sea side coast has a reputation for having really dirty beaches with rubbish washing up from Russia, China, Korea, boats, as well as local rubbish.  Ishikawa's beaches were really clean.  Perhaps the currents are slightly different, but unlikely I think,  more likely is that there is a concerted effort to pick up the rubbish.  It seemed to be a feature of the area - people up bright and early trimming edges, picking weeds, everything was so neatly maintained.    In Kanazawa we asked a volunteer museum  attendant - a man in 70s who I assume from the conversation used to work for Mitsubishi in Tokyo - but he was puzzled by the question; it had never occured to him that other places were different. 

The houses on Noto were also different - well built, well maintained, many traditional style houses with shiny dark brown, tiled rooves.  Similar houses are common on the Boso Hanto in Chiba -much more prosperous looking than typical houses of Tohoku, much more traditional looking than new houses of Tokyo. Hiro's comment was that the people seemed to have a refined sense of what a house was 'supposed' to look like. And yet, at the same time Suzu machi, which struck us as having particularly pretty clusters of houses, is one of the most depopulating areas of Japan - between 1990 and 2000 the population decreased 15.5%.  I am not sure of current statistics. 

Seafood on Noto was suberb. Fresh shellfish, fresh oysters, fresh sashimi, fresh grilled fish, fresh fresh fresh. 

We booked a minshuku  -B&B- called Muroya in Suzu machi on our way down the coast that morning - it was simple & inexpensive but the seafood was a sensation.

 I was a bit suprised that at the Wajima asaichi - morning market - that almost none of the dried seafood was local, almost none was from Japan actually.  Most seemed to be from China (though not clearly labelled as such)  or Turkey.  A vendor who we bought some Chinese dried scallops from was saying local products would cost three times as much, and tourists were not generally prepared to pay so much.   She was very honest and pulled out a file of information on every product she sold - each page listed a different product with nutritional information, where it came from, who the original supplier was, the importer's details etc.   She said it used to be that people would sell foreign goods as Japanese, but now the rules were much too tight.  It seemed though even though tourist had come to see the morning market, most of them were getting their obligatory omiyage  - souvenirs - from a souvenir superstore rather than from the stall holders....

Another observation about Noto, which I had been given prior notice of was the notable absence of convenience stores and fast food chain shops.   Healthy home cooking for Noto Hantoites perhaps...





Rice farming on Noto Hanto

Noto Island

An island shrine off Koiji Kaigan dori  Noto Machi

Mitsuke-jima Suzu Machi 



Houses on the north east tip of Noto Hanto





Looking out on to the bay from the north east tip of the peninsula



The coastline near Yoshigaura.  This was a bit of a strange place.
There was a look out that you could enter though a passage way from the
carpark.  The charge for the look out was 300Y - but the charge wasn't for
the lookout perse it was for standing somewhere with lots of cosmic
energy - according to Hiro (cosmic energy is beyond the scope
of my Japanese).  You could walk up an embankment for no charge.
I decided I didn:t really need the cosmic energy.
There is an exclusive resort of sorts - lamp no yado -
at the bottom. It was booked out, which didn:t make much difference to us, as
 at more than 30,000Y/pp ($450), plus 3000Y /hr for  the onsen,
we weren't likely to be staying there anyway. :)

Thanks to Theresa for her helpful hints. http://theresaurus.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/noto-road-trip/  
Demographic data http://www.demographia.com/db-japancitypct.htm