Kanazawa

Bright and early (10-ish) Saturday morning, Anna, Daniel, and I woke up and were driven, very gratefully, to Kanazawa City by Issei, who has a sweet ride and a wild driving style, making a drive through the country and small towns all the more exciting. We made a brief pit stop at one of Ishikawa’s two Starbucks and then headed to Kanazawa station, where we had arranged to meet with some of our other JET friends living in the city.

Despite being little more than a week, it really seemed as though we hadn’t all seen each other in months. Everyone was settled in to their surroundings and enjoying themselves. I already feel like such a hick, which was compounded by gaping ridiculously at tall buildings and feeling a touch of panic around crowds. More than anything, though, I’m resigned to the fact that getting your bearings when there’s more than one large street is pretty much impossible.

Since it takes forever to upload pics on here, I've posted them on facebook. Let me know if you need the link.

Anyway, our first stop was Kenroku-en Garden, considered to be one of Japan's top 3 gardens. It was pretty breathtaking, but unfortunately our breath was spent panting cuzza the heat. I couldn't believe how hot it was. After leaving we sort of skirted Kanazawa Castle and met up with some other people for lunch. After lunch, Issei, Daniel, Anna, Richard and I went to The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, which among other things featured an exhibit by Ron Mueck, who does amazingly realistic human sculptures, but in an almost creepy way. No, I take that back. Some of the works were definitely creepy. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so if you get a chance look this guy up. The museum also had a pretty cool simulated pool. The edge of the pool and the pool itself were actually separated by a sheet of glass which had water on it, so it fully looked like a pool, but you'd have visitors around the pool and also 'in' the pool looking up. Definitely had some fun with that.

After that we went to Mister Donut, and then down one of Kanazawa's main roads, which happened to have a huge festival. There were a lot of people dancing, singing, selling stuff, giving out free fans (yes!) and drinking beer. I'm not completely sure, but I think the festival revolved around a newspaper (?) but I could be wrong. Exciting stuff nonetheless! We headed off to the train station, shopped a bit, and then had delicious okonomiyaki for dinner. I'm gonna try and make it at home sometime--actually seems pretty simple. After dinner, we went to a tiny bar where one of Issei's friends works and had a couple of drinks, but ended up leaving not long after calling one bartender a samurai and the other an assassin. All said, a pretty fun day.