Today was yet another busy day… I’m pretty much exhausted, and not just because it’s about 12:45 in the morning right now. From pretty much the moment we left Sakigake this morning, it’s been more to do and see - I referred to today as a ‘lightning tour’ on Friday, but man, I had no idea how much city it was possible to squeeze into one day.
Let’s start from the beginning. Around 11AM, the four Tufts students - Veronica, Graham, Shane and I - met in the Exchange Hall that serves as the gatehouse for Sakigake. Waiting for us there was Shimoie-san, Tufts’ Resident Director attached to Kanazawa University. I had met her on arrival, but some university politics had coerced her to make that meeting brief, so today was really the first time we’d been able to speak at all outside of email. I’d heard about Shimoie-san from program alumni, and I’m agreeing with them right now - she’s one of the sweetest people I’ve met so far in Japan. Every question was answered with a smile, and every grammar mistake (we were all still kind of sleepy, and two of us were still hungover) was gently corrected. She outlined the plan for the day for us - the basic idea was to get a crash course of Kanazawa. We would start with lunch, continue by taking a walking path through two historic areas, then head to a local department store to see some more modern culture. While very healthy-looking for her age, Shimoie-san didn’t feel up to spending that much time on her feet, so we were to be escorted by a younger woman named Makiko-san. (Makiko-san, who insisted we consider her our ‘Kanazawan older sister [Kanazawa no onee-chan]’, was also very sweet, and never once lost patience with us.)
Lunch was quite something. We went to a restaurant called Toledo in the New Grand Hotel, which definitely lived up to its name; I was in jeans and a T-shirt, and I felt pretty dang underdressed as a tuxedo’d server led us to a function room in the back. The highlight was definitely a mushroom soup that came out before the main course of steak; I spent as long as possible nursing it while I still had room on my part of the table. While we ate, Shimoie-san briefed us about the places we’d be going to - Kanazawa-jou (金沢城), the former castle of Lord Maeda; Kenroku-en (兼六園), one of Japan’s three National Gardens; the 21st Century Art Museum (21世紀美術館, Nijuu Seiki Bijutsukan); Higashi Chaya (東茶屋), a traditional tea-shop district; and Kohrinbo 109, a trendy department store. Like I said, a lot of stuff! Unfortunately, we parted ways with Shimoie-san after lunch, but as she reminded us, we had to get going to fit everything in!
The castle was very impressive, though we didn’t go inside. We spent about ten minutes wandering around the outside gardens and gates, though, while Makiko told us about Maeda, the lord of the castle, and some of the area’s history. While traditionally a castle is built at the highest point in an area, Maeda decided to build his castle on a medium hill in the middle of the depression that later became Kanazawa and just made going any higher than the castle’s elevation on the surrounding mountains punishable by death. Clever, if not exactly friendly, that Maeda. (As a side note, just before we left we heard flautists on the castle grounds playing Saria’s Song from the Legend of Zelda series. Man, that was surreal.)
The next stop was Kenroku-en, literally across the yard. This is one of Japan’s three National Gardens, and it’s protected as a state natural treasure. The garden is what most Japanese people think of when they hear the name ‘Kanazawa’, or so I’m told - admittedly, by a guidebook from 1984, but perhaps things have changed a bit? Anyway, it was a lovely place, though the weather (bright sun through a thin, hazy curtain of cloud) washed it right out. I still got more than a few good shots, though. Unfortunately, the University was hidden from view by the mountains.
We were slightly hurried along through the garden to the next area, the 21st Century Art Museum. This was a very stylish place - as the name implies, almost everything about it was very modern, especially the aesthetic. The museum is built in a circular plan, with two or three rooms from the outside in every direction free to access. The interior levels (I think down a flight or so, though I couldn’t confirm it) are pay-to-access, though, and we were just kind of stopping by. There was a festival (祭り, matsuri) going on around the museum, so there were a lot of people on the lawn and a lot of little kids running around. One thing set up was a little rideable train - Makiko encouraged us all to go, and after a bit of coaxing even Shane, who’s normally rather reserved, agreed to ride (and loved it). I kind of wanted to try it too, but unfortunately my jeans didn’t give me enough flexibility to sit that far down! Sadly, with a ￥100 postcard in hand (at least in my case), we left for the Higashi Chaya tea district.
The trip to Higashi Chaya was made by taxi, and took us back past Kenroku-en and under Kanazaawa-jou’s main bridge. As we got closer to the northeastern part of the area (which, I think, is called Mori-no-Sato (森の里), the forest village), the streets got narrower and narrower, and soon we were almost careening down cobblestones along roads not much wider than the car itself. When we reached the central plaza, we the students milled around for a bit while Makiko parked her car. During that time, an older gentleman with three little dogs and one little boy happened to pass by and let us take some pictures with the puppies, who were very friendly. Graham and Veronica even got to hold them.
Anyway, Higashi Chaya. The name means ‘eastern tea shop’, and apparently the district started existence as a pleasure quarter or red-light district. Looking at it nowadays, it wasn’t too hard to imagine, especially as night began to fall; I don’t mean to say it was sketchy or otherwise suspect at all, just that the atmosphere was really cool. It also started to get cooler around then, which was nice. We stopped into a gold-leaf store during our wanderings – Kanazawa has been famous for its gold leaf pretty much since it was founded, apparently, and according to Makiko, over 99% of the gold leaf used in Japan still comes from the city. While we were there, we saw pretty much anything you could think of being leafed – plates, phone charms (I picked one up), even tea and cake! The back of the shop was open to the workroom, too, so we spent a few minutes watching them apply the gold to more goods. After that, we found ourselves a famous tea shop and sat for a bit; they brought us, on Makiko’s recommendation, a fairly strong, slightly smoky tea called poucha. It reminded me of mugicha (麦茶, barley tea), but with less wheaty taste. They also served us some… I don’t want to say desserts, since we didn’t eat them after tea, but accompanying sweets, which were anko, red bean paste, shaped and colored into autumn shapes. Mine was a gold-red leaf; it was very pretty. Also delicious.
After that taste of old Japan, it was on to new Japan – specifically, Kohrinbo 109, a department store in the city’s thriving downtown. The name is a reference, I think, to another famous department store, 109 Shibuya in Tokyo, but I couldn’t really say. I don’t have much to say about it, aside from this: the men’s clothes there were in no way intended for my body type, and pretty much every single person we saw was a young, attractive Japanese girl. Not that I’m complaining, but it wasn’t exactly a store for my people, let’s put it that way. We left pretty quickly to go check out the old samurai district, though, which was fairly interesting. A lot of the houses have been converted into either high-end hotels or ryokan (旅館), Japanese-style inns, and most of them were closed when we came through. Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that there’d be a wandering samurai or palanquin team around the corner.
For dinner we headed to a tempura place in the food court of another high-rise in town. To be honest, I caught neither the name nor the actual location, but the food was very good (once again, the highlight was shiitake mushrooms!). Having had poucha just a few hours before, we recognized it again as the drink they served us, which was nice. Today was also the first time I’ve had Nagoya-style miso soup, which uses red miso (赤味噌, akamiso) and little clams, apparently. The taste was a little stronger than shiromiso… I think I prefer my usual, non-Nagoya style.
And that was about it. A very, very busy day, but one that was a lot of fun – and given that Makiko will apparently be attached to our little four-person delegation as much as Shimoie-san is, I look forward to seeing both of them again soon and often.
Japanese word of the day: ご案内(go-annai) – the act of showing someone around. Noun. When it’s someone doing it for you, you append the ‘go’ honorific prefix; if you’re showing someone around, that’s rude, though. ご案内してくれてありがとう. (go-annai shite kurete arigatou) – thank you for showing us around.
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