Day 8 – Kanazawa, Kenrokuen, Nomura House, Myoruji, Lost
The night train got to Kanazawa around 6:30am; it was just starting to get light so it was pretty disorienting, but I stumbled out into a medium-sized but very well-designed station. I found a bathroom to brush my teeth, and wash up. There were a few other salarymen in there doing the same thing so it wasn’t too weird. Then I wandered around the station a bit and saw some neat things. They had some free touch-screen internet terminals and this futuristic looking presentation area with a big screen and some space-chairs. I asked a the help desk how to get to Kenrokuen and she told me I could walk but it was pretty far and there was a bus that would go there too. I decided to walk, so I headed out from the station. Just like every other medium-sized Japanese city, there was a cool thing outside the station. This one was a water-display. It’s many rows of little tiny fountains that shoot up to spell out messages. The first picture I took said “Welcome to Kanazawa,” but it was in Japanese so I realized most Americans would look at my picture and thing it was a random fountain shape, so I took another picture where it had the time.
Kenrokuen is another one of Japan’s top three gardens (as was Korakuen which I visited the day before). It’s considered by a lot of people, including me, to be the absolutely best garden. It’s hard to describe how beautiful it is, but since I’ve been back I’ve been using one of my pictures of Kenrokuen as my wallpaper and a lot of people who see it don’t think it’s real. I liked Kenrokuen better than Korakuen because it felt more like a forest and less like a field. It was more cozy with less open space and more streams than lakes. I know it’s meticulously designed and shaped by hand, but it has a great natural feeling.
I also think I was there at a great time because it was so early and a little rainy so no one was there. Also the rain was just a drizzle which kept the greens vibrant, but wasn’t enough to make it gloomy. There were little waterfalls everywhere, bright green mosses, stone lanterns, little stone bridges over the streams, and trees that looked like something out of Hyrule. This might have been my favorite place in all of Japan and it’s another time I was happy to be traveling alone. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it as much with other people around.
There was one side with a little more civilization on it, like a little house of some sort, maybe for the caretakers. I crossed a little bridge and walked around near the house for a bit and then when I tried to go back, someone had put up a barrier. Then I noticed people carrying film equipment in and I realized they were getting ready to make a movie in and around the little house. I would’ve liked to have seen what they were doing, but they were just getting started so I figured it’d be a long time before they started. Also later when some more people were looking around the garden, one guy came up and asked me, in pretty good English, if he could take my picture so I said sure. I thought his English was really good and I said so, but actually it was just that phrase; I think he had it well-planned out before he spoke to me.
After awhile I finally decided I should head out so I walked over to the castle which was next to the garden. In front of the castle there were some old men just hanging around shootin’ the breeze I guess. I think they amused to see me and I talked to them for a few minutes before heading in. I didn’t actually go in the castle because I think it was a little expensive and I didn’t think there was anything special inside. I was much more interested in outside things, like the awesome bridge that lead over into the castle area.
Next I walked a long way over to the Nomura Samurai house. It’s an actual house so it was fairly far from the middle of the city in a nice little residential area. It was a little hard to find to because from the side I came, I couldn’t tell it apart from the regular houses near it. I wonder how often the Nomura neighbors get people trying to tour their houses. The inside was just how you would picture an idyllic samurai house. The inside and the outside are mostly melded and as you walk down the halls you’re also walking around gardens and ponds with brightly colored carp. One room of the house has been converted into a small museum with the family’s swords and such.
After the samurai house, I walked even farther from the city up into a mountain on the side to find Myoryuji, the “Ninja Temple.” This is kind of a weird place that I think would be well known but it’s not. I never talked to a Japanese person (or anyone else for that matter) that had actually heard of it, and they all laughed like I was duped into some stupid ninja story when I mentioned it. Actually it’s pretty sad that the “Ninja Museum” in Iga is much more famous but it’s just a bunch of mythical junk. Myoruji is completely real and got the nickname “Ninja Temple” because the temple itself is like a ninja, not because it had anything to do with them. The temple was built during a time when there were a lot of restrictions on local rulers so they wouldn’t get too much power. Buildings weren’t supposed to be over three stories, and this one looks like it’s not, but it actually has seven floors. Everything in it is a trick so you can hide soldiers in there and easily confuse any attackers.
I think another good reason for the ninja name is it’s pretty hard to find, but I finally did and buying my ticker was probably one of the most “Japanese” experiences I had in the country. I asked the lady at the desk if I could buy a ticket and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry you need a reservation. You can make one either by calling or by going to that intercom over there.” I heard another guy making a reservation for about an hour later so I figured they must have openings then so I’ll get one at that time too. I was a little nervous about using the intercom because even if I could get across the point I wanted, I knew I’d sound funny since I’m sure there’s specific ways of asking for a reservation. I definitely heard the girls giggling on the other side of the intercom and they also asked why I didn’t get an earlier reservation. After a little confusion I finally realized what was going on, and just asked for a reservation for right then. Then I went back over to the ticket lady (about five feet away) and she asked for my name, looked it up and said, “Oh, here you are,” and I got my ticket. She also asked me a few times if I’d be okay since the tour was only in Japanese but I told her I’d be fine.
I went and sat in the front room with everything else in my tour group and listened to a short history of the temple. During the presentation, a lady came by with a notebook and asked me to sign my name under a bunch of other foreigners with the date and where I was from and such. It was amazing how few signatures there were and my first reaction was they keep a notebook of foreign guests because they want some statistics or they think it’s neat or something. Then the lady gave me a very roughly put together packet that was a translation for the tour. It turned out the notebook was so they could know what country to blame if the translation ended up missing one time. I actually ended up being able to understand most of the tour anyway, but it was nice to have the booklet, especially so I could read ahead.
There’s nothing in the temple that’s not a trick, like a door that opened once goes into a secret stair passage up into a secret floor, but opened a second time, it pushes closed the secret door and actually leads into the hall straight ahead like you would expect. This way if someone’s chasing you, you run up into the secret stairwell and shut the door behind you; when your pursuer opens the door he runs straight into the temple and you’re not there. I don’t have any pictures of the inside because photography isn’t allowed. Everything in the temple is original and very old so they’re pretty protective of it. I think there are actually places they don’t take people now because they got worn down but they want to leave it original.
After I left Myoruji I found another internet cafe and talked to people back home a bit. Then I figured I’d probably go find my hostel since I never got an email reply from them. I found the area where the hostel was supposed to be but I walked around the block about ten times and couldn’t find anything. Then I saw a delivery guy working in the area so I showed him the address and asked if he knew where it was. He pretended to think about it for a minute and then said he didn’t know, which says a lot about the Japanese address system. Finally I saw a little old lady walking around and I asked her about the hostel and she said had closed. Great. Luckily there was a second hostel in Kanazawa but that one was way out of the city on the top of a mountain. I didn’t know what else to do for the day so I figured I’d start walking and hope I got there in time for check-in.
However, I fell victim to the dreaded (imprecise) Japanese map. Something strange happened, like a road I was walking on turning when I didn’t maybe, and I ended up going the wrong direction. However, from the map I was using things still looked pretty consistent so I just kept walking. I saw a hospital where there was one on the map, then I crossed a river and saw the bridges on the map. Then things started to get a little weird, but I wasn’t completely sure, and it’s hard to turn around and walk an hour back if you might be right so I kept going. I had walked for about two hours when I finally found a city map beside and intersection. I was very excited to finally see where I was and how to find the hostel, but I couldn’t find anything on the map that made sense. Eventually I realized that was because the map wasn’t of Kanazawa. I had walked so far I was in another city. So, I turned around and walked all the way back for a few hours which was pretty depressing, especially in the heat and with my full backpack. Eventually I found my way back to the right road and started taking it toward the hostel. The part of town at the foot of the mountain was really neat, but I don’t have many pictures; I guess I was too tired to really think about taking a lot.
When I looked up the mountain I realized just how far and how steep it was and I wondered if I should just try to find somewhere else to sleep. But luckily I saw a bus stop and checked the schedule and there was supposed to be one more bus coming. The bus stop was pretty funny because it was just a regular stop but some people had added a ghetto old couch and some chairs. I thought about just sleeping there if the bus didn’t come. Waiting for it was pretty scary because it was about 20 minutes late, but it did come and the driver said he was going to the hostel. There was actually a little old Japanese lady who was also headed up there for the night.
The hostel was amazingly far away and there’s no way I could have walked it, but I did get there in time to check in. The guy was kinda pushy about joining the International Hostel Federation, but I didn’t. It was too late for dinner, but I did sign up to get breakfast the next morning. Also I was lucky I made it in time that the showers were still open for guys (in a lot of places everyone uses the same shower so they’ll designate different hours for guys and girls).
This was by far my least favorite hostel, but it’s kinda hard to describe why. It was absolutely huge, probably big enough to hold a few hundred people, and seemed overly clean and organized. The whole place seemed to exude this forced feel-good mentality. There were only two or three people staying there, but there were probably twenty or so helpers running around doing I have no idea what. I was worried he would give me a room with other people just to make us do more personal exchange, but I did end up getting my own room. After they came up from dinner (the place had its own cooks and dining hall) the helpers all went into this big room near mine and started doing some sort of ritual. They sang and chanted and all sorts of stuff; I couldn’t really tell what was going on, but I think it might be some sort of Christian cult. I was happy to have my own room, but I wished it had a lock on it because I felt like they might just come in my room at any time and “recruit” me. The room was comfy though, so after the ritual, I just read some and went to sleep.
