And then at the beginning of November my friends and I took a trip to Kanazawa/Ishikawa! My family and I went shortly after I first came to Japan, so I was interested to see how my impressions might change after living in Japan for three years instead of just three months.
I took a night bus there and
arrived bright and early on Halloween morning, where I met up with my
friend from Shizuoka to take the train to our friend's station in
Tsubatacho, where we met up with everybody and had Mcdonald's breakfast
while waiting for our last friend to arrive. Then we hopped on the train
to Nanao, a city on the Japan Sea coast with a fish market that one
friend wanted to visit and castle ruins for another. The market had lots
of fresh fish but also restaurants, so we had lunch there first while
admiring the view from the restaurant. As expected of a place right by
the sea, the seafood was delicious (and the miso soup came out in a
gigantic bowl)!
Then we took a bus to the ruins of a
castle on the list of Japan's 100 castles (one of my friends' projects
is to visit as many of them as she can), though as it turns out we
greatly underestimated the time/effort it would take to get there, as it
was 2 kilometers up a mountain with muddy trails, haha. We also didn't
have much time to go up as the last bus back from where we were was at
like 4:30, so after panting and hurrying up a trail (none of us in
appropriate footwear), we only spent about 10-15 minutes at the top. But
the view was absolutely gorgeous, and totally worth it!After managing to catch the last bus, we headed to an onsen (apparently the 11st best in Japan?) and soaked for a bit before finally heading back to my friend's place for the night, where we had some drinks and chats and also for some reason started playing Hatoful Boyfriend, which is a dating game involving pigeons...?? Also since it was Halloween I had on my Pooh bear onesie and my friend also had on his (not Pooh bear) onesie, with various Halloweeny headgear as well. Good times.
The
next morning we slept in and then had a (mostly) traditional Scottish
breakfast! My friend had brought haggis/black pudding/bacon from
Scotland and I provided dried hash browns, so after a grocery run we all
cooked together a mess of scrambled eggs (with and without haggis),
haggis, black pudding, sausages, bacon, and hash browns. I was a bit
skeptical as to whether or not I would like haggis and black pudding,
but they were both very tasty!
Then we got on a train
and went into Kanazawa proper, to see all the touristy stuff. First we
went to the Kanazawa Castle Park, which I hadn't been to, then
Kenrokuen, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (where I finally
got to see the pool exhibit that was closed last time we went). After
some wandering, we then decided to get curry, at a store that would give
people free curry if they managed to eat like 2 pounds of it in 30
minutes. Or something ridiculous like that - needless to say none of us
did, but anyway it was tasty. And then we went to a local bathhouse
before it was back to my friend's and more revelry in the form of a
Pokemon drinking game where somehow everybody except me managed to skip
half the board...
The next day we slept in (again) and
maybe went to the bathhouse again? before making a very late start to
tour the "ninja" temple (that I had been to before), wander around
Kanazawa, have curry (of a different kind) again, stop by an Irish pub,
and then hang out at an izakaya until the wee hours. On our final
morning, we went to the Shinrin Park, apparently the largest forest park
in mainland Japan. We had a very nice lunch and walked around outside,
saw the most depressing free zoo ever, and then headed back to go on our
respective ways. It was really nice to be out in (semi) nature,
especially because Ishikawa has some really beautiful clouds.All in all, it was a really fun trip and I'm definitely glad I went! Yet another successful CIRHP meetup. :)
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