Hokuriku: Day 2

Spent the day in Kanazawa.  Yesterday was a long day, so I decided to sleep in.  Once I was out and about I headed for Kenroku-en, known as one of the "Three Great Gardens of Japan" and also for the way the trees are tied with rope in winter, to help protect them from heavy snows.

In fact, trees and bushes are tied like this all around the city, but they are especially beautiful in this park.  I was a little sad I couldn't see them covered with snow, which is said to be the best time of year for viewing.

The garden is next to the castle grounds.  They have an awful lot of restoration work going on and some places were off-limits, but I took a walk around anyways and enjoyed the architecture of some of the warehouses, as well as a view of the mountains in the distance from a lookout point.

The side of the main warehouse

From an elevated spot within the castle grounds you can see the Japanese Alps

Next stop: the 'tea house' districts, which is actually just another name for the geisha entertainment areas.  I went in order to photograph the Edo-style exteriors of the buildings along the narrow streets, but didn't actually go inside any of them.

Higashi-chaya district

Supposedly you can still go there in the evenings for geisha performances but I have no doubt that it's all targeted at tourists.  Some of the remaining tea houses are like little cafes while the others tea houses have been converted into shops selling cosmetics, sweets or local handicrafts.

The exterior of one of the shops with traditional "kaga" latticework

From there I walked most of the way back to the station so that I could enjoy the scenery of the neighborhoods and the river.

The newly remodeled Kanazawa Station.  A bullet train track connecting this town with Tokyo has just been completed and trains begin running in March, shaving a couple of hours off travel time and bringing in a lot more tourism...

Exhausted after a day on my feet, it was nice to be back in my hotel room.  Now that I've had my dinner, I'm going to have a nice soak and then an early bed time.  (I've got to get up very early in the morning for an attempt at an adventure. Check in again tomorrow to see if I'm successful...)