Takayama to Kanazawa

Saturday, October 23rd

We started today in sporadic rain. Mostly drizzle but a couple times pretty steady rain. We were traveling in the morning so it didn't affect us much but the stop at the old village was in the drizzle. Tourist attractions in Japan typically have hordes of people and this old village was no exception. I had to plan my shots carefully to avoid having tourists in the picture.

This overlook gave tourists a chance to take long-range shots of the old village.

A stream of umbrellas crossing a suspension bridge leading into the old village.

These are "gassho" style roofs, so called after the similarity to hands pressed together in prayer.

One half of this roof has been replaced with new thatch.

This how the old roof looks. It will be replaced soon.

A garden in the old village.

A peaceful scene away from the tourists.

We stopped at an Italian restaurant called Budo no Ki (literally, grape tree) for lunch. I didn't take any photos but the namesake grape vines were trained over a wire grid about 10 inchs square supported by T-shaped trellises about 10 feet off the ground. Most of the leaves were growing upward from the vines and the grape clusters hung down. Most of the white grapes had been harvested but there were red grapes hanging right outside the restaurant.

Next stop was another old samurai house. This one was even better than the one we visited earlier.

These beautiful transom carvings are keyaki (paulonia) wood.

This alcove was in the lord's room.

View of the garden from that room.

Tokonoma in another room.

A different view of the garden from that room.

Yet a third tokonoma

small garden on the other side of the house.

Upstairs we found this room for tea ceremony. The top of the door was about 4.5 feet high.

A household shrine.

Kenrokuen Garden next invited our attention. This garden park was started in 1676 by the fifth lord of the family and is still a work in progress. It is rated as the third best in Japan and in 1922 was designated as a National Site of Scenic Beauty and in 1985 was raised to a National Site of Special Scenic Beauty.

The Karasakinomatsu (pine from Karasaki) was planted by the 13th lord as a seed from Karasaki, a town near Lake Biwa.

After a fire in 1759, the 11th lord restored the garden and created the Midori-taki waterfall.

How's this for a giant sized bonsai?

Another beautiful pine

Our last stop in Kenrokuen was for "soft cream" or simply "soft" as soft ice cream is called here. We had visited a nearby gold storage facility before entering the park so I ordered one of the special cones sprinkled with real gold dust. In Fairbanks we panned for gold, here I ate some.

Last stop today was the geisha district.

We didn't see any real geisha, but there were several tourists dressing the part.

On to the hotel, I had a satisfying hot bath before another keiseki dinner.