Kanazawa Day One

We caught the shinkansen by the skin of our teeth, as it was an early morning start. It was certainly a breathless way to start the trip, but I recommend not rolling around for twenty minutes after your alarm rings. Do pack some snacks though; munching sweatily on my food made me feel a lot better after we’d stopped panting!

The sunrise was lovely on the way out though!

We took the Shinkansen to Maibara, a lovely smooth ride, and then switched to the local express. Here’s a tiny tip for those looking to save money – get discounted tickets beforehand if possible, but even if not, leave the station and look for the ticket machines. They’ll only save you a few hundred yen, but you not only feel victorious after figuring out the kanji, but you can go and buy yourself an onigiri for your troubles. You can’t find the machines on google maps, but they’ll usually be close to the station entrance, tucked under an overhang or in a discreet corner.

Manned ticket booths

We reached Kanazawa station just before noon, and were entranced even before exiting the ticket gates. Kanazawa is one of the few places that still has ticketmen (perhaps also women?) manning the gates, and so we were ushered efficiently through the gates and into the very large, modern station.

Kanazawa station is a place to explore in itself, and we were treated to an “eki-con” – station concert, just opposite the track gates. A string quartet began to play a jaunty tune, accompanied by a lone man whose instrument seemed to be alternating between a whistle and a small train pipe. It later turned out that he played the French horn, but wouldn’t it have been great if he had been employed for that sole purpose?

Tootle tootle

An imposing sight

Outside the station, the massive gates, a modern take on the traditional Japanese tori, loomed large under a giant domed roof. At the end of the walkway, a fountain burbled “WELCOME”, “KANAZAWA” and the time of day. It was rather fascinating – a simple idea, but very effective – tourists all around us were caught frantically between. Which to snap a picture of first? Where to pose? The choice was daunting.

We wanted to set our bags down first, so we set off on the 30 minute walk to our accomadation. That took us through the heart of Kanazawa city, so we enjoyed coming across random art sculptures and observing the buildings and people around us. Our route took us through omi-cho, the local fish market, so we got to see the local businesses hawking their wares. It all looked incredibly fresh, for ridiculously low prices. Much of the shellfish was still alive, crabs with claws tied together, shrimps still swimming around in their tanks.

Artwork on the street

The mama-san at Minshuku Ginmatsu was a tiny smiley lady. She speaks a little English, and makes herself understood quite loudly and clearly, and we met both local and overseas guests, so it’s evidently a well-known and international place. Our rooms were about 2,000 yen per night per person, with a decent amount of space once the futons were rolled away – perhaps a five or six mat tatami room.

Once we’d settled in, popped the bags down and unpacked, we walked out to the Higashi Chaya district, which essentially means South Tea Area. Many of the buildings are faithfully restored, as their tight-knit structure meant that any fires rampaged through the town and destroyed many a building. We wandered through the small alleyways to get to the main square, where there was a wedding taking place – the bride resplendent in a white kimono, and men sleekly poised in grey suits. Higashi Chaya is the only one of its type to be named a cultural asset, as it’s particularly well maintained and historical.

A wedding in progress

Waiting on ice cream

All about higashi chaya

Traditionally, tea districts are a place of entertainment, filled with geisha and music. Most of the buildings have been converted into shops selling all manner of things – traditional pottery, chopsticks, golden beauty products, and many shops had little plaques relating the history of their buildings – what it had been used for in the past, how many times it had burned down and been rebuilt – that sort of thing. I really liked the old-time vibe of the area. It wasn’t quaint – it was absolutely bustling with tourists and business, but it had certainly preserved a historical feel for visitors to appreciate. We saw posters for geisha shows on the weekends, too, but since I am fortunate enough to have the same opportunity around my own area, we skipped it for sights harder to find back in our prefecture.

Golden buildings

Since Kanazawa is largely renowned for gold-leaf production, that was incorporated into almost every shop. One even sold a face mask of gold (for a cool ¥5000) and we could get gold leaf ice-cream too. I tried some coffee with gold leaf, but wasn’t overfond of it. Gold leaf has no flavour apart from extravagance, and it was a fun gimmick, but certainly not something I’d go out of my way to get. Still, Kanazawa managed to put it everywhere!

We wandered in and out of various shops and snapped a good amount of photos. Once we’d explored what the place had to offer, we followed signs towards a museum that turned out to be the Sakuda Gold and Silver Leaf Museum. Although we hadn’t made a reservation, there was space for us to try our hand at crafting some gold leaf products! There were a variety of things to choose from – small lacquer boxes, chopsticks, pendants and the like. The cheapest and least time-consuming option were the chopsticks (¥800), so we chose that. The workshop leaders didn’t speak any English, but showed us the process, then let us at it! We had a bouquet of chopsticks to gain inspiration from, and A-Sharp went for a cool striped design, whereas I tried my hand at a wonky “Kanazawa” and “2015” in kanji. I am now well aware that my dates are wrong, but nevermind.

Craft tools

Sample chopsticks

Making our designs

Brushing on gold leaf

It was getting dark by the time we finished with our golden leaf adventures, so we headed back towards omicho market for dinner. All the stalls were closed up, but the restaurants were bustling. We threaded our way through the damp cobbles and randomly chose a restaurant tucked into the corner of an alley after seeing a pair of salarymen stagger ahead of us. They were completely right – we were lucky to snag one of the last free tables. Not ten minutes after we’d entered, a queue of hungry customers began to grow. However, we gleefully sipped our cups of roasted rice tea and looked at the menu. We decided to share a sashimi and rice platter, topped with everything! You could either choose a combo, or go for everything, and of course, what’s a hungry girl to do but choose the most extravagant? Omicho has fantastic seafood and I wasn’t about to miss out on the opportunity to try it out!

Nor do I regret the choice – it was absolutely delicious. And, of course, it being Kanazawa, they sprinkled a little gold leaf on top. I bet organ donations in Kanazawa are worth more money… my villi were probably lined with gold leaf! I was King Midas on the inside (except hopefully less foolish)!

We finished the day with a coffee at Starbucks. I have no way to defend myself except to say that Starbucks represents holidays to me – they don’t exist out where I live, and its genuinely become a treat for me!

Just chillin' with ojipan

The only thing I would add to this first day timetable, if you’re looking for suggestions, is the confectionery museum. I did a little trip research beforehand, but we weren’t going by any solid timetable, so it slipped our minds. Kanazawa is also known for its sweet making, so it’s definitely something to keep in mind!

POLA Annex, Ginza

POLA is a cosmetics firm based in Japan, which was founded in Shizuoka nearly 100 years ago! It started out as a chemical products firm, but quickly branched out. It’s an international brand now, but still mostly popular within Japan, and not that well known outside the islands. There are a lot of branches dotted around, and I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a facial done at one of them but have not yet got round to doing so. However, POLA also has an art foundation; giving scholarships and sponsoring works around Japan.

They also own a well-stocked museum in Hakone; Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso and Léonard Foujita are represented within the museum’s collection. It’s definitely worth a visit, and Hakone isn’t far out from Tokyo at all. I’ve visited once, and was rather impressed both by the indoor and outdoor esthetics; I’d like to go back and do a photoshoot sometime. In the meantime, I’ll make do with the cute gift shop stuff my friends bought for me – a rather crazy looking Monet post-it set, and a badge with a popular Renoir painting. Japan really knows how to market things – I have more stuff here than I know what to do with, all of it cute or memorable or somehow unpartable with.

There’s an art annex above their store in the midst of the upmarket district of Ginza, so we went to have a gander at what it had to offer. It’s not a particularly large gallery – just the one room, but what it had to offer was very enjoyable.

This particular exhibit, Crystal Universe, was a combination of colour-changing LEDs in a darkened room, accompanied by music. The Japan Times provides a little more background on the event:

“Artist collective teamLab was founded in 2001, and its members include artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, architects, designers and editors. Its work, therefore, has always been of a sophisticated artistic and technological nature. For the Pola Museum, it is turning the building’s annex gallery into an atmospheric interactive space, using 60,000 LEDs in a 3-D form.”

I just re-read it myself, and visitors could somehow adjust the lights through the website, so I wish I had knows that! We were absolutely mesmerized by the lights and colours. I wished that the short bursts of music/color were a little longer – each phrase was around a thirty seconds maximum, and I felt that something longer could have been orchestrated to keep the audience’s attention longer, instead of constantly waiting and wanting for more. Still – can’t complain. I’m an absolute sucker for lights and colours – fireworks, fireflies… winter illuminations are the bright spot in an otherwise cold and dank season.

You can check out their upcoming exhibitions here. I’m intrigued by November’s “Hats Off!” – I’ll probably pop by and let you know what they’re like!

Location: Pola Museum Annex; Pola Ginza Bldg. 3F, 1-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Free admission.

Girls and Pancakes

Hinamatsuri is a celebration for the little ladies; “girls’ day”, or “doll’s day” in Japan. There’s also a corresponding “boys’ day” later on in the year, but that’s gradually just become a “children’s day”, so hinamatsuri is a particularly lovely little reminder to appreciate the young ladies.

One of my co-workers made her daughter some colourful sushi, a traditional meal on the day. Other typical hinamatsuri ingestibles include shirozake, which is a type ofsake made from fermented rice and hishimochi, a diamond-shaped colored rice cake. So, while I couldn’t get out to any shrines to see a display of the ningyo (sets of dolls that represent the Imperial Palace’s occupants during the Heian period), I paid my respects by visiting a local Baskin Robbins for ice cream. I’m not being entirely facetious, for although it’s not exactly a traditional food, Baskin Robbins is doing a special set of ice cream “dolls” to capitalize on the festival. The deal was a set of five scoops of ice cream topped with little faces and accessories.

As usual, Japan thinks of all the small details – the set was served in a box that imitates the platform on which the dolls are displayed in a shrine. 

Ningyo, to go into a little more detail, are traditional wooden dolls. Unlike daruma, which are essentially spherical and simply, but brightly painted, ningyo are more elaborate. The typical hina doll will be wearing more kimono than a Japanese person even owns. They’re as realistic as possible – some even have human hair! A complete set of dolls has 15 characters, representing different courtly characters, but as long as one has the basic Emperor-Empress/male-female pair, that’s also deemed acceptable.

Crunching uncouthly on the ningyo's face

I don’t think we could have handled fifteen scoops of ice-cream, though had the opportunity arisen, I’m sure my appetite would have valiantly risen to the challenge. I certainly felt as though I deserved the ice-cream, since I got lost cycling there, and took a good 40 minutes pedaling around before I found the place! Instead, we settled for a doll each, and then I followed it up with a triple scoop of matcha, choc chip mint and oreo chop chip. And a free taster of Amaretto chocolate. Thank you, Baskin Robbins. Thank you.

It can only be bought in sets, it’s ¥1,700 for 5 cups. Check the Baskin Robbins website for the nearest location near you. Kotaku has some more information on it!

Before and after?

Now, the following day was of course the 4^th of March, which will be familiar to many people in the Western hemisphere colloquially as “Fat Tuesday” (oh you Americans), or “Pancake Day” (oh us Britons), or perhaps more correctly, “Shrove Tuesday”. For the less Catholic of us, it’s the day before Lent, a month of restraint and appreciation leading up to Easter. Many people give up desserts, sweets, or bad habits. However, the day before the 5^th (Ash Wednesday) is a free-for-all. In England, this means pancakes. So, I went from celebrating with ice-cream, to pancakes.

A good friend of mine, Amelia, invited myself and a few others over. We went all out – a good twenty eggs, five packs of bacon, mushrooms galore, spinach, whipped cream, a good half kilo of strawberries, and we even had sprinkles! We doubled a random recipe that we found online and still ended up with the same amount of pancakes, but it was just the right amount for the five of us. The amazing Sushi-chan did a fantastic job pancake flipping, ramped up our kitchen skills by making two batches of pancakes, one normal wheat-base, and the other gluten-free.

These gluten-free pancakes are ridiculously easy to make. I sourced the recipe from The Skinny Confidential. While I didn’t have any flaxseed, I think they still turned out pretty well. The edges look burned, but I couldn’t taste the char at all, so I’m wondering whether it’s just the way the ingredients react. Where is my McGee On Food and Cooking when I need it?

With a few deliberately blackened bananas, we tossed one into the blender, added two eggs, and blended the whole thing. This is literally the entire recipe. TLDR? Kind of impossible, but here ya go…

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 eggs.

Blend. Put oil in pan. Heat pan. Cook in frying pan. Makes one face-sized pancake (unless you have a super tiny or huge face, sorry, I lied)

It doesn’t get much simpler than that, really! I think it works best this way for sweet pancakes. If I were to remake it with savoury toppings, I’d add a few herbs in and a pinch of salt. It tastes banana-y, but not overwhelmingly so, so it’s a nice plain base, as long as you’re not averse to a hint of banana complementing whatever you decide to top it with.

One savoury, one sweet.

For the purposes of the photo, I tried to make a bacon face, I don’t think it worked very well though. After this, I piled on the bacon and vegetables like no tomorrow. There’s also a small hoard of cheese melting nicely underneath the pancake. A proper Paleo indulgence!

Quizu over and out~

Downtown Nagoya

Cat-bus 

“Gai-koku-jin wa doko desu ka?” my friend called out, stomping into an izakaya in central Nagoya. He wasn’t even intoxicated at the time. I knew it was going to be a good weekend. I was heading down to Nagoya mainly to check out a Studio Ghibli exhibition in Lagunasia, a small resort park, and catch up with some close friends. I didn’t do a huge amount of sightseeing, but it was a fantastic weekend all the same.

I took the local train down rather than the Shinkansen bullet train, so it took me nearly five hours to get there. It was bearable – I rather enjoy train rides when I have travel companions or a book to read, though I was admittedly very happy to finally reach my destination long after sunset. It was about 9.30pm by the time I finally pulled into Nagoya, and my friends took me straight for tebasaki at a famous izakaya chain, Yama-chan. Tebasaki is the Japanese take on that most quinssental of sports game snack foods – chicken wings. From what I can tell on the Japanese Wikipedia entry, the creation of tebasaki was a happy accident in the 1960s, when a chicken restauranteur, Otsubo Kenko was experimenting with new seasonings. While the shop usually served whole chickens, using chicken wings was obviously easier for testing new flavours. Fortunately, customers liked it, and it grew in popularity.

This may or may not be what I looked like eating tebasaki! That, or it's another display at the Ghibli exhibition.

There were little cartoons on the wall demonstrating the “correct” way of eating chicken wings – admittedly a lot tidier than the stuff-it-in-your-mouth-anything-goes way that I, and the rest of the world employ. All you have to do is pull the chicken wing apart at the joint. The thinner, bonier point is put aside to be gnawed on later. Next, look for where the two bones join where you have just separated the wing. Pull them slightly apart. Pincering the other end firmly with your fingers, pop the half wing into your mouth, bite down, and pull the bones out! They’ll slip right off. It took me a couple of tries to get it right; mostly because I couldn’t eat the entire thing in one go. I did, however, eventually get it right, and am now no longer a bone-fide chicken wing eater. If you have no idea what I meant by all that, here’s a handy chart I found that gives you not one but four ways to eat chicken wings! Your life will never be the same again. The method I’m talking about is “D”.

Since the boys had only drunk to sensible levels, we grabbed another few beers from the combini and headed back to my friend’s apartment to make the most of the night (and the morning, really). There’s not much more to it than that, although some people didn’t feel their best the next day.

A train station we weren't supposed to be at... Psyduck looking pensively into the distance

 We made our way back to Nagoya the next morning and got on the train to Lagunasia, which is a small children’s theme park near Toyohashi, on the Eastern side of the prefecture. However, we had got onto an express train rather than a normal one, and managed to shoot pass the station where we needed to change trains. Now, normally, that wouldn’t really be worth mentioning. However, we were clever enough not just to do that once, but coming back the other way…. You guessed it. We missed it. Well. Done. Team. So, an hour’s journey stretched out a little longer than it should have, and we ended up arriving around 12.30pm.

The twilight zone

Lagunasia is about a twenty minute walk from the nearest station, or a ten minute bus ride, but the next bus wasn’t for an hour, so we took to the streets. We felt as though we had been bizarrely transported into another country as we walked towards the park. There were numerous palm trees lining incredibly wide roads, and the water features and high-rise condos were nothing like the buildings one normally sees in Japan. After traversing through the windy twilight zone, we arrived in a rather befuddled state, bemused that we had finally, finally got to our destination.

Lagunasia is essentially a children’s theme park, with a few tame roller coasters, a log flume and some water features. It’s not huge, but it’s probably a wonderland for anyone under fifteen! They currently have a special Studio Ghibli exhibition on (¥1,600, tickets can be bought from the Lawson Loppi machines in advance if you’re interested), so the moment you enter, a large statue of Ponyo riding the wave-fish greets you.

The Borrowers Arietty

We had a few more mishaps within the park that are perhaps better left unwritten (suffice to say it involved a phone and breaking down a pirate ship, and very sheepish gaijin apologies), but we eventually found our way to the main exhibit, and bumped into some friends in the queue. 

We waited about fifty minutes to get in, and then walked around inside to see all the displays. Apparently it’s been changed recently, so there are different statues and pictures to last year, but it was good all the same. They had some excellent scenarios on show, and we were able to take pictures with a lot of the exhibits.

After we wandered round the gift shop for ages and spent our money on useless but totally amazing things. Who needs a kodama with a vibrating head? We did. I don’t even know what to put it on (and as an aside, who thinks that kodama look like mushrooms? Well, the leap from kodama to kineko isn’t that far). We all got the same things, so we’re a trio of kineko carrying weirdos. We also ended up with a jingly Makkuro kurosuke (真っ黒黒助; "pitch-black assistant") phone charm each, as well as a badge.

Some of the people we’d met at the exhibition followed us back to Nagoya for dinner. We decided to go for more Aiichi specialties, this time miso-katsu, a breaded pork cutlet with a special miso sauce. The outlet we went to is particularly famous, knows as Yabaton. The have a number of shops around; we went to a multi-floor beauty in Yama-cho. It was pretty crowded – it took about half an hour to get us seated, with other hungry customers politely lining the stairs alongside us. The kitchen is tiny but ultra-efficient – one can peer in from the outside, and there were but four people working in there, one coating all the raw pork, another frying, one perhaps ferrying other things back and forth, and then the final chef plating the finished product.

The miso katsu was the best thing I ate in Nagoya, hands down. I have a terrible weakness for fried food, it’s too delicious to give up.

We then retired to a nomihoudai, the less said about that the better.

Allow me to distract you with some soot spirits

The next day, Psyduck and J took me to Osu. It’s a pretty modernized shopping district, but has a fascinating history. While it’s now home to a number of vintage stores and kebab shops (and an excellent karaage store - wander around, it will be the one with a queue miles long, near a bizarre Alice in Wonderland shop), it was already a flourishing district in the Edo period, so it’s continued its commercial ways for a while! I stopped briefly by Osu Kannon, a temple that’s stood there since 1612. It actually has an even longer history from 1324, but was moved to its current location in the early 17^th century. As with most temples and castles in Japan, it’s a reconstruction, but still impressive. There’s also a rabbit café in the area that we didn’t have time to visit, so… we dropped into a tiny little shop and shot cans with BBguns instead. It was a completely random find! Another must-see that I missed was the Nagoya planetarium. I didn’t have time to explore the area properly, but I know that I want to go back soon!

Bang!

In fact, I’ll be making an even longer trip next month down to explore Osaka and Kyoto! It’s well worth it, though; while I’ll be on the train for 7 hours or so, I’ll be using the seishun juu-hachi kippu, a ticket for the national train line that allows the ticket holder to travel as far as they like in a day. It can be used five times, and is valid from the first of March to the tenth of April this spring. It’s ¥11,500 for a ticket, so each trip costs you ¥2,300 – it’s a very decent deal! You can also use it in tandem with others, as long as you’re travelling together, so if you’re in Japan and wanting to travel, now is the time to do so!

Quizu out~