One Day at Kanazawa: the Old Town
I was super excited when I found out that we were going to visit an old town in Kanazawa. Why is Japanese old town very exciting? This is your chance to do a lot of things at one go: wandering around in Japanese traditional setting, taking nice photography, checking traditional stores and shops, buying snacks and souvenirs, and eating beautiful food.
If you have been to Gion in Kyoto, you are probably familiar with the scene of Japanese old town. Houses made from wood, sliding door, stores selling all kind of goods from household items, tea bags, skin care, cosmetics, jewellery and pottery. My mum has been lost to the skin care shop which sell skin care products made from gold dust. She’s not alone though, the other aunties in the tour group has joined her in the same store, together with the tour guide. I suppose the tour guide would get some kind of commission if these ladies spent their Japanese yen there.
Since my mum seems to be in safe place with all the other participants, I used the chance to look around the surrounding, checking into every little photogenic details of the wooden house. After all, such shop house does not exist in Singapore. There are a lot of tea houses too but unfortunately, I did not have enough time to leisurely drinking my tea there. The old town is not that huge but there are so many alleys which have small shops so if you want to check them one by one, you probably need at least half a day here. Some stores do sell quirky item like mysterious ice cream which will never melt. Hmm, hontoni?
The food souvenir section is so so so interesting. Do you know that the Japanese are so good with the packaging? You will feel like buying all their food souvenir although the food is probably just normal mochi or candies. However, the fruit filled mochi taste seriously good. The orange one seems to big for me and I’m not really a fan of orange so I chose strawberry filled mochi instead. The mochi is soft, fluffy, and not too sweet, which is good because the sweetness will come from the strawberry. Oishi-desu-ne~~~
Oh right, eventually, I rendezvous with mum and she came out from the skin care store empty handed. Something about the expensive price I suppose. Haha.