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The shophouse in Kanazawa Old Town in Japan

Mysterious ice cream from Kanazawa Japan

Beautiful mochi from Kanazawa Old Town Japan

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.

Ticket to Kenrokuen Garden at Kanazawa Japan

Huge bonsai trees at Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa

Beautiful lake at Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa

The plan for the next morning is actually to enjoy beautiful cherry blossom view at Kenrokuen Garden. However it seems that the cherry blossom has not bloomed yet at Kanazawa. We could see a glimpse of pinkish hue on the sakura trees but unfortunately we were too early. While we were waiting for the tour guide to settle our ticketing to go inside Kenrokuen Garden, we were playing around with some selfie at the entrance to Kanazawa Castle. The castle was just located right at the opposite direction of the garden.

Being kinda mischievous, my brother and I got separated from the tour group because we wanted to see how the castle looks like since our itinerary did not include a trip to see the inside of the castle. The castle looks huge from the outside and it has its view of its former glory. Story told, there are no more treasures left inside the castle since the government has removed it somewhere else. Some artifacts and valuables are left inside the castle for tourism and education purpose but the tour guide mentioned that it’s not really worth a visit unless we are castle junkie.

Kenkokuen Garden, however, is the highlight of the town of Kanazawa. The garden is listed as one of the three most beautiful Japanese landscape gardens. Admission fee for adult is 310 JPY while young people from 6 to 18 costs 100 JPY. For people below 6 and older than 65, entrance is free but you need to show the ID to the ticketing staff.

The beautiful garden’s name, Kenrokuen, literally means “garden combining six” i.e. six attributes that all gardens should have like seclusion, antiquity, spaciousness, human ingenuity, water and scenic views. I am very convinced that the view of the sakura trees in Kenrokuen Garden would be very very breathtaking but I guess we have to come here another time to catch it. A very fickle flowers, this sakura.

For now, we are pretty satisfied to be able to enjoy the beautiful lake view of the lake with tea house in the middle of it, surrounded by the greeneries. Don’t forget the bonsai trees. Oh wow, they are huge. I have this imagination of retired life, taking care of cute pots of bonsai plants. Hmm, can bonsai live somewhere else other than Japan?

8D Avia Japan Trip: One Day at Kanazawa Part 1

APA Villa Hotel Kanazawa Katamachi Japan

Comic books at convenience store at Kanazawa Japan

I reached the town of Kanazawa at dinner time and the sun has already set by then. I honestly just wanted to laze on my bed by then after a fun and tiring day at Shirakawago but Avia tour will not drop us at hotel directly without dinner. And the dinner that they gonna give to us is a buffet. Oh wow, buffet? Just like that I perked up again. I find Western buffet in Japan is pretty interesting. They have a mixture of Japanese items such as tempura and miso soup and Western dishes such as pasta, pizza, salad, cream soup. They have seasonal dessert too and back then in end March was strawberry season so the desserts are all made from strawberry. Strawberry cake, pudding, ice cream, you name it. Since the tour have booked the seats for us, the restaurant have assigned us certain tables which we have to STRICTLY follow because we are not the only diners who booked the restaurant. Some of the tour participants changed the seats by themselves and it confused the waiters/ waitresses so they ask them to move back to their assigned seats. Japan is all about rules and neat order I suppose.

We proceeded to check in at our hotel, APA Villa Hotel Kanazawa/ Katamachi and the hotel lobby is so tiny we have to queue for a while for the small lift which bring us to our hotel room. The hotel looks like apartment from the inside though. We quickly put our luggages in our room and got ready to wander around the streets near the hotel. There are two convenience stores near our hotel, 7-11 and Family Mart which are located right opposite each other. I love visiting Japanese convenience stores although these stores must be normal to the residents. A lot of office workers have just left their office and we saw some of them taking cab together seems to be getting ready to go for a drink or something. Some of them just bought their dinner at convenience stores. One or two dudes were reading manga at the stores too. And there are soft porn magazines available and yeah they are displayed in the open.

By the way, yakisoba (fried noodle) bread does exist. I wonder how does it taste but I was still full from the buffet. Oh well.

Few blocks away from the bustling intersection where the convenience stores are located, there are some quiet street alleys which have a lot of what looks like izakayas. My brother was actually kinda curious and feel like going inside one of them but we figured that izakaya is probably not the place to bring our Mum. I suppose we can go to izakaya next time my dear Brother.

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Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Trip: Pretty looking croquette from Villa de Croquette, Kanazawa

One Day at Kanazawa: the Old Town

One Day at Kanazawa: Kenrokuen Garden

One Day at Kanazawa: The Arrival