Nikkō to Kanazawa

An anxious few minutes this morning when my digital 4-day Nikkō Pass didn’t display in the usual spot. Fortunately I located it in a different part of the App!! Honestly, the IT stuff really does your ‘head in’. It’s supposed to make things easier and it DOES but not without its moments and DOES add to the stresses of travel!!

We are early - first in line at the bus station (to be sure, to be sure) for our journey back down the mountain to Tobu-Nikkō Stn to catch the train; certainly don’t want to have to stand on that winding road down!! It is very cold:  6 deg C.

The bus is on time which is a good start. It is an incredibly beautiful drive down through a forest of orange and yellow and green leaves falling whenever the breeze picks up. Quite enchanting really. The driver’s skill is amazing - and to think he does this all day long … his hand skills on the steering wheel look like a ballet.

Traffic is banked up behind the bus because this is what the road is like:

A little rain begins, as per the forecast.

We wait awhile at the station; chat to a couple from the UK (near Bristol) here in Japan for 6 weeks.

The hotel has given us a couple of chimaki for breakfast on the train. Yum (but I had expected more to be honest given breakfast was included in our booking …).

The rain has stopped and the sun is out as we speed along on our Limited Express but is predicted later today.

When we reach Asakusa we need to transfer to Ueno for our train to Kanazawa. This has been much rehearsed mentally as well as in real time when we were at Asakusa last week.

Despite my anxiety about this transfer, we managed to negotiate our way from Tobu-Asakusa Stn to Asakusa down (by stairs!!!) to a subway joining the two then straight onto the Ginza line to Ueno Stn which is HUGE - super busy. 

We have enough time to grab some things for lunch plus a coffee which we searched around for and ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe (playing Dire Straits and with Justin Timberlake’s trousers on the wall behind a glass panel …); coffee wasn’t bad either.

Oh my goodness: it was further to the shinkansen platform then I realised (we had checked out where the gates were when we did the ‘reccy’ a week ago … but from the gates it was two long, long escalators deep down into the bowels of the earth … 

Anyway, we DID make it, although I’m glad we printed off the tickets at the machine on our ‘reccy’ day.

Thank heavens for small luggage (!!) - again - no room in luggage racks at the back of the carriage; only overhead.

Long journey 3.5 hrs - and that’s on a shinkansen! Google Maps tells me it is a journey of 650 kms by car and would take 7.5 hrs!!

Kanazawa is NW of Tokyo on the coast of the Sea of Japan. MF-san has been Google Mapping and says we should be able to see mainland China and Korea from here …

So we sit back and relax and watch the world whiz by!

We enjoyed our sandwiches plus our Nikkō cheese egg (sort of sweet - quite nice!).

Lots of tunnels - and the weather turns. And with an hour to go we see snow on the mountains!!

Train arrives on time - 12 mins walk (seems longer !) to our hotel. Not quite 3 o’clock yet but we do a ‘self’ check-in - all automated even spitting out room keys from a slot - albeit with the help of a human …

Kenrokuen Gardens - one of the top ones in Japan is open till 5 p.m. so we throw our stuff into our room and set off at a rapid pace for the 2 kms walk from the hotel. I HAD read it might be open longer due to it being Culture Day and it was! AND it was FREE! And so was the Castle but we only had time enough to walk through the Castle Gardens before IT did in fact shut at 5 pm - and it was getting dark!

The gardens were just lovely and we enjoyed wandering around in the lovely late afternoon light. We are very lucky because it has rained here all day but now the rain has stopped.

Described as a ‘strolling-style’ garden, Kenrokuen was founded during the Edo period (1603 - 1868), and extended over generations by the feudal lords of Kaga (current southern part of Ishikawa) as a typical Daimyo (feudal lord) garden.

We return to Kanazawa on our organised tour which we start in two days. But Kanazawa was a late addition to the itinerary and I have no idea what is planned.

The 16th century castle adjoins Kenrokuen and is currently undergoing considerable restoration; the parklands are lovely.

On the way back to our hotel, we found a place to eat in a side alley; the restaurant was packed with people. Lots of places we had passed were either closed, closing or booked out - no doubt due to the public holiday. So we took a chance …

It was predominantly sashimi seafood; I am not a fan especially when stuff is slippery and slimy and raw so MF-san got my portion. I enjoyed the hard boiled eggs (I got two because I had his!) plus a nice little side salad (I had his) and I enjoyed the tofu with soy sauce and a little wasabi.

We are now sitting in the hotel foyer enjoying (two!) hot chocolates from a dispensing machine which are lovely and warm and delicious. 

I miss my onsen tonight … but it is a nice (compact) room nevertheless.

And I let MF-san have first ‘dibs’ on the bathroom tonight … so he could give me a shorthand version of what to do … once he had worked it out!

Walked 9 kms.

10 deg C tonight.