Kanazawa, Japan – Visiting the second tier destinations

 

It’s the fortunate travelers who find themselves wondering what else to see in a country, now that they’ve seen the top, default destinations.  Yes, you’ve seen the first-tier places; now where else to visit?

A recent trip to Taiwan saw my flights routed through Japan, and of course everyone who loves travel thinks to plan a layover when passing through another country.  Spending time in Tokyo or Osaka, the layover hubs, is fine but I’ve already seen them and wanted something new.

Thus began the consideration for what else to see, a common search.  Traveling is deciding.  So much seems decided for us, especially on first visits to a place.  We may hit the top destinations and sights, as we may not be back for a while, perhaps ever.  How could one not go to London and Paris on the first visits to those countries?  Only after those are out of the way do most consider where else to see.

 

For Japan this time, I picked Kanazawa, a city on the west coast of the main island of Honshu, almost straight across from Tokyo.  Part of the decision was logistics—there’s a direct flight from Taipei and then an easy train ride over to Tokyo, from where I would fly out.  Yet Kanazawa deserves more attention, with its history rich enough to leave a castle, geisha and samurai districts, and a wonderful garden, plus a large market.  It’s a real city but small enough to handle, like a little tiger.

Kanazawa made me question the normal travel strategies.  For Japan, most everyone would think to first visit Tokyo, but after a visit to Kyoto last year, I would well recommend that city ahead of Tokyo.  Then I found I liked Osaka even better, and after Kanazawa, I wonder if it isn’t better.  Perhaps we should stop visiting all the major destinations and focus first on the second tier sights, or beyond.

Getting to know Japan through Tokyo or Kyoto is difficult.  They’re such international and touristy places, good for an introduction and easy to handle, but you’d have to dig deep there to get to the roots, and those places are a monstrosity.  Same with places like Paris, London, and Rome—perhaps Lyon, Liverpool, and Siracusa are better.

Another time, I had been contemplating a trip to Greece, my first, and one day finally questioned why I was assuming Athens was a given.  Why should I stop in big, crowded Athens at all?  Why not just go directly to the Peloponnese, dive in to a deeper part of the pool?  We should question why we keep going to the big famous places and why we don’t go smaller more often.

 

The zones of Kanazawa, a strategy for visiting

Kanazawa may be off the beaten path, but not off all paths.  It’s not unknown, but in three days there, I’m not sure I saw any other foreigners.  It has tourists a-plenty, but they’re almost entirely Japanese tourists.

This clearly isn’t just a write-up of the sights of the city.  Plenty of other write-ups exist.  Kanazawa should be approached in zones, each one giving you a different experience.  I think the city is an excellent choice, even for the first-time visitor to Japan.

Kanazawa has about a half-million people.  The nearby mountains give it some harsh weather, hot summers and snowy winters.  Expect precipitation.  Because of the gold found in the area (Kanazawa 金沢 means “marsh of gold”) and a stable powerful ruling clan, the city has the type of history that gives it interesting things today, such as the structures the ruling Maeda clan sponsored and the shops selling gold-covered ice cream.  Its historical prosperity left us delightful things today.

 

Zone 1 – Central area

Sleep someplace central, such as near the large, north~south street Kamitsutsumi-cho.  The city is small enough that one could walk everywhere (I did, in winter), but large enough that it will take a while.  Smarter tourists than I use the Loop Buses to get around, a day pass costing about ¥500.  Plenty of hotels are near the train station, but it’s not central, and a loooong walk to anything else.

The castle and the adjacent garden and the market all sit in the center of the city, and you might as well wander there.  “Fortress” would be a better word than castle.  It was large, but kept burning down, the last time in 1881.  The structures in this large park are reconstructions, as are so many things in Japan.  The castle was all the doing of that Maeda clan again, who turned this town, population 5,000 before they came around 1580, into 100,000 by 1700, and held the castle for 14 generations.

 

The Castle

 

The Japanese are used to having their structures burn down and replaced.  The reconstructions you see started only in the 1990s.  Today, it has turrets and walls, with little inside to see.  Instead, the area makes a scenic walk, and it still feels like a fortress.  The visitors center offers a free tour, yes in English, if you have time.

Next door sits the Kenrokuen Garden, which everyone, everyone says is the third-best garden in Japan.  Who ranks these gardens is a mystery, but they came in third.  It’s not like being the third-best ballerina in Galveston.  Japan is known for gardens, and this is a nice one.  The fifth Maeda lord started construction in the 1670s, and the next lords kept it going until the 13th Maeda lord decided it was done in 1837.

On the far edge of the garden is the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum for Traditional Products and Crafts, which many say is the best and perhaps only museum in Kanazawa to visit.  Sadly, it was closed on a Wednesday when I dropped by.

Instead, one can drop in to the very nearby Museum of Modern art to see Artist Leandro Erlich’s “Swimming Pool”, a small indoor below-ground swimming pool, topped with a roof of glass upon which shallow water was pumped, making an illusion.  Then inside the museum, one can visit the bottom floor of the pool.  The water-filled top layer makes the bottom people seem underwater.

 

 

Kanazawa’s market is more of a must-see than the castle and garden.  Omi-cho market is old, 300 years, and not small.  Similar but not nearly as touristy as those in Osaka or Kyoto, and certainly not as crowded.  One can buy raw materials here or go for snacks or a full meal.  Full-scale restaurants abound, especially on the second floor, which you should wander because it provides great views of the first floor.

Here’s a map of the market. You’ll quickly see that most places are pushing their Chirashi sushi, meaning “scattered sushi”, which is sushi rice in a bowl topped with various fish, or other things.  Everyone is eating this.

One learns in Japan that the nigiri-style sushi, while found all over Japan nowadays, is originally Tokyo-style and other areas have their own versions.  See if you can find a Kanazawa style called kabura-zushi, made from kabura, salted turnips, with yellowtail fish and slightly fermented rice called koji.  Also within the market are many stands just for a snack, from fried things to very fresh fish you eat on the spot.

This link, on the webpage of a hotel in Kanazawa that I know nothing about, has an excellent guide to local sushi.  In the winter, when I was there, ika (squid) is fantastic and cheap and in season, but also try to find aka-ika (red squid).  Sweet shrimp, which go by a number of Japanese names, are also fantastic.

 

 

Zone 2 – The Samurai District

The area is Nagamachi, in the southwest quadrant of the city, the old Samurai area they take seriously.  Look for a street with a tiny stream running to its side, as if warriors want to live by the water.  Suddenly, the houses change and white earthen walls line the narrow roads, their upper parts covered with straw matting and the top with small peaked roofs, a wonderful effect.  The neighborhood just has a look that sets the scene without needing to go full-tilt historic.

The prime site is the Nomuri residence, a family who served the Maedas from 1583 through eleven generations until the end of the Edo period, when the samurais were no more and the family had to sell the house.  A wealthy businessman bought it, expanded it, and now it’s public trust.  No better house exists in the city.  Among the painted fusuma sliding doors, wooden transoms, and shoji paper walls, you’ll get a sense of a wealthy family, complete with a stunning, really, garden just beyond the open veranda.

 

Inside Shinise Memorial Hall

 

Several other buildings can be visited in the area, the second-best being Shinise Memorial Hall, costing a mere 100 yen, less than one U.S. dollar or Euro.  It’s an old medicine shop, a place utterly feeling like an old building, full of tatami, old photos, and other arrangements such as a room full of model birds.  You will find yourself clapping your hands with glee at the arrangements; it’s rather delightful.

Another good stop is Ashigaru Shiryokan, two small, adjacent houses showing the life of Japanese foot soldiers.  These were samurai, yes, but not the GQ type.  This wasn’t Shogun 1600s era; this was Edo period when being a samurai was like the civil service.  Back then, inside lived ashigaru, meaning foot soldier, infantrymen of low social position.  Most ashigaru lived in barracks, but some like these Kaga clan soldiers had small homes.  Still, instead of the mud walls around the houses of the middle-class samurai, it was only hedge rows, but this was much better than the samurai out in the countryside.

The last place is called Maeda Tosanokami-ke Shiryokan Museum and I will caution: it’s not worth it.  Though only a few hundred yen to enter, the place has only a handful of old items to see and lots of scrolls.  I could have been out of there in one minute.

 

 

Zone 3 – The Geisha district

En guard, as Kanazawa actually has two old geisha entertainment districts, labeled east and west, but if you check the map above I think it’s far easier to think of them as north and south.  No matter.  Nishi Chaya (west and south) is small, just a block of old shops, mostly built of amber-colored wood with lots of slats.  Nice enough.  Several restaurants and tea rooms abound, along with a small museum, worth it only if you’re around anyway.

One main and nearby attraction is the Myoryuji Temple, informally known as the Ninja Temple because of its numerous hidden passages, trap doors, secret rooms, and other tricks.  Built by the Maeda clan (they’re everywhere) in 1634 for prayers, but also for defense, and utterly worth seeing.  It’s quite near the Nishi Chaya, so you can drop by there if you’re visiting the ninjas (no ninjas were hurt during its construction).  You absolutely need a reservation.

Now then, the larger and far better geisha district, truly the number-one must-see, is the eastern-northern one, called Higashi Chaya, far, far larger.  I struggle to describe the building style.  Everything is two stories and square.  Lot of wood, much of it dark, some blonde or red.  The windows are peculiar, a single unbroken row of them across the entire length of the second floor.  Never on the first floor, which has sliding doors and sometimes lattice work across the openings.  A joy to wander.

 

 

Two places to hit are Ochaya Shima, a historic geisha house that’s now a museum and tea house, and Kaikaro, still a geisha house in the evenings but open to the public during the day.  They cost ¥500 and ¥750 to enter, and both seem to push their extra offer of having a cup of green tea, another ¥500, and a bit more to add a sweet.  The Maeda clan seems to have sponsored the idea of creating sweet shops, as they go well with bitter green tea.

The Maeda (will we ever be finished with them?) also used their riches to push craftwork, and this area is lousy with specialty craft shops, mostly of high quality.  Being correctly recognized as a sophisticate cognoscente, I was invited in to many.  Sweet shops also abound, and gold products are common.  Hakuza Hikari Kura Gold House is known for its gold products, jewelry and bags, chopsticks and bags of edible gold flakes.  A small courtyard was in the center of the stop, and in there, accessible through a door, was the House of Gold, a small one-room old tea house, the exterior covered in gold platinum foil and the inner walls covered in 24-carat gold, quite a sight.

A specialty of this area, combining two common elements, is the ice cream cone covered in edible gold, which will run you about ¥900 yen, a bit much.  Reportedly, gold has little taste, but will look rocking on your Instagram account.

 

 

Zone 4 – Today’s culture.  Eating, drinking, and entertainment.

You didn’t just come to Japan for history—you came to live in the moment.  I admire you.

Head now to the southern-central region of the city, south of the castle and market area.  This is sort of a downtown region and hopefully your hotel shouldn’t be far away.  Tatemachi Shopping Street is here, running somewhat diagonally, a pedestrian area full of mostly modern shops that I didn’t find to be too whippy.

A better area is called Katamachi, next to the samurai district.  I was here every night, as it’s stuffed with restaurants, cafés, and bars.  Use Kiguramachi Street as a landmark, as it’s chock full of good places.  A few streets south of there is an area called Shintenchi, very Japanese, full of tiny, tiny drinking spots that remind me of a few neighborhoods in Tokyo, such as Golden Gai.

These bars, dozens of them, only hold a few handfuls of people, and most will be far short of that.  My method was to open the door, take a second to assess, and move on if it’s not inviting.  Here’s a map of the place.  I drank in several of them, such as B-Girl and Dylan, and had a grand time.

The area south of that, and just north of the Saigawa River, is called Shintenchi and seems like clubland.  Amazing how much nightlife Japan can muster even in a mid-size city.

 

In Minshai Music Hall, it’s a party and a performance every night

 

The best place is called Minshai, labeled “Music Hall”, in Katamachi, which has live music, done partly by the patrons.  Anyone can step up and play any instrument here.  I entered, sat at the bar, and was handed an iPad.  “Pick a song!” the guy said, and I choose Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga”.  A bit later, he tapped me on the shoulder.  “Your song is on!” and then, crap, he handed a microphone to a startled me.  It’s karaoke.  I had to sing it.

It wasn’t pretty, but I got on the tiny stage and belted it out.  The things we do when we travel.

 

So what?

So consider a second-tier (or lower) place such as Kanazawa when you travel, perhaps in addition to the first-tier cities, or maybe instead of them.  They’ll be cheaper, probably friendlier, and not nearly so set up for tourists, though Kanazawa was awfully easy.  I met lots of people, and even got back on stage a few more times at the Music Hall, doing a few duets with my new friends.

At least mix it up.  Don’t just stay in Paris for a week, nice as it is.  Do a day-trip, perhaps a few days, somewhere else, and not just the famous places.  Seek out places such as Lille or Tours or Dijon, places that are charming, have different food, and will show you a more intimate side of the country.

And what the hell, go ahead and sing that karaoke song, you rock star.