How are things in Kanazawa? And other musical memories

Sunday, June 18, 2006


This was a serious travel day. We got up, went to breakfast and then dragged our stuff to the giant lobby. We were divided into prefecture groups so that we could put our suitcases in an area to be taken to Komatsu sepearately. We couldn’t check our own suitcases. I’m still not sure what that was all about. Then we sat around waiting to be called to the bus to go the airport for our flight to the Ishikawa prefecture. The bus ride to the airport was pretty painless since it was Sunday and so no traffic. We hung around the airport awhile until our flight was called and then it was about an hour to Komatsu airport. At this point, we were getting to know each other a little bit. People we had been getting friendly with in Tokyo were not always people from our prefecture group, but in some cases that was true enough. Various smaller groups of people took turns watching each other’s luggage while others explored the airport a little or just stretched their legs or whatever. The flight was about an hour. After we collected ourselves, we went to this weird hotel for a western lunch of something that I didn’t eat much of. The western food has been quite disappointing; in Japan give me the Japanese food, please. We were driven in the bus to the center of Kanazawa to a nice hotel where I unpacked the few belongings I had in the overnight bag I was allowed for this part of the journey, and set off for the geisha district. As usual, as seems to be the case for this trip, I kept trying to find some sort of shortcut or something which has generally been either inconvenient or incorrect in some way. I found myself wandering through a big market area which, as it was Sunday, was basically closed, but at least was a major landmark on the map. This market itself was a warren of streets and alleys, but I managed to find my way back out onto the main street to re-orient myself. Kanazawa, like many of the places in Japan we had been, was a small city with beautiful historic buildings in nooks and crannies along the way. It was also another city which had not been bombed in WWII, this always a factor one way or the other in the Japanese consciousness.

The geisha district,“Higashi”, was a good march down the main street and across a bridge. The area was extremely clean and unencumbered by tourists as it was Sunday. I walked around for a little bit, through narrow streets with houses from the 1800s lining them. In one lane, I saw a woman dressed in a traditional kimono, and I took a discreet picture from behind her as she disappeared down the street. I have been trying to avoid taking pictures of every blessed thing, and not sure I am succeeding in this, and also trying to respect individuals’ privacy. I ran across some of my comrades who pointed out the geisha house, Shima, which was the recommended one. Again, because it was Sunday I had the place to myself and roamed shoeless through the low-ceilinged tatami matted rooms. Had there been many tourists in there, the place would have been quite crowded, I think. There were teiko drums, lutes, and a case of combs, and other things including the money counting area with a small pipe and abacus. The kitchen was interesting with wooden buckets and implements and I took some good pictures in there. At the center of the building, there was an inner courtyard that had a lovely garden with a small stone pagoda in it. Japan really has wonderful gardens in all sorts of places. Even in the residential streets of this district, people had small gardens or plantings in front of their doors. Quite a few were our either tending their gardens or sweeping, always sweeping. Japan is a clean country all in, I’d say.

I met up with my two main pals plus another lady, and we went to the Sakuda Gold Leaf Company. Kanazawa is known for its gold leaf. Although I didn’t buy anything in there, it was fun to look around. We were served a complimentary cup of tea with flecks of gold leaf in them; this is supposed to be good for rheumatism. I haven’t noticed any since; maybe it works.

The four of us walked back to the hotel and freshened up for dinner. I was not feeling all that well, mentally or physically, transitional stuff probably. But I met my two friends in the lobby for dinner and we ended up going to a local sushi place right around the corner where we were the only people in there besides the couple who ran it. We ordered by pointing to the illustrated menu poster on the wall and counting how many of each sushi item we wanted in Japanese. We sat on the floor on cushions in a tatami area. This was really just a local joint, and the people were extremely nice. Here in Japan, I have been eating the raw stuff in sushi situations without hesitation, although I have not eaten anything with tentacles, even purple tentacles. I felt 200% better after eating and just relaxing a little. Once I got back to the hotel, I organized my stuff – a nightly ritual – and went to sleep.