Kanazawa Day 1: An amazing first day

I originally meant to post this last night (10/17/12), but my laptop didn't want to cooperate with the wifi.

Kanazawa, meaning "marsh of gold," is a historical city at least 250 miles northwest of Tokyo. We woke up early to get breakfast at 6:30 and headed to the Tokyo on the rapid train. While we didn't need to be there until around 9:30, I prefer to be early and once you are late due to a delayed train or getting on the wrong one, leaving 2 hours early suddenly seems like a good idea. Especially when you are heading to the Tokyo train station, which is literally the size of an airport. It even has those conveyor belts so you can cross from one end to the other more quickly.

After the students had gathered, we headed toward the platform to board the shinkansen (bullet train), which for many of us was the first time. I learned from Josh that the shinkansen is actually not on mag lev, but uses a different technology to reach such high speeds. We had to get into the train pretty quickly so I did not have time to take a picture of the front, which looks very different from a normal train.

Here is a shot from my seat in the lower of two levels on the train. I thought the lower perspective from the floor of the platform was very interesting.

My train ticket.

Liz, smiling from two rows ahead. The head next to her belongs to AJ, and the one on the right corner is LoLo.

Sitting next to Lindsey, sporting my UT study abroad shirt.

Josh also sat with us in the aisle seat. His reluctance to have his picture taken reminds me of Skylar.

Ramsey had the right idea. We had to ride the first train for over 2 hours. Jackets make good temporary pillows.

Cutesy trash bags...now cutesy trains. Oh, Japan. Here is where we transferred to a different shinkansen.

The view from the train of the beautiful mountains. I fell asleep on the first train, but seeing scenes like this pass by  kept me up the rest of the way.

Bentou lunch on the train! Yummy!

Such beautiful houses.

As I looked at these homes with all of their small farms and gardens out in the open country, I wondered what it would be like to live such a simple, peaceful life. But I also wondered how long it would take for me to get stir crazy and find a place closer to the city.

The mountains peaking out through the early afternoon mist. The photo, as awesome as this camera is, cannot do it justice.

I love Japanese roofs. Something so quaint about them.

The first thing we visited when we arrived at Kanazawa. We visited a small town called Higashi Chaya, famous for its ancient, traditional buildings. This is a shrine.

Fortunes.

A guest sign-in sheet? Maybe?

Some bonzai near the small purification fountain.

Leaving the shrine to do some exploring.

Some fortunes were tied to the nearby pine tree.

Sending a prayer.

Found at the souvenir stand, but no attendant in sight.

Loved these rustic old buildings.

These spiders were everywhere, hanging high above us. They would build these expansive webs between two sides that were 5-10 feet apart and directly above the streets and alleys. It was a little intimidating.

A path up the mountains perhaps? If it wasn't raining and we had enough time, I might have wanted to check things out up there.

We think that was actually someone's house, but the front gate was so pretty we couldn't resist.

This is a famous street in town and something about it made me feel like I was walking right through Konoha and that Naruto was going to pop out and greet us. Dattebayo!

A pretty alley way, just try to ignore that modern looking truck in the back.

After exploring the neighborhood and buying a few gifts from the many shops on the street, we headed back to the bus to ride to the Noh Gaku Museum. Noh is a traditional play in Japan performed by actors in these creepy looking, hand made masks. There doesn't appear to be any talking in it, only background musicians.

Cute little souvenirs in the main lobby.

Model of a typical Noh theater.

The first step in designing a Noh mask.

The following are all Noh masks that were on display.

Tools used to dye the masks.

Flute played in the performance.

Noh costume.

The following are masks that people were allowed to pick up and try on.

Back in these days, blacked teeth on people was considered attractive. They did it to hide any blemishes that the teeth may have, as well as create a stark contrast with their faces, which had white make up.

There was a second story with several other displays, but photos were not allowed. :/

Once done there, we got back on the bus to head to the ryokan, a Japanese style inn.

The room is in traditional Japanese style, with tatami mats on the floor, a small table, and pillows for chairs. This also serves as our bedroom. We would move the table and chairs to one side and roll out the futons found in a closet made specifically to store them. It may seem odd to us Americans, but I still find it a very efficient use of space.

There is a name for the small alcove on the side of the room (which I can't remember) that usually serves as a place for the family shrine, but here there is just a nice scroll and a TV.

Settling in and getting ready to have some complimentary tea.

The tea was delicious.

These are the yukata that I mentioned in an earlier post. It is common for the ryokan to provide them sort of as robes for the guests. We each got one to wear and the obi seemed to be color coded based on which room you were in. Here are Jing and Liz posing in theirs.

I was roomed with Lindsey, Malia, and Hannah, sporting the blue obi.

They said I looked super Asian in mine.

The ryokan staff were kind enough to roll out our futons for us while we ate dinner. Time for bed!

And thus ends our first night in Kanazawa. The following day is when we visited the ninja temple, but it is late and I have an early morning, so you guys will just have a suck it up and wait. :P