Japan Trip 2012, Day 9 - Kanazawa (Arrival)

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/525

When I arrived in Kanazawa, there was still some light outside, but I knew it would turn dark in an hour or so. I went straight to my hotel, the R&B Hotel on the north side of Kanazawa Station, which turned out to be a nice, cozy place. Maybe it didn't have a good view of anything, but that's hardly one of the things I cared about.

The first of two things I did on my arrival after check-in was eat at a restaurant back at the station. Here, the cashier actually commented on my Megurine Luka shirt, and I probably missed an opportunity to talk about the new figure that was coming out at the time. It also dawned on me that I forgot to ask this person for directions to an internet cafe that was closer than the one I knew about, which is the second place I had to go to.

Thing is, the internet cafe I knew about ended up being halfway between the station and the Sea of Japan - a fourty minute walk if you knew where it was. I didn't - I just had a map without landmarks so it took me the help of some gas station attendants and two hours of walking around to find it.

I'm so glad the crime rate in Japan is so low.

Finding an internet cafe was necessary because my travel plans. After Kanazawa (which I would explore tomorrow), I planned to head down to Shirakawa-gou, which is surrounded by mountains. This means it's only reachable by bus or by car... and of course I didn't have a car. Furthermore, in order to reserve tickets online, I suspected I might have to deal with personal information and online money transactions, so the hotel's public computer was out. Thus I walked around the city for two hours to find an internet cafe... then when I was done, I walked fourty minutes back to the hotel.

In order to reserve a bus ticket to Shirakawa-gou, I used the Nouhi Bus Company, who runs buses to the area from both sides of the mountains (from Kanazawa and from Takayama). However, while the reservation is done online, you can opt to pay for your ticket at a convenience store. The way it works is, lots of convenience stores in Japan have a machine that's used to buy all sorts of tickets. Some of them you can just buy at that machine, but in my case, I had to reserve them on a private website first. In this case, you'll get a confirmation number (and maybe some other details) when you're done. At this point, you can just walk into the convenience store and up to the machine, then tell it you've already got a reservation and enter your confirmation credentials. If the machine finds your reservation, you can then have the machine spit out a receipt that you take to the counter. Hand it over to the cashier along with your cash, and he'll print out your tickets.

I decided to save paying for the ticket until the next day, and after I made my reservation, I surfed the net for a bit before making a proper map of the Kanazawa area. Thus satisfied, I walked back to the hotel, stopping by a Tsutaya along the way to just waste some time. I got back to the hotel at about half past midnight.

For those of you who haven't traveled in Japan much, some hotels have curfews and many of them will want you to leave your room key at the front desk when you leave. If you plan to step out in the night, it's always good to ask them when you have to be back by if you don't want to get locked out. In my case, they told me past midnight, they lock the doors and only open them for you if you intercom in and tell them who you are, so I knew I was fine. In the event you run out of luck... you can always karaoke the night away at a karaoke place.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/525