Japan Trip 2012, Day 10 - Kanazawa

With my single day in Kanazawa finished, I started to head back to the hotel to rest and recuperate. Along the way I saw a few more interesting things, but by the time I got out of Kenroku-en, every tourist attraction had closed down for the day.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/725

I'd honestly gotten a late start that day, but at the very least I saw the two sights that I decided I must see. There were other things I had lined up if I had the time for them, the bulk of them actually right by Kenroku-en itself. The Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Arts and Crafts was one such place, and the entrance was actually within Kenroku-en. Other spots I'd have liked to have seen were the Kanazawa Shrine, the Honda Museum (as in, Honda Masashige, the medieval commander), Seison-kaku (a retirement manor turned museum, displaying some of the Maeda family's possessions), and Gyokusen-en (another garden)... and that's only naming a few. You could easily spend two or three days looking around in Kanazawa, but my travel schedule only allowed one.

Would I go back if given the chance? Absolutely. There's so much more of the city I had left to see that I don't think it would be wasted if I went back. If I went to see Kenroku-en again though, there's two times when I think it would be best to see: first during cherry blossom season, and the second is in the winter after the snow falls. I've seen pictures of both Kanazawa Castle and Kenroku-en during those seasons, and they're both pretty beautiful. I suppose the second depends on whether or not you want to deal with the snow (and whether or not you get it), but the first... flower viewing in the heart of the season, in what is probably the best garden in Japan? Oh yeah. Honestly, I probably could have made my trips into both areas faster, but I decided I'd rather relax as I walked through them than rush through them. In no way did I feel I wasted time at those two places, even for how long I spent at each.

I think exhaustion was starting to set in too. I mean, it was nothing I couldn't power through, but at the end of the day, my legs were feeling pretty heavy. Thinking about it, for the last couple of days, I had been doing straight walking for eight hours a day (at least) in the sun, and it started with Mount Fuji. When I was done with Mount Fuji, what did I do? Walked around Akihabara, up and down stairs. When I had enough of that, I sat on a train, then walked (or biked) around Hikone, Sekigahara, and Kanazawa for at least eight hours a day. But there were things about my plans that made it easier on me - namely that I didn't plan on rushing through a bunch of sites to see everything, and that I had planned my trip to be pretty relaxed. I was waking up at 10 or 11 every day. I was taking my time through everything, and let the experience soak in. It was nice.

For the remainder of the day, I would be doing laundry at the hotel. Luckily, the machines weren't in very high demand, and I made sure to tend to my laundry in a timely manner. One thing about coin laundries, though: the dryers aren't that great, and they're small. I actually seem to have that problem with dryers everywhere in Japan, so I wonder if it's just a thing there. Either way, I remember having to periodically air dry my clothes by hanging them where ever I could in hotel rooms for the night. Most the time this would do the trick. Sometimes I wonder if the dryer is even worth it, as even five shirts in them for 40 minutes isn't enough to see them dry. I guess it helps a little, though.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/725